Month: July 2023

Critical Death Theory: first draft, 5,400 words

Part 3 first! Before we get to our adventures in the Shetlands, I have a book announcement. We have signed a contract for the sequel to A Quiet Teacher. I knew it was coming but it’s still a thrill to ink the deal. I’ve promised to deliver the manuscript by February of next year, so I’m assuming it will come out a few months after that. Of course, it’s July now so, in writing time, February is not so far away and I have only just started writing the story (I feel my agent, the estimable Brady, clutching his heart as he reads this). Fear not! As the story has been outlined to the nth degree, all I have to do is get it on the page. The hard part (plotting, clues, character development, etc.) has already been mapped out. All that remains is the fun bit: actual writing! Barring some massive geopolitical upheaval that screws around with my day job, I’m expecting pretty smooth sailing from here on in. Hopefully!

I have learned over time that my willingness to spend many, many weeks coming up with an outline identifies me as a particular “type.” In terms of how we go about putting words on a page, writers, I’ve discovered, are fond of dividing themselves into two camps: plotters and pantsers. Pantsers, according to this theory, write by the seat of their pants, throwing down words to see where it takes them, while plotters outline everything ahead of time, plotting each and every step from A to Z before writing a single word of manuscript. While most writers I’ve met so far identify as pantsers, I am very much at the opposite end of the spectrum. I like outlines. I like to know where I’m going. The thing I hate most about writing is “wasting” days of writing time wrestling with a plot problem I should have thought about earlier. When I’m writing I like to write!

Even by my standards, though, the outline for the AQT sequel is obsessive. It’s the most detailed outline I’ve ever written. There are two reasons for that. First, as this is a whodunnit, the clues have to fit exactly. I don’t have anywhere near as much room to maneuver as I would in a sci-fi novel. In a whodunnit, you can’t fly too far from your clues. Second, the outline is more detailed than for AQT because in this one there are not one but two murders. Double the clue plotting!

Now, having said all that, I don’t really buy into the plotters versus pantsers thing. Both are really doing the same thing, just framing it differently. A pantser’s first draft is basically just a very long outline: it bears little relationship to the final product. There are massive and multiple rewrites before the author is ready to show the fruits of their labors. An outline, conversely, is just a very short first draft. There’s a huge amount of writing still to be done before the completed manuscript is ready for the light of day. Either way, you end up with a book. And in reality, all writers plot and write by the seat of their pants. Otherwise, their books would either make no sense or lack any sense of inspiration. My personal view is that it comes down to how lazy you are. I am very lazy. The thought of writing tens of thousands of words just to get at the outline of a story brings me out in hives. The physical effort outweighs the joy of the writing. If you’re not lazy, on the other hand, why would you deprive yourself of a writing adventure just to save yourself a few keystrokes? Forget plotters and pantsers. You’re either lazy, or you’re not.

Back to the AQT sequel. I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a while. I’m going to share the title! Critical Death Theory. As regular readers of this blog will know, no one, and I mean no one, likes my titles. They always get changed, the new titles are always better, and so I generally don’t feel the need to embarrass myself further by exposing the original moniker to public ridicule. This time, though, when I suggested it, neither the redoubtable Brady, nor his assistant James, nor Editor Rachel at Severn House shot it down. Who knows? It might even make it to publication.

As for E________, I’m still waiting for the axe to fall on that one. Or is it going to be two in a row?

Illness, work, and a compulsive desire to vent about AI have prevented me from bringing you up to speed about my June of festivals: Cymera and Shetland Noir. This week: Cymera.

Last year, as you may recall, I attended Cymera ’22 as an author panelist. It was my first time ever at a book festival and I was simply blown away. This time, now that I’ve moved to Edinburgh where Cymera is held, I managed to wangle a gig as a panel moderator. Arriving in the green room 30 minutes before our panel, Connection, Interrupted, with Nina Allan, Cory Doctorow, and Ian McDonald, Cory confronted me with the blunt question: “What’s this panel about?” Fortunately, having had to wrestle with the same problem for some weeks as I read through their excellent books, I had an answer.

We trooped out onto what I like to think of as the Cymera main stage and launched into a wide-ranging discussion about AI, use and abuse of the internet, privacy, technological fixes for global warming, and the merits of a good old-fashioned handshake deal, as seen through the lens of their novels Conquest, Red Team Blues, and Hopeland. I thought it was going great guns – and it was – until Cory directed my attention to frantic waving offstage. I had run out of time and left no opportunity for audience questions. I can’t read a watch, apparently. Fortunately, I am a person of color. Had I been white, I would have been beetroot with embarrassment!

Cymera itself didn’t disappoint. The Blackwells on site bookshop was as awesome as I remembered it, everyone was happy and a lot of us were well lubricated. Shockingly, given that Cymera takes place in what passes for Edinburgh University’s Student Union, they ran out of beer! There were a couple of the highlights I particularly want to mention. First, a book signing with Samantha Shannon. I’m not a huge fantasy reader these days but I loved The Priory of the Orange Tree, which contains one of the best opening sentences of all time. The queue went out the door and well up the stairway but she was as gracious with the last person in line as she was with the first. Second, an all female panel called Final Frontiers with Stark Holborn, Everina Maxwell, and Emily Tesh. The discussion of their space operas Hel’s Eight, Ocean’s Echo, and Some Desperate Glory, was witty, ribald and perceptive by turns. So much so that, even though I was not familiar with any of them, I marched over to the bookstore, bought three of their books, and then waited patiently to get them signed. They were every bit as delightful face to face as they were on stage. As I get to them on my TBR list, I’ll drop you all a short review. But in the meantime, please take a look at Everina Maxwell’s signature. I watched her write it out freehand, in real time. I’ve never been proud of my penmanship. Now, I’m just humiliated.