Month: January 2011

Dana's Dojo: Imodium for the Verbal Diarrhea

Dana Hunter

Today in the Dojo: Preventing your tales from being buried under steaming, stinking piles of unnecessary description.

I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience – it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.
-Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A long, long time ago in a Death thread far, far away, Glynis posted the following question:

 I wonder if there is a way to stop before doing in cases of over description?

And I said I’d write a column on the subject someday.  I keep my promises.  Eventually. 

I’ve been thinking about it for a few months now, and the reason I hadn’t put fingers to keyboard is simply this: I’m not sure.  My first drafts tend for the most part to be fairly Spartan, sometimes to the point where Wise Readers yell at me for not describing things thoroughly enough (which is a problem when you’re writing SF and supposed to be describing things beyond mortal ken).  This wasn’t always the case.  My early writing suffered from the verbal diarrhea: long-winded descriptions of buildings, ships, trees or what have you that stopped the story cold; inventories of characters’ appearance, flowery landscapes….  Let’s just put it this way.  When it annoys even the writer, it’s too much.

Being the offspring of an Indiana farm boy, I don’t get mad, I get even.  I spent a couple of years reading every book on writing I could get my hands on.  I practiced varied techniques: describe the character/leave it up to the reader, remove every other adjective, etc., until I found my happy medium between too much and too little.  My first drafts got leaner and meaner.  I don’t have to do as much slash-and-burn in the revisions.  I find myself editing as I go, automatically, as if there’s an alarm that goes off when the description creeps up to dangerous levels and the narrative auto-corrects.  Usually.  When I’m lucky, anyway.  No matter how good you get at this, description will probably never be easy.

That said, I’ll attempt to give you some pointers on hooking up the Over-Description Warning System, and keep it running smoothly as you’re in the throes of prose writing.

Exorcising the Demons of Obsession

A good rule-of-thumb in description, though not an infallible one, is this: if it sticks out with blinding clarity in your mind, it’s probably important to the story.  There’s a reason why you’re obsessing.  However, we all know from those eons-long conversations with the bore at the bar who shares his passion for the complexity of insect mouth parts by describing each similarity and difference in excruciating detail that obsessions can overwhelm.

If you want to keep that obsession out of your first draft, open up a fresh document or turn to a blank page in your notebook and blurt it out.  Whether it’s a person, a place, a thing, or an event, describe it in it’s entirety.  Go ahead – this isn’t going to end up as part of the story, so let loose!

Now you’ve got a page or dozen of pure description.  You know absolutely every detail.  What now?  You can’t drop it into the story whole hog.  As Inigo Montoya would say, “No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.”

You can use several methods here.  One is simply to ignore it and go write the scene.  I do this sometimes on the theory that I now have the temptation to describe every little thing out of the way, and so the only thing that’s going to end up in the scene is what belongs there.  Look at it this way: it’s like telling your best friend all about your horrible breakup, beginning with when you first met and escalating through every hurt, barb and accusation over the last eight years.  When your coworker asks how things are going the next day, you’ve let go of the minutiae and can now answer, “Not too good.  My spouse ran away to Bangkok to become a transvestite prostitute last night, taking all of my underwear and leaving me with the dog, the Visa bill, and this lousy t-shirt.” 

Another method is to sort through what you just burbled all over the page and pick out the telling details.  That goes something like this: Everybody fights over money, we can axe that… axe the interfering mother-in-law, she never said anything interesting… not many people can say their spouse left for Bangkok to become a transvestite prostitute, guess we’ll keep that in… definitely need to mention the underwear theft… punchy line, this dog-visa-t-shirt… get rid of the ten hours of blubbering, I want to look cool and collected here… Done!  In other words, look for the unusual, for things that speak to character, theme or plot, a nice turn of phrase or appropriate summary of a situation many people deal with.  Then work those things in to your scene, being careful not to feel obligated to use everything on the list.  You’ll find yourself cutting out some of your chosen details as you write because they don’t flow with the narrative.  No matter how much you liked a particular bit of description, don’t force it back in.  It’s artificial and you will almost always axe it in the second draft anyway.

If you’ve done this exercise in the advance planning stages, you can see what turns up a few weeks/months/years later when you go back to write the story.  Chances are, if something stuck in your mind that long, it will stick in the readers’ as well and needs to be there.  Most everything else can be safely ignored, or if appropriate used in later scenes.

Walk Through the Scene

This is one of the techniques I constantly employ.  If I find myself describing too much or too little of a scene I’m in the midst of writing, I’ll stop and do a walk-through from the viewpoint character’s perspective.  I open up all of my senses and try to notice everything.  I run through it mentally a few times until every detail becomes clear.  Then I ask which ones are needed to flesh out the scene.  What’s really grabbing that character’s attention?  What aren’t they paying attention to?  Does it matter how their feet are sinking into the plush carpet, or are they too focused on the bastard behind the desk to care?  Their attitude helps me shape the scene: I might care about the Dali portrait behind the desk, they might care more about the Cuban cigar this guy’s just removed from the case on the desk – stolen from MY shipment, thanks so much!  Both details speak of wealth and privilege, which is what I want to get across, but the cigar adds to the character and the emotion of the scene, too.  It helps drive the plot forward.  And the scent of that expensive tobacco isn’t a detail any longer, it’s a knife being constantly twisted.

This is also a useful technique when you have to describe the same thing many times, like when you’re using the same location repeatedly.  You’ll want some detail to show where we’re at, and preferably you’ll want that detail to add to the reader’s experience of that place without bombarding them with dry description.  So walk through it in the characters’ shoes.  If you’re using the same viewpoint character, they’re attitude might be different, and that will affect what they notice this time around.  If a different viewpoint character, that Dali painting might have some meaning now – you can add it to the mix.  But again, since you’re in the character’s mind, you’ll be less tempted to stop the story dead to describe the tassels on the curtains and that little worn patch on the Persian rug – unless, of course, this is a mystery and a tassel and Persian carpet fibers were found on the victim….

Remember, You Don’t Have To Get It In One Go

While I’m writing, I’ll deal out just enough description to put the reader in the scene with me (hopefully – this is far from an exact science).  I don’t front-load, even though the temptation is sometimes there.  Depending on the scene I need to set, I’ll dole out a few words to a few sentences, but I almost never dump a block of pure description in.  I’m writing SF, not travelogues. 

So when I come across a location or creature my readers aren’t likely to have seen before, I’ll ask a few key questions and describe from there.  This technique can work for any genre: remember, the African Bush is as alien to a suburbanite as Mars, maybe more.  And instead of presenting it as a chunk all-at-once, I’ll pay out those details as the scene progresses, based on the answers to the following:

1.  How unusual is it?  A house is a house is a house.  I don’t have to explain that it has walls and a roof – nearly any dwelling has those things.  It’s the differences that make it outstanding and that will interest the reader.  They won’t care if it’s made of wood and is rectangular, but they’ll probably be interested to know that the walls are woven from Silly String.

2.  What Stands Out?  In describing a scene most readers are apt to be familiar with, such as an alpine vista, I’ll reach for the stand-out features: a particularly high peak, a very disfigured tree, an overwhelming smell, or a bird of prey sweeping down on the innocent travelers…

3.  Where the Hell Are We?  Back to the house: I’m not going to describe it in its entirety, including contents, all at once.  I’ll let the reader see it as my character sees it, and there will be some places they never do see, like that very odd shed in the back yard….

Some Further Useful Questions to Ask As You Go Along

1.  What’s the Pace?  Do I need to slow things down a bit?  Has my character come through a near-miss and is now appreciating the ordinary a lot more?  Or are they fleeing from the Evil Bald Eagle of Doom?  If so, I doubt they’ll be noticing that gorgeous little bunch of flowers they just trampled underfoot, unless they’ve landed on top of them and are thinking that this is the last th

ing they’ll ever see.

2.  How Captivated is my Character?  We’ve all seen things that arrest our attention.  Could be a person, place or thing.  If your character is suddenly paying rapt attention to the details, go ahead and slip in the description.  If it’s important to the character, it’ll probably be important to the reader, too.

3.  Is This The Language This Character Would Use?  My favorite.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had an epic description going that would have Professor Tolkien weeping into his hanky due to its sheer beauty and grace, and then I remember whose mouth I’m speaking from.  Oh, dear.  Billy Bob Jenkins isn’t likely to go from “Them’s sure purty” to Byronic poetry.  Adrian would look at the Dali (let’s call it Persistence of Memory so you guys can look it up if you like) and think something like, “The richness of Dali’s color palate blended perfectly with the George II desk and the Ming vase standing with false modesty on the teak table by the window.”  Chretien, however, would be more apt to see it this way: “Figured that fucker would go for drippy clocks and antique bullshit.  And that vase looks like something he picked up in Chinatown for two bucks.  If this is the best money can buy, all hail poverty.”  Remembering whose voice you’re writing from helps keep you from getting lost in your own immortal prose.

4.  What Does the Reader Need to Know?   The single most important component here.  If you’re one of those people who likes to hang up bits o’ advice by the computer, add this to the wall.  You have to decide what’s best for your story, but you need to be honest here: does the color of the bedspread really add to the readers’ experience?  Do they need to know exactly how many steps lead up to the door, and how many cracks are in the concrete?  Does an inventory of the characters’ appearance enhance their mental image or get in the way?  Have I assumed they know something they don’t and skimped the detail, like forgetting to tell them that a venomous snake in the bed is considered a sign of high esteem among the Klang tribe, unless of course it’s the pink Goober snake arranged in the shape of a tongue, in which case that’s a deadly insult and explains why my character stomped out to avenge his honor?

5.  Is This Just Plain Ol’ Description, Or Is It Supporting Other Elements?  If your description tells us something about the characters, enhances the plot, speaks to the theme, focuses us on the action, or affects the mood, it’s in.  No problem.  But if it’s only description without added value, it probably needs to be changed or cut down.  This is why, in my someday-to-be-finished novels, you will see many rather detailed descriptions of Luther’s house and grounds, and only the bare basics about Ray’s home.  Luther’s house offers insight into who he is, in a way it is him, and it’s a different experience for every character who enters it.  Ray’s house is just a typical Mercer island dwelling, and it’s not stamped with his personality.

6.  What Kind of Story is This?  Some kinds of stories, like milieu, need more description than others.  Some, like action, need much less.  Knowing that from the start will help you take control over description as you write.

Ultimately, how much or how little description a story needs depends on you.  It’s your choice whether you’ll be as minimalist as Hemmingway or as detailed as Tolkien.  And that may not be a judgment call you can make until the story’s done.  If you find the above advice is making you trip and damming your rivers of prose, set it aside.  Those tips and tricks will still work if you don’t use them until the second draft.

When all else fails, remember what Hagrid said: “Better out than in!”

Dana's Dojo: Imodium for the Verbal Diarrhea
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Why We Should Not Let a Semblance of Normalcy Silence Us

Dana Hunter1 Comment

My mind’s still on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s near-assassination.  It’s hard to focus on anything else.  This has been one of the moments when the world changed, and a thin bright line separates before from after.

Life will return to a semblance of normalcy once again, for us.  Not for the families of the victims.  Not for the parents of a 9 year-old girl who won’t ever have the chance to live her dreams.  Not for the wounded, who will not only have the physical scars and possible disabilities to remind them, but emotional scars that are just as real.  Even if they heal completely, even if the shooting makes them stronger emotionally, they will never be the same.  There will always be a chasm separating then from now.  Walking into a grocery store will never again be a simple act for them.  The world has changed.  Same for the witnesses, who will probably never go through the ordinary motions of life without consciously or subconsciously waiting for gunfire.

Life will return to a semblance of normalcy, but we can’t forget.  We can’t ignore.  We can’t pretend this was a random act without further meaning.

We can’t pretend that it was just one lone crazy who acted out.  Vaughan Bell knows this:

For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don’t expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.

I encourage you to read his whole post.   It makes it that much harder to lay everything at the feet of insanity and be done with it.  And here’s a little more food for thought – what looks insane on the surface isn’t, always.  So don’t be comforted by notions that this was just some lunatic, that no one had any control over his actions, that no one could’ve predicted.  None of that is the whole truth.

Context has meaning.  Here’s an unbalanced man in a state where “There are guns everywhere here. The state government has made laws that make owning a gun as easy as buying a stick of chewing gum. People open carry into family restaurants here.”  In a state where hatred has metastasized. 

Not too long ago I was driving back from Phoenix, by myself, at night. I turned on AM radio to keep myself awake. There was nothing but right wing hate on. I listened for a while. I was sleepy. I have never heard anything like it before in my life. Most of it was local. Shock-jocks from Phoenix spewing conspiracy and hate. Guns, guns, guns. No taxes, no taxes, no taxes. Obama’s a muslim, Obama’s a socialist, Obama’s a terrorist. I wanted to vomit. I turned it off. I wasn’t that sleepy after all.

Juniorprof lives in Arizona, but the state he’s describing only vaguely resembles the one I grew up in.  It’s gotten so much worse.  And just lately, the right’s gone wild there: we all remember Arizona’s noxious immigration law, quickly followed by discrimination against teachers and the purging of ethnic studies, neo-Nazis turning Cinco de Mayo into a hate-fest… and on and on, until we reach the point where Jan Brewer finds it perfectly acceptable to slash funding for transplant patients.  Meanwhile, the NRA’s been going absolutely wild, screaming for MORE GUNS EVERYWHERE! on the same day over a dozen people were being gunned down in front of a Safeway:

As if it’s not bad enough the NRA lobbyist is quoted endorsing more guns in more public places, the merchants of blood and death want confiscated arms and bullets back in circulation instead of being destroyed, and getting more weapons on school campuses. I don’t get the sense the NRA is at all interested in pausing and reflecting on the death and carnage in Tucson, even if the Arizona Republic were to delay its story and take into account new facts that came to light after the story was submitted.

And, just like Republicans believe the answer to any economic woe is more tax cuts, I have the sneaking suspicion the NRA’s answer to this mayhem will be more guns.

Incidentally, the gun Loughner used would have been illegal under Clinton era laws, but since the assault weapons ban passed, mentally unstable individuals who believe violence is the answer are now able to buy high-capacity clips so as to maximize the death and destruction they wreak, and it is legal.

And any time sensible gun laws are proposed, the right wing goes apeshit.  And the rhetoric gets yet more violent, yet more extreme, yet more paranoid. 

Then those who have been spewing the violent rhetoric, dehumanizing opponents to previously unimaginable degrees, who have painted targets on those they disagree with politically and talked about “Second Amendment remedies” and piously recited Thomas Jefferson’s line about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants after calling democratically-elected officials tyrants, then those people say, when someone takes them seriously, “This was a crazy person.  You can’t blame us for what a crazy person does.”

Because they didn’t put the gun in his hand?  (Although they might as well have done – they defanged any gun law that might have kept a weapon that destructive out of his hands.)  Because they didn’t literally tell him to go and shoot this Congresswoman and as many innocent bystanders as he could manage?  (Even though they paint crosshairs on their opponents, talk about them being “enemies of humanity” and hold up signs saying “WE CAME UNARMED THIS TIME” with the implicit threat that next time, the guns will come out.)  They can’t see the connection.  And before this happened, even with the warnings given by so many, maybe that’s understandable.  We can’t always predict what impact our words will have.  But to deny any responsibility now, to refuse any soul-searching, to have created an environment in which a Republican who wants to discuss these things honestly feels he or she has to do so anonymously, that’s reprehensible and irresponsible. 

How disconnected from reality do you have to be to say this:

“It is a very tragic event. Even more tragic is to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.”

 Lockwood responded the only way someone can respond to such blindness:

These things are “even MORE tragic” than the simple fact of Christina Taylor Green’s cold, dead body? Not to mention the 18 other injuries and deaths? MORE fucking tragic?

And this is exactly the point. I’m sure the commenter didn’t even think about what she was saying. She was on autopilot. She has been conditioned by Palin, O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Boehner, Brewer, and on, and on and on, that merely impugning the wonderfulness of “people like them” is more tragic, a greater crime, a worse humanitarian crisis, than hundreds of thousands of people dying annually from lack of health care, than millions of children who are mal- or undernourished every day, than tens of thousands of homeless veterans for whom it’s well worth shelling out for showy car magnets, but not worth a nickel to actually get them shelter. I’m sure she is quite right that neither she nor her party’s leaders “endorse” democrats or other undesirables being murdered outright. However, she has been well-trained to understand that when, God forbid, such a thing happens, the appropriate response is to defend the righteous, stay calm, put it out of your mind, and walk cheerfully forward into the the world that is being re-shaped for the right people.

And that mindset is so far developed that, on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, comments critical of Palin were removed within minutes.  But this comment was left intact:

a commenter posted the following at 18:12:

“it’s ok christina taylor green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. hey, as ‘they’ say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill hitler as a kid? exactly.”

even worse, further negative comments about palin were immediately scrubbed within a minute, but this comment was still left live on the facebook page.

Just for a moment, pause and consider what a warped worldview it takes to find criticism of Sarah Palin unacceptable, but the equating of a murdered nine year-old with Hitler, justifying her murder, fine to leave intact.

Maybe they’re just blindly following the steps.  A certain blindness is required to not see what’s wrong with a comment like that.

No, instead of soul-searching, too many are busy building walls.  Making excuses.  Pretending gunsights aren’t gunsights.  Attacking the sheriff who had the courage to speak out:

Too many on the right don’t want to have this conversation, face the fact that when your most powerful political leaders, your media stars, your respected allies are all dehumanizing, demonizing and implicitly calling for the murder of those who oppose you, you must bear some responsibility for the target a disturbed young man chose.  Look to the right.  Some have been courageous enough to speak out against the violence and the eliminationist rhetoric, but far too many are busy trying to paint the assassin as either a deranged lunatic who engaged in a random act of violence or as one of the hated and inhuman gay leftist commies.  Those in the middle of those extremes are busy howling that we shouldn’t politicize this.  But it is political.  There is no escaping that fact:

Shootings of political figures are by definition “political.” That’s how the target came to public notice; it is why we say “assassination” rather than plain murder.
[snip]
That’s the further political ramification here. We don’t know why the Tucson killer did what he did. If he is like Sirhan, we’ll never “understand.” But we know that it has been a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery, including SarahPac’s famous bulls-eye map of 20 Congressional targets to be removed — including Rep. Giffords. It is legitimate to discuss whether there is a connection between that tone and actual outbursts of violence, whatever the motivations of this killer turn out to be. At a minimum, it will be harder for anyone to talk — on rallies, on cable TV, in ads — about “eliminating” opponents, or to bring rifles to political meetings, or to say “don’t retreat, reload.” 

I wish that last bit were true, but I’m afraid it’s not.  I’ve seen little evidence that those responsible for the bulk of the eliminationist rhetoric see anything at all wrong with what they’ve done.  They’ll continue to do it.  And it’s doubtful the media will do anything to prevent them, or call them on it, or imply in any way that such things are unacceptable in public discourse.

So it’s up to us.

Digby quoted Bill Clinton’s speech after the Oklahoma City bombing, and a bit of it particularly struck me as all the more relevant to today:

Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences and that freedom has endured in this country for more than two centuries because it was coupled with an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the American people.

If we are to have freedom to speak, freedom to assemble, and, yes, the freedom to bear arms, we must have responsibility as well. And to those of us who do not agree with the purveyors of hatred and division, with the promoters of paranoia, I remind you that we have freedom of speech, too, and we have responsibilities, too. And some of us have not discharged our responsibilities. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.

Life, for the rest of us, will return to some semblance of normalcy.  But we can’t let that prevent us from discharging our duty.  The work will be long, and it will be hard, and we will suffer defeats, but we must make this country a place where eliminationist rhetoric once again has no place in public discourse.  We must work for gun laws that will prevent people bent on massacre from obtaining their weapons so easily.  We must work for a health care system that identifies and treats people with mental illness before they become such a danger to self and others.  And we must work to make sure that this country does not ever become familiar with political assassination.

Otherwise, what happened yesterday will not have been a wake-up call, but merely a prelude.

Why We Should Not Let a Semblance of Normalcy Silence Us

What Did You Think Would Happen?

Dana Hunter10 Comments

In my home state of Arizona, a man loaded a gun, picked up a knife, and went to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s first Congress on Your Corner.  While she met with constituents at the local Safeway, he walked up behind her and put a bullet through her head.  He then proceeded to kill as many people as he could.

John M. Roll.  Gabriel Zimmerman. Dorwin Stoddard.  Christina-Taylor Green.  Dorthy Murray.  Phyllis Schneck.

Thirteen others he shot, and he had the bullets for dozens more.  But two people at the event tackled him.  They put themselves at risk to save others.  Everyday heroes, doing what had to be done, saving who knows how many people.

It should never have been necessary.

Intern Daniel Hernandez, who had been working for Rep. Giffords for just five days, ran toward the gunfire.  He checked the wounded and dying, applied what first aid he could to Rep. Giffords (likely saving her life in the process), gave instructions to those who were trying to assist the injured, and stayed by Giffords’ side until they reached the hospital.  Later, he said, “Of course you’re afraid, you just kind of have to do what you can….  It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help.”

It should never have been necessary.


Rep. Giffords is still alive, and has a chance to recover.  She had some of the finest trauma surgeons in the country there to save her life.

It should never have been necessary.

There are already far too many people ready and eager to attribute this assassination attempt to a lone nut, a deranged individual, a mentally-ill freak.  He may be those things.  We don’t know much about him yet – we know that he displayed some pretty fantastic paranoia about the government, but he had enough wits about him to plan for this.  We know he targeted a Democrat in a Republican-rich environment.  And he had plenty of people to egg him on.

Sarah Palin, who scrubbed this from her website today:



And who tweeted this:



What did you think would happen, Sarah?

Giffords’s opponent in the November elections, Jesse Kelly, held a little event over the summer:


What did you think would happen, Jesse?

Sharron Angle said, “… if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?”

What did you think would happen, Sharron?

I could go on.  But some of the insanity’s been neatly gathered in one place here, and there’s just too much of it to keep up with.  If you’ve paid any attention to politics in the last two years, you already know what I’m talking about.  The eliminationist rhetoric, spewed by political leaders on the right, parroted and amplified by Faux News and hate radio and right-wing blogs.  We’re swimming in a sea of hate.  The vast majority of the Republicans have been winding their base up, associating with people who should be anathema in American politics, even trying to hire right-wing hate radio hosts who said,

“I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will. This is the standoff. When I say I’ll put my microphone down on November 2nd if we haven’t achieved substantial victory, I mean it. Because if at that point I’m going to up into the hills of Kentucky, I’m going to go out into the Midwest, I’m going to go up in the Vermont and New Hampshire outreaches and I’m going to gather together men and women who understand that some things are worth fighting for and some things are worth dying for.”

They will stand before you tomorrow, and the day after, and as long as it takes them to remember that a man put a bullet in Gabrielle Giffords’s head, and tell you how tragic, how unexpected, how utterly awful this was.  But they had just spent years telling their followers that bullets were the answer.

So I ask them again:

What did you think would happen?

Because this is what you told Americans you wanted.  And some Americans are mentally unstable enough to believe you, and to act.  They aren’t lone nuts.  They aren’t simply crazed individuals.  They have Republican politicians and Fox News and right-wing hate radio, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, whispering and shouting and screaming in their ear that liberals are killing America, that our President is a crypto-Muslim socialist who will bring fascism and death panels and FEMA camps to this country. 

And the unbalanced few decide to act.  What else did you expect?

What did you think would happen?

There’s a responsibility that comes with free speech, with being a political leader or media figure.  There’s a responsibility to realize that if you create a rhetorical climate in which all liberals are enemies worthy of death and destruction, if you wind up fear to a fever pitch, if you convince people that America is on the brink of total destruction if something is not done right now, if you literally paint targets on your political opponents, you are creating the conditions necessary for someone to act out the violence you suggest.  You are, in part, responsible for their acts.

You make it necessary for people to tackle gunmen, run into gunfire to save as many as possible, for trauma surgeons to do their best to save the lives you’ve helped destroy.

You helped kill a nine year-old girl today.  A federal judge.  A social worker.  A pastor.  Two old women who were just going to the grocery store.

You tried to kill a Congresswoman.  And even if she comes out of this with her life, even if by luck and by quick-thinking interns and incredibly skilled trauma surgeons she survives with minimal permanent brain injury, she will always bear scars. 

Sixteen other people will bear scars with her.  Some of those scars won’t be visible, but they will always be there.

You, on the right, you helped make this happen.  You.  The left has nothing like you.  The leaders on the left do not go around casually talking bloody revolution and assassination.  You do.

And a man did your bidding today.

Are you proud?

What Did You Think Would Happen?

Cantina Quote o' The Week: Epicurus

Dana Hunter

It is vain to ask of the gods what a man is capable of supplying for himself.

–Epicurus

No, Epicurus wasn’t an atheist.  No, he wasn’t a hedonist.  But he believed in living a pleasant life, thought the gods couldn’t be bothered with humans, and enjoyed evidence-based thinking.  In a culture where women were usually shut away in their houses and kept from education, he allowed women into his school, along with slaves.  All in all, the kind of philosopher with ideas worth considering.

From the above quote, one gets the impression he would have agreed with the sentiment, “Wish in one hand and shit in the other…”

Cantina Quote o' The Week: Epicurus

Los Links 1/7/2011

Dana Hunter

‘Tis the Winter Writing Season, which means I’m pre-loading a lot of posts in order to make time for work on ye olde magnum opus.  Unfortunately, this means the bits I blog either have to be a) old news or b) original.  The schedule of 1 post per day exacerbates the situation.  This, I’ve come to feel, shamefully neglects worthy posts that I should commend to your attention in a timely fashion.


Which is a long way of saying, “Friday linkfest!  Woo-hoo!”


These linkfests might end up being long, depending on how much demands inclusion.  Sample at will!

The Real Death Panels: “Throughout the debate over health care reform, Republicans said the initiative didn’t do enough to cut costs, and would instead lead to things like rationing and ‘death panels.’ More than a year later, those identical Republicans want to reverse Democratic efforts to cut costs, while cheering on states that are already rationing and implementing their own versions of ‘death panels.'” (The Washington Monthly)

Deep Time: “And so, viewing all of geologic time, or particular parts of geologic time, requires me to slide my view to the right and left — or to slide time itself — while expanding or contracting the detail of the time frame, depending on what I want to look at.” (Looking for Detachment)

Simosuchus and the trouble with “living fossils”: “A modern crocodylian is not prehistoric; it is, by definition, modern. It, like every other living thing, has been evolving for millions of years. That’s one of the reasons that the oxymoronic term “living fossil” is one that always gets under my skin.”  (Superoceras) (h/t)

Can Hurricanes Trigger Earthquakes?: “Hurricanes and other storms are powerful agents of change of the Earth’s surface. In mere hours, storms can erode material from one area and deposit it somewhere else. In some cases, this sudden movement of sediment can completely transform a landscape. But can atmospheric forces trigger movements within the crust?”  (Clastic Detritus)

Ten million feet upon the stair: “This wear is the cumulative result of a century of people walking up and down from their flats. As they left for and returned from work, as they nipped out to the shops or ventured out for an evening in one of Edinburgh’s many pubs, many times a day the feet of the people who lived here would fall upon each stair. The force applied by each footfall may not be great, even for those who had over-indulged in deep-fried Mars bars. But as every geologist knows, even a small force, repeated over a large enough stretch of time, can add up to some very large effects indeed.”  (Highly Allochthonous)

When we can’t confess an awful mistake: “This is what Nationalism does.  It is what Religion does.  It is the kind of thing you expect someone to say while they’re holed up in their mountain cabin during a tense, 78-hour standoff with FBI and BATF agents.  It is what the President Of The United States did say, trying to persuade the president of another country to join him in an invasion.” (Decrepit Old Fool)

Sunday Photo(s): “What’s especially remarkable is that it’s easy to see the Cascade Mountains in front of Mt. Rainier. Usually, they look kinda like one mountain ridge at this distance.” [click for image – outstanding!] (Slobber and Spittle)

INSANELY awesome solar eclipse picture: “Earlier today Europe, Asia, and Africa got to see a nice partial solar eclipse as the Moon passed in front of the Sun, blocking as much as 85% of the solar surface. The extraordinarily talented astrophotographer Thierry Legault traveled from his native France to the Sultanate of Oman to take pictures of the eclipse. Why there, of all places? Heh heh heh.” (Bad Astonomy)

So… the Earth is 6,001 years old now?:  “If you look up at the sky, and you watch the Sun, the Moon, and the planets all move through it, you’ll notice something spectacular.”  (Starts With a Bang)

Lords of the rings: understanding tree ring science: “The ancient Greeks were the first people known to realize the link between a tree’s rings and its age but, for most of history, that was the limit of our knowledge. It wasn’t until 1901 that an astronomer at Arizona’s Lowell Observatory was hit with a very terrestrial idea—that climatic variations affected the size of a tree’s rings. The idea would change the way scientists study the climate, providing them with over 10,000 years of continuous data that is an important part of modern climate models.” (Ars Technica) (h/t)

Apologetics and Apoplexy: “This post is about demonization. It’s about basic empathy and humanity. And it is, sadly, about kids and rape and a suicide note. This may get too intense for some people. If you’re one of them, you’ll find the rest of what I have to say at the very end of this post, below the fold.” (Almost Diamonds)

“Piltdown” Medicine: Andrew Wakefield’s scientific fraud was worse than previously thought.  “The more we find out about how Wakefield put together his case series for The Lancet, the more it becomes obvious that he calculatingly put together a fraud every bit as elaborate and planned as that of the Piltdown Man hoax.”  (Resp
ectful Insolence)

Los Links 1/7/2011

I Can Haz Monotype Corsiva!

Dana Hunter

Thank you thank you THANK YOU to all of you who commented, emailed, and otherwise made sure I could, in fact, have my new computer and my Monotype Corsiva too!  You have made me a very happy writer indeed!

And a special shout-out as well to those of you who commented on last night’s missive about reading the scientific literature.  Gave me a warm glow, that did!  Karen’s advice on how to economize said reading shall come in useful (beginning tonight, in fact!), and it’s good to know my babbling could act as Chris Rowan’s backup. 

This is why I love the intertoobz: we’re an incredible community of people, sharing information, encouragement and wonders in a way that would have seemed like total science fiction not long ago.

Cyberdrinks all round, and when I at last get to meet you IRL, it shall be a round of actual alcohol (or poison o’ choice) for all.  Love you, my darlings!

I Can Haz Monotype Corsiva!

Rounding Out Ma Characters

Dana Hunter3 Comments

Every so often, when I venture over to The Coffee-Stained Writer for a cuppa, I end up walking away with my mind reeling.  Well, that’s actually a common occurrence, but there are times when I’m merely vibrating a bit from the extra infusion of caffeinated fiction and times when I’m bouncing off the walls and ceiling.  This is one of the latter times.

Nicole has been brewing up character biographies, y’see.  But she’s not content to merely tell us how writing up bios has forged connections between disparate folks and shown her how to weave an entire series of stand-alone books together.  No, she had to go and ask a question:

How do you create well-rounded characters for your stories?

That’s not actually the simple question it appears to be.

Every writer has their own way of going about things.  If you’ve ever read books or articles about character creation, you’ll come across about 10,000 different lists of questions you should answer for a character bio.  Then you’ll have celebrity death matches between writers who think you should do detailed bios, those who think you shouldn’t, those who care about physical details, those who don’t, and some who scoff at the very notion of character bios.  There would not seem to be any one formula for creating perfect, well-rounded characters, and so I won’t offer one.  Instead, I’m just going to babble about how I do it.

Hell, you might even find it interesting.

It all starts with….

You know, before we go there, I should advise you that even though I’m numbering these, there’s no order to it.  Best to think of it as a kind of web, with the points all ranged round each other, and things can connect any-old-how.  There’s more than one connection between every point, more than one thread to travel down to get here or there.  And at the center of the web is, hopefully, a well-rounded character.

Right.  So it can start with anything, but it usually starts when I

1.  Meet Someone

The first step in building a better character is knowing they exist, really.  Sometimes, all I’ve got is a face.  Sometimes, it’s just a name, or a job description, or a character-shaped hole in my universe.  Sometimes, all I hear is a voice.  Sometimes, the person in question just leaps nearly fully-formed into my mind, as if they’ve always been there.

How do I meet characters?  A variety of ways.  Sometimes, I’m introduced by the characters I’ve already got.  Or they might come to me when I’m watching or reading something.  Adrian Sykes, my anti-hero, arrived via the Best of Highlander, which my best friend had hauled out from North Carolina.  Methos made my mind itch. It was like I recognized him.

That actually happens quite a lot.  And so I figure out who’s there.  I’ve met someone.  Now what?  We

2.  Jibber-Jabber

Let’s continue on with Adrian.  After a Highlander marathon, I went for a walk, and Adrian’s voice just started flowing through my mind, telling me the story of his life.  He’s got Peter Wingfield’s accent, a little of Methos’s survival mentality, the Shadow’s unforgivable things in his past (“Do you know what it’s like to have done things that you can never forgive yourself for?”), and there’s a little bit of Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible movies, there, too, in the snazzy-dresser smooth-as-silk aspect.  But a conscience?  Not so much.  His answer to the unforgivable past is to decide there’s nothing there to forgive.  Different characters answer different questions in their own way.

We babble.  I ask them questions, sometimes, but sometimes, I don’t even have to do that.  Some of my characters are so talkative all I have to do is sit there with paper and pen and scribble down what they say.  We talk about their life, the Universe and Everything.  We talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, until I’ve got a good idea of who they are and how they got there and how they fit in to the world.  We don’t worry about making a story of it.  We just jabber.  Anything.  Everything.

But sometimes, I run into very taciturn folks.  There are characters who come over all shy or reticent or just plain hate to talk about themselves, for a variety of reasons.  So what then?  Why, I do what I always do.  I

3.  Consult Dusty

This may be where I depart from most writers.  I dunno.  But she’s the one I go to: my main character, who’s been with me since I was a wee little kid.  She’s a profiler, which means she knows minds, and she’s at the center of it all, which means she either knows or knows of absolutely everybody.  If I can’t get to know someone, I turn to her.  Sometimes, she’s the one who gets the conversation started.  Sometimes, she introduces me to the people who know people.  Sometimes, she just gives me advice on how to get through to someone.

Sounds absolutely mad, doesn’t it?  But that’s how creativity is.  It’s useful madness.  And sometimes, that means I have to talk to one character before I can get to know another.  I’m just lucky to have someone like her.

But there are times when even her considerable knowledge and talents aren’t enough.  There are things she doesn’t know, and the character I’m trying to get to know is either being silent or evasive or presenting a bland face.  Sometimes, the things they’re telling me don’t mesh, or ring true, or make sense.  But, all is not lost!  You see, Dusty is an FBI agent, and she has taught me how to

4.  Snoop

This is when I’ll go back over absolutely everything I’ve ever written about that character.  I excavate every possible detail and examine it.  I question motives.  I look for clues.  And I’ll always find something.  Maybe it’s something they said, or something they did, that I can then use as the key to unlock them.  I ask questions: why did they do that, or say that, or react in that way?  What were they doing in that situation to begin with?  Why do they have these weird personality quirks?  Or conversely, why haven’t they got weird personality quirks?

It’s how I found out Nikki’s autistic – I realized at some point that he wouldn’t look people in the eye, and when I combined that with his other weird personality traits, the obvious hit me like a ten-ton heavy thing.  It’s how I realized Dusty wouldn’t end up dating Ray – she was paying far too much attention to Jusadan’s eyebrows the first time she met him.  Oh, she told me nothing was going on there, but damn it, you don’t notice every last damned detail about perfectly ordinary eyebrows if there isn’t some sexual spark there.  I’ve learned a lot about my characters merely by prying into their childhoods, investigating their family and friends, noting every little out of place thing about them, listening to speech patterns, noting what they dwell on and what they avoid.

And how, you may ask, do I know these things if they’re not telling me?  Simple.  I

5.  Stick ’em In a Story

Doesn’t matter if it’s never going to go anywhere, or if it’s out of the main line of the book I’m supposed to be writing, or if it’s got enough native tension to actually be a readable story.  I just set some scenes and let them walk through.  I may write a whole story with a beginning, middle and end, or I may just write a few desultory scenes.  But I write up some fiction rather than background stuff, and watch them reveal themselves in spite of themselves.  Sometimes, we’ve learned together things they didn’t tell me because they didn’t know something about themselves until we wrote about it.  It’s kind of like finding out you hate yellow because you’ve always subconsciously associated it with your annoying cousin, who used to hit you over the head with a yellow bat when you were four years old.

Sometimes, it’s more comfortable for a character to show me what they’ve been through than talk about it directly.  Kind of like shoving a home movie in someone’s hand and saying, “There, this is what happened, watch it for yourself, I’m outta here.”  Sometimes, writing a few scenes together builds trust and rapport.  I think sometimes they start to understand what I’m doing and why I’m asking these crazy questions.  And I start to understand why they couldn’t relay information the way some of my other story people do.

Story people are just like real people: they’re all different, and respond differently to different things.  Maybe it’s not like that for every writer, but it’s like that for me.  Each one of my characters is a unique individual, and just because I created them doesn’t mean I get to have my way with them.  There’s a respect thing, there.  It’s one way to make sure I don’t start treating them like tools and manipulating them to my satisfaction.  Allowing them autonomy means they’re their own people, not mine, and I believe that leads to better stories in the long run.

But even if all of the prior stuff has worked out great and we have this fantastic rapport and they’re spilling their complete
selves out to me, there’s still more work to be done.  You see, a lot of them live lives very different from anything I’ve ever encountered.  They’ve been through things I’ve never experienced, they have jobs I’d never dreamed of and know nothing about, they grew up in a completely different world (literal or figurative) from mine.  So I has gots to do my

6.  Research

Now that I know enough about them to know what I have to learn about in order to fully understand them, I can hit the books and the intertoobz and find out what gaps in my knowledge are leading to gaps in my understanding of them.  For Ishaarda, for instance, I researched Nebraska, because she grew up in a place rather like that.  I found out a lot of things about her experiences as a youngster that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t know about the kind of place she grew up in.  I’ve researched sericulture for Ticaal’s family, and winemaking for Jorvaa’s, and of course I researched the hell out of the FBI for Dusty.  I walked around the house blindfolded for a blind character, even.  All of those bits of research have fed back into the characters, told me why they are the way they are and why and how they see the world the way they do.  It’s helped me understand what they’re trying to tell me.

So, that’s how I create well-rounded characters.  Part of it, anyway.  It’s how I start plumping them out.  If it sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is.  But I love doing it.  I love getting to know my story people, learning the most minute details of their lives, love seeing the world through their eyes.  All that hard work is more than worth doing.

So I’m going to pass it on now, for those writers in the crowd:

How do you create well-rounded characters for your stories?

Rounding Out Ma Characters

In Which I Babble About My New Machine

Dana Hunter6 Comments

After nearly six years, I’ve finally broken down and bought a new computer.

My previous machine was a refurb HP Pavilion that had a whopping 50gb of memory and a processor that can only be described as not up to snuff.  Oh, it was fast when I got it (replacing an HP tower from the mid-90s, mind you).  And it served me faithfully for many a long year.  But the time had come.

I meant to get a Sony Vaio.  But whilst shopping for new machines for both myself and my intrepid companion, this one at Staples caught my eye.  It’s an HP Pavilion dv7-4171us.  It had all the proper specs and a companionable keyboard.  And it was on clearance.  I walked out of the store, looked at a couple of reviews online, and marched right back to the store.  It’s a good thing Staples is within walking distance.

And I’ll tell you something about this computer.  I hated it last night.  It’s not the old familiar machine, it’s not got my stuff on it, and keep in mind that I hadn’t used a new operating system or much new software in absolute years.  I’d been running an ancient version of Windows Media Player, had to have an external soundcard because its own card had crapped out, we were still on Windows 95….  It was old.  But it was what I knew.  And now here’s this young whippersnapper having the audacity to look all new and different.

Not to mention, Monotype Corsiva has vanished from the face of the earth.  Open Office hasn’t got it.  The new trial version of Word hasn’t got it.  The starter version of Word hasn’t got it.  And I refuse to cough up hundreds of dollars for a software package I’ll only use the word processor and occasional spreadsheet on.  So I spent an outrageous amount of time last night trying to figure out another way to get my favorite font, only to admit defeat in the end.

And the Windows Media Player graphic equalizer has odd ideas about how it should deal with my music.

And then I had to spend hours fixing the fonts in my writing journal, which is up to nearly 800 pages.  Can’t just do a simple highlight-and-change-all because I use a variety of fonts to draw attention to various bits.  Note to Microsoft et al: stop getting rid of fucking fonts.

So I hauled me arse in to work after a measly three and a half hours of sleep still hating life, the universe, and everything.  I dragged the computer along.  I neglected my in-between-call reading in order to load shit from the external hard drive and start mucking about.  I figured out how various bits worked.  I got shit loaded and arranged.  I discovered new and interesting bits.  I got used to the way it works, and started enjoying some of the newfangled features.

I discovered the Beats Audio equalizer. Holy fucking shit.  I am sitting here right now listening to Lesiem through my Sennheiser headphones, and I can hear bass.  ZOMG WTF?!  This, my friends, is what happens when you get a powerful sound card.  Still needs some tweaking, but mother of god, this is amazing.

There’s still kinks to work out.  Some genius of a designer decided that a laptop could have a bulgy battery, which means there’s a weird ridge digging dimples into my knees.  I need a right-angle adapter for the headphones, because the only jacks are on the side, and the computer’s already almost as wide as my chair – tack on the three-inch jack, and you’ve got issues.  I’m still trying to figure out how to sit comfortably with it – the fit’s quite different from the old one.  The screen needs manipulating before the color’s true.  But those are minor things.

And now that I’ve got the sound and word processing mostly sorted, I’m just a little bit in love.  I’ll even learn to love that battery pack.  We’re on battery right now.  We have been for hours, and it’s got hours more left in it.  Damned thing certainly provides the juice.  Once I have one of those laptop desk thingies to keep it from dimpling my knees, we should get along fine.

And the screen’s big enough that I can set it on the recliner’s footrest and still read it.  I shall have to investigate the possibility of a wireless keyboard so I can really get comfy.

So, upshot: I’m finally on a modern machine.  My, how things have changed.  And let this serve as fair warning: I might gush about it occasionally.  But right at the moment, I’m gonna go put it to work writing a novel, baby, yeah!

In Which I Babble About My New Machine

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Scientific Literature

Dana Hunter5 Comments

Things have changed rather drastically.  As recently as six months ago, I couldn’t have read a scientific paper to save my life.  Oh, I grant you, I’d tried a few times, but found myself bogged down and stymied by incomprehensible language.  So I usually gave them a miss.

Instead, I read the science blogs, which are for the most part written in layperson-friendly language.  Popular science books, ditto.  Ventured into some heavier stuff written for a non-lay audience and found it heavy going, but waded on through, aside from a few books I had to put aside because I Just Wasn’t Getting It.

Then, a few months ago, I started wanting to read the papers referred to in various and sundry.  Problem being, far too many of them are behind a pay wall, and I am far from rich.  Grumble.  I didn’t really notice my attitude shifting, but it was.

And then, last month, as I developed a sudden need to research ice caves, I turned in desperation to Google Scholar.  Some freely-available .pdfs turned up in my searches, and those, combined with a dearth of suitably-detailed stuff written in regular people language drove me to actually read a couple of scientific papers, and I discovered I liked them.  I enjoyed reading them.  I understood at least the gist of what they said: the language didn’t seem incomprehensible, the big words didn’t frighten me, and I’d absorbed enough of the terms and concepts through other reading that even the denser passages weren’t that difficult to read.  I know I’m still missing at least 50% of what those papers are trying to say, but I’m getting enough of the context that I can understand what they’re getting at.  If a term throws me, a quick Google search resolves the confusion.  The math is still completely beyond my ken, but surprisingly many papers on geology have little to no math featured.  So that’s all right, then.

I’ve been watching my own reading in fascination.  Sometimes, I’ll stop and think, “Holy shit, I’d have had no idea what that meant last year.”  But somewhere along the way, I learned how to read science.  I picked up enough Greek and Latin that I can loosely translate very large, unfamiliar terms with relative ease.  I mean, take this phrase: “cryogenic carbonate precipitates.”  Sounds huge and scary.  But all it really means is carbonate rocks like limestone deposited in a cold environment.  Basically, if you know how things like stalagmites form in caves (deposited by water carrying dissolved calcium carbonate), know that carbonate refers to stuff that contains carbon and oxygen (like limestone), and that cryo means cold, you’ve got it made.  Even “heterothermic” held no terrors.  Hetero – mixed.  Thermic – temperature.  Mixed-temperature.  Easy-peasy!  I’ve got the gist of it justlikethat!  Sure, it’s not 100% precise, but at this point, it doesn’t have to be.

And that ability to translate on the fly didn’t come from studying ancient languages, but simply from reading a lot of books and blogs about science, where the authors carefully defined terms when they couldn’t use plain English, and thus I started seeing patterns in what certain words mean and how they’re used.  I didn’t even know I was learning that sort of thing!  It just happened, and wasn’t obvious until the day I needed it.

You science bloggers and popular science book writers, you may not quite realize what you’re doing.  You’re making it possible for former English-History majors like myself, us college dropouts, us regular old Joes and Janes with an interest in science but absolutely no formal training, to dip into the scientific literature and read it without undue strain.  It’s challenging, absolutely – but thanks to those writing for a popular audience, it’s not an insurmountable challenge anymore.  Give me another year or two hanging about your blogs and reading your books, and it’s quite likely I’ll be a more confident judge of quality, as well – I’ll begin to understand statistical methods better, I’ll have a better sense of what makes the difference between solid and shoddy science, and it’s just possible that even math will hold no terrors.  It’s because you’ve embedded these tough concepts in a matrix of clear prose.  And you’ve thus given me the keys to a whole new kingdom.  I don’t have to rely on translators so much any more.  It’s wondrous is what it is.  So, a thousand times: thank you.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a whole ocean of science papers I’ve yet to dabble my toes in.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Scientific Literature