Author: sdgibson

Learning from Ruiz Zafon

“One of them moved forward with a courteous smile, his hands crossed over his chest like a bishop. He must have been in his early fifties, and his build and spare hair lent him the air of a bird of prey. He had a penetrating gaze and gave off an aroma of fresh eau de cologne and mothballs.”

–Father Fernando Ramos in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This is a brief three sentence description of a minor character (I think; I haven’t finished the book yet). Ruiz Zafon descriptions are a strength. In the first sentence, Father Fernando Ramos sets himself apart from a group of priests by moving toward the characters; he also gestures in a way that invites comparison to others higher in the hierarchy. (Does this suggest he is ambitious?) The physical description continues in the second sentence and ends with another comparison, this one more dangerous. It also includes a rhyme and a pun. The third sentence includes another direct description and contrasting (perhaps funny?) sensory details.

In other words, Ramon is created in three sentences with a movement, context (the hierarchy and an attitude toward it), two sets of physical descriptions and comparisons, and a (non-visual) bit of sensory information.

Here is an attempt at something similar: The old man drew his bow slowly over the strings, letting the sound quiet the tavern like the gongs that called the town to prayer. He was at least seventy, spotty in his baldness, his face as blank and his fiddle as steady as stone. He exhaled loudly but slowly and sounded both tired and excited.

(“Tired” and “excited” are both too abstract, but it’s a start.)

Interesting language 2

A little later, remembering man’s earthly origin, “dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return,” they like to fancy themselves bubbles of earth. When alone in the fields, with no one to see them, they would hop, skip and jump, touching the ground as lightly as possible and crying “We are bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth!”

Flora Thompson, Lark Rise

THE WILLOWBREAKERS in a tentative paragraph

While I am “vomit drafting” The Willowbreakers, I’m also drafting or compiling a summary paragraph of it. These paragraphs are useful in query letters, but they can seem difficult to write after finishing a rough draft. Writing a one as I go has made the process easier.

When the king dies, the Willowbreaker family must flee their home. As different as they are, they want to help each other be happy and stay fed. To do this they must negotiate with their evil stepfather, fight monsters in alien dimensions, combat ghosts, face who they were born to be and who they actually are and confront the king’s daughters. And maybe manage to stay connected while welcoming new blood.

“What She Asks of Me”

I’m proud to have my story “What She Asks of Me” included in Tumbled Tales, an anthology just published by Wandering Wave Press. It includes so much excellent genre-blurring fiction: “Said the Moonlit Moth to the Horse Half-Dead,” “The Walrus Whistles at Midnight,” “Just Right,” all the other stories. Fascinating prose. I learned something from each story in the collection.

The politics of world-building

You can use world-building to distract yourself during a never-ending catastrophe. But that same process can also help you (and others) imagine a path to liberation.

The best world-building contains the seeds of change, and allows us to see how things could be different. And conversely, a lot of mediocre world building contains the unspoken message that “This is the way things are, just because. And there’s no point in questioning any of it.” How things work is often not as interesting as how they don’t work. And the ways that they should work, if things were better. And the way things used to work, until something went wrong (or right).

Charlie Jane Anders in Never Say You Can’t Survive

Intentionality

My best stories are usually the ones where I had a clear idea in my head of what I was exploring. Those are the stories where the plot and the story, and the concerns of the characters, are tightly bound up with the narrative’s thematic concerns. Likewise, as a reader, I get more wrapped up in a story that seems to have something specific on its mind.

Conversely, stories that I can tell were written without much introspection on the part of the author often feel mechanistic to me – things happen because they happen. The characters go through the motions, but none of it has much weight beyond the stakes of the plot.

Charlie Jane Anders, Never Say You Can’t Survive