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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 11:37:35 GMT
Marianne - what would I like to have written in ten years time? That's a tough one. I guess th answer is (a) a spread of books that differ thematically and maybe even stylistically to a reasonable extent (I'd hate to end up known only for a single template) and (b) a series of books in which each is better than the last. re the films - the Altered Carbon option has been renewed once and comes up for re-negotiation again this November. I'm told there's "a lot of enthusiasm around" for the project, but Hollywood terms that could mean anything (or nothing). Market Forces seems to be moving forward more readily - it's listed on a couple of websites with a putative release date, screenwriters and a producer, though no director actors yet, so again, who knows.... I think MF is more likely to hit the screen and faster, simply because it's format friendly - it was originally conceived as a screenplay. AC, I think, is more problematic in both structural and content terms. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed.......for the continued options, if not the actual movies
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Jac
Mueno
Posts: 68
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Post by Jac on Jun 28, 2005 13:36:13 GMT
This is interesting, would you mind going into a bit more detail? Wouldn't you agree that the standard advice to wannabe authors is to build up a list of publish credits with short stories before trying to sell a novel? Is this wrong or are you an exception to the rule? Also while I'm at it, who are your favourite writers? J
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 14:30:06 GMT
Well, I can't claim to be an expert, but I do think that particular piece of advice is past its sell-by date. A few decades back (quite a few decades in fact, now I'm......shit, nearly forty....) there were a lot of different forums for short fiction, especially in the SF community - so you could earn a few quid while honing your art and building a rep. But these days, that 's not the case - it's actually very hard to sell short fiction, and as I said, I think it's a different skill anyway. Meanwhile, (book) publishing seems to have opened right up. Lots more small presses, lots more interest in the Next Bright Young Thing. So I think the market has definitely shifted.
The thing is any agent or publisher is going to recognise a good novel if it's plonked down in front of them - they aren't going to need to see a list of short fiction credits before they decide if they want to buy it. What WILL govern that decision is the shape of their list, current popularity trends etc...in other words, can they fit you into an existing picture or is this a whole new picture they'll have to sketch out? If the latter, obviously the merits of the book will have to be that much higher, in order to justify bucking the trend - but as I said that Next Big Thing dynamic does help. Anyway, I don't think prior short fiction serves any useful purpose here, except maybe to indicate that a certain trend is already out there aborning - but any decent editor who's doing his homework will know that anyway.
Where does this leave you? Well, as an aspiring unpublished author, chances are you're holding down a day-job you hate and forgoing things like a social life in order to scribble away evenings and weekends. You have limited time available. For my money, you're better off devoting that precious stolen time to producing a first novel, with the potentially much larger dividends it could pay, than turning out any number of short pieces which may or may not find a place in a dwindling market (Bear in mind you don't necessarily have to complete the novel before you submit it for consideration - most agents will take the early chapters as an indicator and accept that it isn't finished yet. If they like it, you'll know you're on the right track; if they like YOU, but not what you've written they may send you away to try something else or just ask you to make substantial changes; whatever the case, I think you;re still makig a better long term investment than going the short route)
UNLESS of course what you want to do is write short stories, in which case...............you're fucked. Nah, just kidding - you can settle down to submit shorts, with a view to selling an anthology at a later date - but be aware it's far harder to get agents and publishers interested in short story collections than it is to sell them a novel. The potential market just isn't as big.
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 14:43:04 GMT
favourite writers - well, Haruki Murakami is probably my favourite of all (and an example of that rare breed who write superlative short and long fiction). Thomas Pynchon. Rupert Thomson. William Gibson. James Ellroy. Lawrence Block. M John Harrison. Mikhail Bulgakov. Anne Michaels (though she's mostly poetry) Jay McInerney, Louis de Bernieres.... One-off novels I've been very impressed with (where I don't read the author generally) include Peter Hoeg's Smilla, Pete Dexter's Train and Louise Welch's The Cutting Room. And my old school SF favourites are Poul Anderson (up to about 1976) and Bob Shaw. My website at www.richardkmorgan.com gives a pretty exhaustive list (though it hasn't been updated for about six months - ahem, must get round to that....)
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 14:46:21 GMT
oh yeah, must just mention Kelly Link - superb, edgy short story writer - great stuff
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Post by bluetyson on Jun 28, 2005 15:52:20 GMT
ok, thanks for that - another one, then an answer
Kovacs pretty much seemed to mythologise Virginia Viadura in his rememberings, (apart from having the horn for her, that is)
When she turns up in Woken Furies, she seems a pretty normal person, spray paints her bikini on one side at a time, just like anyone else. Was that sort of juxtaposition deliberate?
Name is from some stories by Australian author Terry Dowling, that for some reason, 'captivate and haunt me', your Altered Carbon joining them on my all time list of favorites. Even had a nightmare about losing these books!
Took out the space, and as a programmer, can't stand underscores in names, so lazily put the 2 words together (slack, I know)
Collections of stories are Rynosseros, Blue Tyson, Twight Beach, also some more in the story collection Forever Shores, by Wakefield Press
To quote Aphelion's blurb to Rynosseros
Come to Australia . . .
Journey through a bizarre and beautiful world where great sand-ships are the main form of travel, and the inhabitants of the richly-cosmopolitan coastal cities can only marvel at the strange Ab'O societies of the interior.
Visit a future where terraforming, genetic engineering and formidable mental sciences are commonplace, and tribal satellites look down on unending wars between rival Ab'O States.
Travel with Tom Tyson through a land of merging cultures and philosophies, of myth and dream made real, a land of absolute publicity.
To quote Aphelion's blurb to Blue Tyson
The Blue Captain.... Of the seven Nationals who have won Colours and fine sand-ships from the tribes, earning for themselves the right to cross the eerie and exotic Australia of the future, Tom Rynosseros is the most mysterious. He is the one from the Madhouse, the Captain whose adventures among the powerful tribes of the interior reveal a hidden purpose, a destiny waiting out in the red deserts which affects not only Nation but the Dreamtime itself.
AI also very important to the story, in a very different way.
Powerful stuff, I think. At least to me. Maybe more so to Australians, not sure.? Although wrote to Melissa Scott once asking a question about a book, and she said she really enjoyed them, as well.
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Post by bluetyson on Jun 28, 2005 15:56:50 GMT
that's interesting, my wife liked Smilla too, but not the rest of what he did I think (and so did I, as well)
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Post by bluetyson on Jun 28, 2005 16:11:07 GMT
Ok, I'm an idiot. Black Widow, Richard K. Morgan as opposed to Richard Morgan. I DIDN'T notice. I have even READ a couple and didn't notice. DOH. No wonder I liked the couple I read. Something to add to the list. So, comics questions ok? How did you get into that? You ever talk to Warren Ellis? Interesting to see you thinking of the fantasy idea. Can't have too many that are more Gemmell than Eddings! Or Grimjack, come to that, from the comic point of view, happily alive again now!
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 17:18:41 GMT
The Dowling sounds like a must - a quick check on Amazon suggests they're mostly out of print, but I'll chase it up Yeah, well, the thing about Virginia Vidaura is that, like most humans, the closer you get to her the less impressive she seems. As Kovacs' trainer, distant in memory, she's a set of snappy imperatives and a figure of iconic cool, but yeah, as you get to know her you realise she fucks up just like the rest of us, has weaknesses as well as strengths and often makes no sense. There's an attempt to underline this where Kovacs suddenly finds his list of iconic Vidaura quotes showing discrepancies. Hoeg - yeah, I've tried his other stuff, and can appreciate it from a detached intellectual point of view - oh, yeah, that's clever how he's done that, etc.. But none of it grabbed me the way Smilla did How did I get into comics - I did it the hard way; I got invited Jenny Lee at Marvel read Altered Carbon and loved the female characters, rang me up and offered me the Black Widow. At which, I jumped! The only comic writers I've talked to at all are Grant Morrison (once, briefly) and Mark Millar, who lives just down the road from me. It isn't really a world I have a lot of exprience of - I'm an occasional buyer of GNs, but not individual comics, and I have a standard set of what you might call the Influential Stuff; Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Joe Sacco etc.. Current favourites are Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Mike Carey's Lucifer (1-4 only, after that it got a bit ropey)
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Post by bluetyson on Jun 28, 2005 17:44:55 GMT
Got asked to do it? Smart editor woman! Just wondered about Warren Ellis, as you seem to come up with off the wall eye boggling stuff like he days, and perhaps with a similar character bent. Have not read Persepolis (and only the start of Lucifer, too) Aphelion might have some Terry Dowling still I think colddrake.com/small_pubs/aphelion.cfmand the Forever Shores anthology with the very long (for a short story that is) Tyson in it www.wakefieldpress.com.au/books/forevershores.html
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Post by bluetyson on Jun 28, 2005 17:59:43 GMT
so, another question if you had never written or read comics before, and don't fancy short stories much, how did you adapt to 'really short" at least in terms of words then? (I am not a writer, never tried to be one, first name is Richard though if that matters to anyone ;-)) speaking of Grant Morrison - and I imagine this will be collected, if it is not already :- read this recently, was excellent We3 www.dccomics.com/features/grant_morrison/intro.htmland Alan Moore's Promethea I finally got around to recently, with some similarities to Top Ten I guess in some small places www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020909/promethea.shtml
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GrimmRiffer
Tert Player
P-S-Y-C-H-O-P-A-T-H
Respectfully obeying the laws of physics on British roads since 1993
Posts: 142
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Post by GrimmRiffer on Jun 28, 2005 18:15:36 GMT
Quote has been hacked about - apologies if I've accidentally changed any meaning - always refer to the original! The thing is any agent or publisher is going to recognise a good novel if it's plonked down in front of them - they aren't going to need to see a list of short fiction credits before they decide if they want to buy it ... I don't think prior short fiction serves any useful purpose here ... Where does this leave you? Well, as an aspiring unpublished author, chances are you're holding down a day-job you hate and ... you have limited time available. For my money, you're better off devoting that precious stolen time to producing a first novel ... (Bear in mind you don't necessarily have to complete the novel before you submit it for consideration - most agents will take the early chapters as an indicator) OK, as someone who doesn't really write anything and hasn't experienced Richard's books yet, I struggled about what to ask but then thought I had a good question - primarily for the others here. But Richard's a timelord and answered it already though. It would have been: "how does an author start?" For most jobs you demonstrate qualification, prior experience, maybe ability... For an author it's always seemed to me that you have to write the whole book at risk and hope. But maybe not, for those here with characters and worlds in progress, assuming Richard's advice is good (I'm sure it is) the answer is WRITE SOME CHAPTERS!!! It's your "in". And the image (well, MY image) of a chain smoking pasty greasy hack throwing manuscripts out the window and never replying is dispelled - there's actually a suggestion that a publisher might give advice. Maybe I'm an idiot... OK, a new pretty poor general Q: do you ever see someone elses universe and think "Damn, I'd love to write some stuff set in that - it rocks". If yes name some. Thankyou.
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 20:09:09 GMT
Hi Grimm,
Just a quick correction there - AGENTS will sometimes give advice, not publishers. Publishers generally have far too much else to do managing the crop of authors they already have without ministering to new potentials. Something very good they'll snap up, sure, but "needs work" is just going to get sent back with a polite rejection. Agents, on the other hand, are in the business of spotting new talent and (sometimes) taking it in hand rather than just representing it - this will apply more to the smaller, independent operators rather than the big factory ships like Peters Fraser & Dunlop. Basically, the first rule of getting published club is Get An Agent. And the second rule of getting published club is.......Get An Agent!!!
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 20:16:51 GMT
The sample chapters business is something I can't speak for from personal experience - I wrote all of Altered Carbon in one go before I submitted it. But I once met Andrew Holmes, the guy who wrote "Sleb", at an award photoshoot, and he told me he'd fired off a couple of chapters to an agent with no intention of ever writing any more if it got rejected. I seem to remember he did that a couple of times before something took, and even then the agent rejected what he'd sent and told him to write something else - so he did! It worked for him, but I don't think I could have done it that way - for me AC was a labour of love. So, in the end it all depends on what sort of person you are - a laid back pragmatist with stacks of ideas to burn, or a stubborn m*th*rf**k*r with a single passionate vision. Takes all sorts....
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Post by richard on Jun 28, 2005 20:38:23 GMT
do I lust after other people's universe's? yes, occasionally, I suppose, but it tends to happen more with film than print. I always thought, f'rexample, that the Vikings in 13th Warrior deserved a far better movie to be in - they were superbly written and acted characters, shame the film itself was so mostly shit. I would also have loved to do something more worthwhile with the Riddick character (the one from Pitch Black, that is, not the abortion of a travesty he became in the Ridicules of Chronic). Too fucking late now, of course.
In print, it tends to be not so much that you want to write in that universe, but that you wish the original author would churn out some more. I always wished that Poul Anderson had written more stuff set in the milieu he imagined for the Broken Sword (which he later recoiled from as "too headlong and savage" - well, yeah, that was the POINT!!!), but BS was such a masterpiece, it's more than likely that a sequel would just have diluted the power. Certainly, when Anderson revisited his Time Patrol universe, the results weren't very edifying, and his Flandry stories started to weaken badly by the time you got to the later stuff. I think in the end, this is a variation on the series character argument - less tends to be more. Strip mining a conceptual framework is just going to lead to environmental collapse. See John Gardner's Jame Bond novels for clear evidence, and now- curse, splutter, spit - the YA spin-off...aaaaaaagh........>>gags and falls down<<
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