David R Slayton

May152010

Roma: A Week in the Eternal City was just what I needed.

I’m an unabashed philhellene. I focused heavily on ancient Greece during my history degree and wrote my senior thesis on another fan of the culture, the Emperor Hadrian. I’m fully aware of the permanent mark he left on Greece. Many of the ancient monuments still extant in Athens were commissioned by Hadrian. What I hadn’t realized was how deeply he’d also left his mark on Rome, the city he ruled but spent so little time in. I knew the Pantheon would be a sight to behold, the last standing pagan temple which survived through its conversion to a Christian church, but without even taking a trip to Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, his stamp is permanently etched onto Rome. He showed up in so many spots I felt he was haunting me: his bust was a constant presence, his name often arose in museums. One of the first impressive pieces in the Vatican Museum is a great pinecone from Hadrian’s Villa, and the Antinous of the Vatican is the largest and most detailed of the several I’ve seen.

If you’ve guessed that I’ve just returned from a week in Rome, you’re right. It was an incredible trip, and went smoothly up until the very end, when the volcanic ash cloud and some other incidents delayed our return. I also had a last minute confrontation in the rainy pre-dawn morning waiting on our cab to the airport, one of the only times in my eight trips to Europe when I thought I may come under physical assault. These misadventures aside, the journey was a feast of art, history, and some of the most incredible food I’ve ever eaten. My good friend Sara Meyer, celebrating her own graduation from her Master’s program, was a phenomenal traveling companion, ferreting out little churches and teaching me a ton about competitive commissions in the Renaissance. I’ve been assembling a full Facebook gallery of the pictures and I’ll keep captioning and editing over the next few weeks. Friend me if you’ve any interest.

Rome is a dizzying blend of food, architecture, art, and culture. I’d been warned again and again about pickpockets, beggars, and that my companion was going to suffer some serious male harassment. None of these warnings proved true, though I was half-hoping Jenny’s story about women throwing their babies at you so they could pick your pocket when you caught the infant was more than just a colorful urban myth.

On the final day of the trip I got to visit the Protestant Cemetery where John Keats, a major subject during my English degree, is buried. His tombstone, set beside his friend Joseph Severn, was a quiet pinnacle to a great adventure. A week wasn’t enough, so I’m hoping to return in the next two years.

A couple of tips for Rome:

The Roma Pass purchase was 26 Euro each and paid for itself quickly: It let us skip all the lines to the big sights like the Coliseum. It also served as a Metro and Bus pass, though we only used the Metro to reach the Vatican one rainy morning and preferred long walks with constant side trips. Its only cons were that it was only good for three days, it only gets you into two sites free (the rest are merely discounted), so use it for the big ticket items like the Forum and save the discount for cheaper events like the Castle of Angels (Hadrian’s Mausoleum). We ended up buying two to get through the whole week but I’ve no regrets there.

Getting there on May 1st meant we missed the American student press, but there were still a lot of student groups, mostly French, and this means the Vatican was extremely crowded. We tacked onto a tour group, largely for the advantage of skipping lines, but the group pushed past all the antiquities in the Museum in order to rush to the Sistine Chapel. Our tour guide, Angelo, had an American mother so his English was perfect and he happily pointed out details that dispelled or confirmed bits of Dan Brown lore (for you haters or lovers). The company was www.livitaly.com, and I’m a fan.

I’ve got to mention our bed and breakfast, the Residenza Ki. They treated us great. My tripadvisor review is here.

For food we piggybacked on Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s technique of asking locals where to eat, though we also had some great meals by choosing places at random. I can definitely say that we didn’t have a bad meal, and our dinner the last night was certainly delivered with a bit of flare as the manager brought out the pig’s head to show the patrons.

Apr282010

Everyone Wants Something

In good fiction, it’s clearly true: Dexter wants to kill his victims; Emma Woodhouse wants to avoid marriage; and Tom Builder wants to build a cathedral. A key aspect of a fictional character’s life is their driving desire: it’s almost Platonic. They’ve a purpose to fulfill and often approach it with singular drive that borders on obsession. Tension and conflict arise in their setbacks, but with turn of the story’s cycle, they move a bit closer to their goal.

Lately I’ve been diving into books that have long needed reading. Ken Follett’s the Pillars of the Earth finally came to the top of the stack, and like Wonder Boys, it’s another book I wish I’d read years ago. Follett has one of the strongest voices I’ve encountered, and as I continue to read through George R.R. Martin’s catalog, I find myself comparing them. Follett fully distills his characters down to their desires, and the wheel of the story turns, with the characters achieving a milestone towards their goal before getting subjected to a hard knockdown with a long recovery period.

Tom Builder, the book’s first point of view character, reminded me of Howard Roark, the protagonist of Ayn Rand’s the Fountainhead: one individual struggling against a world of chaos which works in concert to pull him down. But Follett doesn’t limit our point of view (POV) to Tom. He slips from one POV to another with the deftest handling I’ve seen. One character spies another on the road and we transition with a clean break to the second character. Where Martin has drawn his story out to an inevitable seven volumes, Follett’s tale is self-contained, and I have to admire the neat wrap up. While they are two different genres, I feel any author can pick up some good mechanical tips from Follett. One advantage of the self-contained book is that I didn’t grow weary of the story cycle. Even a little time spent in the antagonist’s head was interesting, whereas with Martin I feel that his fourth book in the series, a Feast for Crows, is largely spent with individuals who I’m less interested in. Martin remains a master, but I lack the grudging admiration for Queen Cersei that I felt for Tyrion, an antagonist in previous volumes. Follett puts us in the head of his antagonist and while it’s a vile place, I was immediately struck but the clear lack of intelligence and self-awareness of the villain. There’s never any confusion about whose head we’re in. In writing about master craftsmen, Follett displays some remarkable skill of his own.

Mar262010

Fatal Footprints: Comments on Donovan Webster’s Aftermath

Getting a degree in History was one of the most edifying things I’ve done. Even the most boring of classes, taught by the most burned-out professor, gave me insight into something new. My history degree taught me to research, made me a better academic writer, a more critical thinker, and helped me see patterns in human progress.

In fantasy, we often write history. If you look at Tolkien, Martin, Brooks, or other authors in the epic style, they’re largely constructing a fictional history, often with a little inspiration from actual events. Our characters inhabit worlds filled with the ruins of former civilizations, which they explore, contend with, and struggle to understand. History informs us, shapes our cities and prejudices, and in some cases, gets us killed.

Aftermath: the Remnants of War is a journalistic travel-book, but Donovan Webster, is far from your average tourist. His purpose was to explore sites left affected by war. I first heard of the book through Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast, and I’m glad I took Carlin’s advice and ordered the book. While Carlin discusses Donovan’s account of the bodies and bones still scattered for miles by the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, I found the discussion on Verdun’s shell-laden forest to be the most compelling. A first hand account of the topic, with the author handling the shells and following them to their eventual demolition, put me to work looking at maps of the two World Wars and the areas still affected by them, usually to the point of being off limits. Webster’s analysis of landmines, where they come from and who deploys them to infect their borders was bone-chilling. It is so easy for us to think of war as a fictional thing, to look at its glories and rewards, but to forget its detrius and the effects it has over the long term. We’ve left the century of the two world wars behind, but still it leaves a lethal legacy as shells work their way to the surface.

In fantasy, we work for realistic accounts of fantastic warfare: dragons swoop from the sky raining fire on infantry; spells are slung like so much artillery across magically-scarred battlefields; but it’s very easy to lose sight of the human aspect of these events. Books like Aftermath help me keep my grounding when I describe large-scale violence, and they help me remember that unlike my pen and paper creations, real war affects flesh and blood people, often for far longer than we ever intended.

I’m highly recommending this book to you. It has great stats to back up the well-written descriptions, and Donovan kept me riveted as he circled the globe. Any student of modern history should read this, as well as any world traveler, if only so you’ll know where to step.

Mar212010

A Lifetime of Pointed Silliness: Terry Pratchett’s Making Money

When it comes to beloved authors, I hoard and conserve. An author only writes so many works, and I live with an unread copy of their latest book on my shelf, for when I really need it. I’m that way with Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, and Terry Pratchett. I first encountered his wonderfully ridiculous Discworld as a freshman in high school. My English teacher had a copy of the Colour of Magic on her lending shelf, and after reading it, I used funds from my first job to join a Science Fiction book club. I soon had little hardback copies of Sourcery, the Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, and Mort.

Over the last twenty years, I’ve read Terry Pratchett’s books, always keeping one unread on the shelf. He’s been a constant presence in my adult life, and I can map it by his work. Witches Abroad remains my favorite, and if you have a hard time finding it in Denver, that’s because I snatch up any copies I see in the stores and give them away. When I’m going through a bad spot, I call in sick to work, and read Terry Pratchett, so I’m hardly able to write an unbiased review. Fortunately, Making Money is his best in years. It taps into the current global financial crisis and finds a satirical vein in the dichotomy between the upper and lower classes. I had expected, with the news of Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s struggle that he might be off his game, but Making Money is literally laugh out loud funny and perfectly balances humor, intrigue, and social commentary.

Pratchett draws on the slew of characters he’s built up over the years, the scheming denizens of Ankh-Morpork, but we’re never taken too far off track by the cameos. Making Money is tightly written, and the few asides are worth the Easter egg connections they make to other books. While the book is technically a sequel to Going Postal, and draws a lot on characters developed in the Watch series, you don’t need them to jump in here. The denouement is typical Pratchett: for a moment he indicates that he could write a bad ass ending, bring it all down in fire and glory, but he chooses irony and humor instead. I hope Making Money is far from the last Pratchett, because he’s only getting better with time.

Feb282010

An Interesting Article I Thought I’d Share

Laura Miller on Salon has posted a Reader’s Advice to Writers. It’s a great read, and I found it helpful as I line up my next project. There’s some overlap here with books I’ve read on writing, but reinforcing core concepts is never a bad idea.

It’s here.

I’m still delving into the comments on the article, but don’t miss her link to the Guardian’s article on rules by 28 writers.

Feb272010

A Discussion of Urban Fantasy and Talk of True Blood

What’s in the backpack today: Hester by Paula Reed.

I’ve finally gotten around to watching through the first season of True Blood, which led me to read Charlaine Harris’s Dead until Dark (the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries). I’d been avoiding the show due to its adult nature, and I finally decided to see what all the fuss is about. What I’ve found is a tightly scripted, small-town murder mystery. Oh yeah, and there are vampires, but so far I’m finding them to be somewhat incidental and less interesting than the other goings on.

I’ve come to think that a lot of urban fantasy’s appeal is derived from its ease of access. In epic fantasy we have to weave a world for the reader, and in that weaving we have to work hard to not bore you with exposition while also telling you the rules of how the world works. Urban fantasy gives the reader an immediate access point: you know the world. It’s yours. The writer can then layer in the supernatural aspects. The hook is more immediate and relatable. The urban fantasy writer has other challenges though. They have to take the mundane and more it extraordinary, whereas as the epic writer can work backwards from making the extraordinary relatable. Neither is easier. Writing is never easy, but I think there’s less chance for an urban fantasy writer to get lot in world-building, a problem inherent in epic fantasy.

Comparing genres is much easier than comparing mediums. True Blood, as a show, works largely on the strength of its secondary characters: Tara, Lafayette, and Sam; all of whom have much smaller parts in the first book. The show has to take one book’s murder plot and cut it into multiple scenes and episodes, changing point of view. The book, which as seems to be the standard in urban fantasy, only gives us Sookie’s first person point of view. Both the show and novel benefit from tight scripting. One thing I noticed immediately was that there are no “use its or lose its” in either one. Every element that’s introduced has a purpose. Description in the novel is cut to a minimum and the show is shot without lingering shots on landscape. The show definitely ups the adult nature of things to an almost extreme level. It seems some days to be HBO’s trademark, but even then the sex scenes have a point. They reflect on the plot and tie into the mystery. The vampires, when they come, when they’re described, in many ways aren’t all that interesting. They just add a layer to an already interesting world. The book of course explains things a bit better, and since it is first person, you gain a much stronger understanding of what Sookie goes through being telepathic. (I would normally have just invoked a spoiler alert, but all my sources tell me I’m the last person on the planet to watch the show or read the book).

A quick word about Charlaine Harris. She writes without any slack. Dead until Dark is tightly scripted, tightly wound. Every character has a point, as does every scene. I raced through the book in a satisfying way without any unnecessary stops to a satisfying destination.

Feb262010

Use it or Lose it

So in my work, I have a really bad habit that was pointed out to me when I had Eastlight edited by Carol Gaskin: I like to toss every little idea that pops into my head right down onto the page. Most of these are good ideas, but they often change the direction of the story at a time when it doesn’t warrant changing. They insert a detail that catches the reader’s attention, but then I never bring it back or wrap it up and the reader is left wondering what happened to that magical amulet in chapter fifteen?

Use Its, as I’m calling them, are details I considered important enough to describe at the time, but never come back. They’re little floating threads that never get snipped out of the tapestry or woven back in. The fix is pretty simple of course: lose them. Unless the thread is going to come back (in this book or another in the series), cut them out. Loose ends frustrate readers. I know I’ve personally put down many a book and found myself trying to remember if things got dealt with. Avoid Use Its by marking them when you write them in either the novel (I use programming syntax /** since it’s easy to search on in Word) or keep them in a separate file. Just make sure that the threads get used later, get snipped out, or you don’t leave your comment markers.

Stephen King mentioned in On Writing that no character considers themselves secondary. In our minds, we’re the center of the universe. So it is with characters. “Use It or Lose It” also applies to characters. Too many people vying for the spotlight can slow the story or take your work off into a tangent. This is a major problem for me: I want to show you everyone in a city, a village, a world. But no character should be given the spotlight unless they’ve got a crucial role, and it’s cheating to try and shoehorn them in by upping their role in the plot.

Feb252010

The Need to Believe in Yourself: in Defense of the Writer’s Ego

I’ve encountered the arrogant writer a few times. A few times, it’s been me who was arrogant. Many of us can be obnoxious about our work and our belief in it, which often blinds us to its faults and gaps in quality. What’s going on with that?

Simply put, I think it’s the fact that making it as a writer is no easy feat, and it’s often a great defense mechanism from the rejection we feel. But like all defense mechanisms, it has to come down sometime, particularly when its usefulness has passed. We like to shield ourselves from uncomfortable truths. In my case, a good one is that I really need to cut back on the world-building exposition. I find myself slipping into Professor Slayton mode, where I start lecturing the reader about a neat little bit of history or mythology I’ve worked into the world. I love this mode, because I love showing off and hearing the sound of my own voice (like many English majors), and I truly want to share my knowledge with the reader (like many History majors).

Keeping your ego at the fore of your work is problematic because it blinds you to feedback. When criticism comes, and criticism is a necessary part of the process, you need to be open to it. I often find the most scarring criticism is the kind that is spot on: someone points out something I already knew deep down, but did not want to accept. In this position you have two options. You can either choose to ignore the criticism and hold up your ego like a shield, demonstrating a variation on the “I’m an artist and you just don’t understand me” slash “I’m just too smart for you to understand my work” defense; or you can accept the uncomfortable truth that yes, maybe that character in chapter three is a little too Yoda-like to pass muster, doesn’t serve a point, and should probably go.

When we write we put forth our inner selves. We’re out to entertain sure, but we’re also trying to tell a story that means something to us. You have to believe in your work to finish a novel. You have to really believe in it when you query it to agents. But you can’t skip the middle part, which means getting feedback, getting it critiqued, and improving the quality of the work. Your ego is a valuable tool in this process. It’s a partner in getting you back to the keyboard every day; but don’t let it be bruised too easily by critique, and don’t let it blind you to things you don’t want to accept about your work. Your ego is a part of you, but keep it in its place.

Jan102010

David’s Review of Three Junes by Julia Glass

Three Junes is one of those books that should be a lot longer: three narratives, three points of views, with decades passing in the lives of the characters. Yet Glass takes the family saga and boils it down to three snapshots, three important periods, and uses the time constraint of three months to keep the book brief. It was recommended to me by my friend Jo Dunn for this reason: that I could see how Glass keeps things short while still juggling a lot of time and spatial difference. She employs a great economy of word: not drawing things out, but still managing to handle the same depth of larger family sagas such as House of Spirits or One Hundred Years of Solitude. Glass’s method for brevity is partly achieved in that the three sections are wholly distinct. Point of view doesn’t alternate between or within chapters so in each section, we get one strong voice.

These clear delineations do not affect its power. Three Junes keeps a resonance, with mysteries and bubbling secrets threading throughout. I feel like the book lost a lot of steam in the denouement, that the final section lacked the power of the first two, but that things still tied up neatly.

When I tried to describe the book to someone yesterday, I found myself unable to sum it up in a way that gave it justice. The book’s plot is so simple, that trying to describe it in those terms sells it short. Much like Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, that’s a sign to me that Glass has created something very internal and powerful. Thank you Jo for recommending it.

Oct22009

George R.R. Martin has Epic Fantasy Covered: David’s Review of a Game of Thrones

I have to confess, I’ve been backing off of reading epic fantasy for a while now. I’ve started a few series, only to put them aside in favor of something more accessible that isn’t going to lead me to too many sunrises as I obsessively read. And a number of the books I’ve tried in the last few years couldn’t capture my attention. A slow start that doesn’t draw me in by page 50 usually means I’m going to look at the looming volumes as a daunting task and put it aside. Sometimes the sheer size of a paperback means I’ll pass it over when reaching for the next thing to read.

On my flight back from Munich last week I finally cracked open a book I’ve been putting off for about ten years: George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. The news that HBO is making it into a television series bumped it up my list, but I’m certainly glad I brought it along to Europe. There’s nothing quite like the German pageantry of Oktoberfest to set your mind on the Medieval.

Martin reaches the apex of the genre. The multiple points of view interweave beautifully, and the very effective technique of titling chapters with the name of the POV character made it easy to keep things straight. Despite the many characters, Martin keeps their voices distinct, and their thoughts or commentary on one another help keep you siding with various factions. The mystery of the piece, the revealing of state secrets that prompt a war, is nicely spun.

One thing I noticed right away was that Martin keeps a hard emotional distance from his characters. You find yourself cheering for a character who then meets a rather hard end, and Martin executes these fates without a hint of sentimentality. He balances his characters on the edge and shows absolutely no hesitation in pushing them into freefall. In this sense, the book reads a bit like a history. Only the immediacy of the characters’ emotions ties you into the narrative. Martin largely follows the show not tell rule, though I found myself wishing he’d break it a bit more often. As good as the book is, it’s burdened by its sheer length of 800 pages. A few characters could have been eliminated without detracting from the themes or narrative. This might have helped bring the book into a more manageable size, though I suspect that with the scope of the series, he’ll make use of these players later. As the genre goes, Martin definitely starts with action, draws you in with relatable characters, and neatly breaks the book into clear cut scenes. He’s created a fantasy world with the usual western European flavor, and he does it with style. Magical swords, beasts, jousts, battle, and intrigue all fill the pages. The story is compelling, and I’ll certainly be picking up the other volumes, saving them for snowy weekends or another transcontinental flight.

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