December 24th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I have put up the essay I mentioned in my previous posting here.
I submitted it as part of my application to grad school. It is predominantly a revision of my earlier essay ‘On Fiction‘
If you read it, please send comments! Even though it’s already been submitted, I am interested in discussing the ideas presented in the essay.
Thanks. —JCB
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December 22nd, 2009 by J C Bronsted
Since finishing Looming Thunderheads, I have been working on a lot of projects that are not reflected on my front page’s ‘Current Project’. At first I intended to delve into Death and Life, but I got distracted by applying for school. Since Jenny is having such a good time pursuing her MFA degree, I felt left out. I signed up for and took the GRE in October and scored fairly well, so I decided to apply for an MA English Lit program. I spent a lot of time gathering information and preparing my application (writing the Statement of Purpose, revising a ‘Sample of Critical Writing’ (which I will put on the site soon), contacting people for letters of recommendation (I have no contact with previous professors and I am sure they wouldn’t consider recommending me), and getting everything finalized and submitted). I finally got everything together at the end of November and sent in my packet at the beginning of December. I’ve been agonizing over whether or not I’ll get in ever since.
In the course of that, I stalled on Death and Life and turned instead to Between the Stars. It was probably the work of putting together query letters and submission information for Looming Thunderheads that made me want to write a story easier to sum up. But even that story gave me trouble, and I couldn’t figure out a good way to approach it.
Then, as a way to rest my mind, I installed Visual Basic 2005 and started programming. It had been almost a year and a half since I had programmed anything, and that had only been a few days’ worth before I started the Angie rewrite. So, for the past few weeks I’ve been programming various aspects of the current idea of ‘The Universe Game’ (I discuss that in an essay). I first wrote a rendering engine for a vector-based, 2D object system, then I wrote the rudiments of a physics engine (2D collisions). Finally I spent a few days building the framework of a server-client network system on which to build a shared world experience. The Client processes the game in Turns, which it receives from the server, but those turns are rendered in ‘Frames’ to give a smoother animation. This requires a slight delay in Player Command processing, as commands get sent to the server, which then broadcasts them back to each client for simultaneous execution. I deliberately made the delay 600 milliseconds, which is an eternity. Eventually, if I get back to working on it sometime next year (2010), that will probably be reduced as latency drag gets ironed out in playtesting. I believe I have a robust framework (the 2D vector graphics, the rudimentary physics, and the Network) on which to build the game. The only thing to do now is to flesh out the game itself.
Meanwhile, however, I’ve turned back to Death and Life. I’m borrowing a Kindle from the Library so that I can read PDFs of my original manuscripts (for what was then The Invasion) as research. I have already gotten nearly halfway through that reading (much of which makes me cringe to know that I actually wrote it). The story is going to be dramatically different, barely recognizable, but there are a few pieces I want to keep, things important to the themes. The main character as I now envision him is so radically different that I’ve renamed him.
So, as my front page still declares, Death and Life is still in the ‘Planning’ stage. I have written a little bit more on it, but not much. I will update again soon.
Oh, I should mention that I also spent a little time watching the entire 5-season run of Six Feet Under. I’ve said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating: that show is undoubtedly among the most moving and meaningful works I have ever experienced. I wept at its ending.
One thing I’d like to say for Six Feet Under is that it doesn’t fall into the trap that a lot of ‘naturalistic’ works do: that is to say that it doesn’t trade the ability to really say something for its attempt at a ‘realist’ portrayal. It maintains a naturalistic rendering throughout, but still manages to really dig around in messy material in a revealing way. That is really hard to do, and sometimes I think a lot of work is lauded merely for its mimetic quality, the mimicry of ‘real life’ that doesn’t actually try to make any comment on that life. Six Feet Under succeeds wildly.
Posted in Death and Life, Writing
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October 19th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I have revised a few of the pages on the website, especially those having to do with The Redemption Saga: Looming Thunderheads. There is a new Redemption Saga page, and a page for Looming Thunderheads. I also altered the Fiction page and included a link to an old story.
The story is an old one I originally wrote in about 1989 when I was 11. I’ve included a little introduction with more information about it. If you do read it, please keep in mind that I was very young when I wrote that story, and it is now 20 years later. This story does not reflect my ability now, and I include it as a curiosity. Comments are always welcome.
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October 4th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I finished the last (red) edit of Looming Thunderheads last week. I’ve sent out a few queries and have had one rejection (already!). I just wrote a 6-page synopsis, very bare and plain, and that needs some serious revision before I start including it in query packages. I’m very eager for this book and I’m hopeful for its prospects. I do think it will be easier to sell than Angie, as its themes aren’t quite so dark.
I think that my next project will be a draft of Death and Life, rather than Baleful Deluge. I’ve decided to do this despite the danger of setting aside The Redemption Saga for two reasons: first, if I do not sell Looming Thunderheads before I complete Death and Life, it will be better to have two separate stories to try and sell rather than a part one and a part two; second, I’ve already written this story as The Invasion, and although Death and Life is a complete re-creation of the story, it is more complete than Baleful Deluge. I anticipate it progressing swiftly once I begin the endeavor. Much like Angie, it’s a single-perspective story (I’m going to try it in the first person and see if that works), and so I expect the same facility such a narrative voice gives (Looming Thunderheads suffered in its early drafts from a surfeit of characters).
We shall see…
Posted in Death and Life, The Redemption Saga, Writing
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September 14th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I have put up a new essay on the site: Solitaire and the Nature of the Universe
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September 14th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
The heaviest edit of Looming Thunderheads, the blue pass, is now complete. The next pass, with red ink, will be a single read-through, and after that I will type in all my corrections. I am very close to a point when I can begin the process of trying to sell this manuscript.
I am uncertain if I will now let the manuscript sit for a few days before I embark upon the final pass, or if I will begin it immediately. I have edited this novel so many times that I’ve probably redone every page five or six times at least, and some pages ten or eleven. I foresee the red pass being very light in its touch. The passages that will require the most editing will be the changes I made in the last edit, and most of that will be for clarity and pace and language.
I want to try to embark more fully on Death and Life as I wrap up work on Looming Thunderheads. I think I’ve decided that writing Baleful Deluge might limit my chances of selling a manuscript: it would be difficult to sell part two of a series before I’ve sold part one. Therefore, writing a new story will multiply my chances. The main hurdle I see for Death and Life is its length. I know this one will be quite long. Between the Stars would be a better intermediate project because it should be much shorter. Unfortunately, that story is not as fully formed as Death and Life.
Alas, as Stephen R Donaldson says, I do not choose my stories; they choose me.
Posted in The Redemption Saga, Writing
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August 21st, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I am now living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and at last I have internet at home. After the move, while I have been away from the internet, I was able to complete a great amount of work on Looming Thunderheads. This has all been in the form of rewrites of several scenes, a few additional scenes or extensions of scenes, and going over Pah-Tukh’s and Dindriad’s character arcs.
Ever since the very first draft last year, I have been disappointed with Dindriad’s story, and I have always intended to revisit it during one of the revisions. I tried a few things in some of those revisions, but it wasn’t until now that I finally found a satisfying way to bring his story together. I am very pleased with how it has turned out. This has all been part of my “blue” editing pass, and tomorrow I will begin the final “blue” pass with a rereading of the entire book from beginning to end. After that, all that will be left will be the “red” pass. (I discussed my editing process in an earlier entry on this journal.)
Tonight, after I had spent the day redoing some of Quorin’s story and some of Mellian’s as well as a few other things, I decided to step away from Looming Thunderheads and try out some new material.
From 1997 until 2006, I worked on a book called The Invasion. In 2004, I had a draft of nearly 300,000 words when I realized that my skill at prose had grown so that the last chapters of the book were so much better than the beginning that it seemed to be two different books. It was as if I had come to a point in painting a broad and complex mural where I looked up and found vivid and vibrant color depicting a lively and engaging scene of complex humanity, but looking back to the start of the mural at the corner of the wall, I saw that the depiction there was stiff and formal, black and white and clumsy. I decided that the only real option was to start the book over.
In 2006, I had brought the (much more colorful) manuscript to just over 100,000 words, but the story had lost its appeal. I was frustrated with the material, even though I felt that my writing had improved considerably. I set aside The Invasion and turned to Angie Star.
Since then, the story of The Invasion has toyed with me from time to time as I have had new insight on its themes and structure and the character of Oren. These past few weeks a few of those thoughts finally came to a boil and I started thinking seriously again about the book.
I have renamed it Death and Life (as a working title at least, though it may stick). I knew the opening line a few days ago, and tonight, after I finished my day with Looming Thunderheads, I decided to see what I could discover about Oren and his situation. The result was shocking. It is far more overwhelmingly despondent than I thought it would be—but the feeling of it seems so right. I am very pleased with what I have done. And the best part is that I have discovered more details about the story. I think that I will soon be able to embark fully upon this project, although Baleful Deluge and Between the Stars are still waiting, among many others. We shall see where I will turn when Looming Thunderheads had gone through all of its revision. In the meantime, Death and Life may be a worthwhile respite from the toiling slog of editing.
Posted in Death and Life, The Redemption Saga, Writing
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August 3rd, 2009 by J C Bronsted
Packing the house for the move, and I came upon two boxes of old floppy disks. Rather than just toss them, I went through to see what was left on them. I found several old drafts of The Invasion and some Raya stuff—and some story critiques from a CRW class at UF (the files were last modified in Fall 1999). I was 22, and though apparently lacked tact, I can see the burgeoning of my aesthetic. Here are the critiques, with names removed. I hope these writers are still pursuing the craft in whatever way fulfills them.
1:
Although there are some well-rendered scenes, the end result leaves the reader nowhere. I suppose the “crisis” is the point when Jake and Jeff reach an understanding, share an emotional moment. The problem is that the reader (at least me upon my reading) does not feel any of the emotion of the final scene. The characters don’t feel real, aren’t people we come to know within the story, learn to care about. We don’t know what is motivating the characters to act the way they do. The author’s tracks are very visible. The subject matter is interesting, but it seems like in trying to write a story about someone coming to terms with a disease, you forgot about the person who is in fact doing this. The first thing to think about in a story is character. Character determines plot. The Character needs to be alive and breathing, and all his choices should be “duh! Of course.” It is how a character, a full, round character with a many-faceted personality sees the world that makes fiction interesting.
2:
Very precise descriptions of actions, but your sentences have little variation in structure. About seventy percent of them are “Egypt [or some other person] did this thing…” It becomes tiresome to read the same syntactic pattern again and again. Also, Egypt goes through some very severe shifts in mood, but we don’t know why. Certainly some exterior forces propel him this way, but his character is not well defined. At times he seems like Forrest Gump, unknowing that things are going on around him, and others he gets piping mad, quite in contrast to his previous state. At the end, I have no idea why he suddenly became docile again. His mother made a speech, then spoke with some other people, but we don’t even see Egypt again until his mother leads him, sullen, away. Show us how he is reacting to his mother’s confession. Let’s see him struggle with it and then the relief when he finally decides it is okay. This is the pivotal scene. We can’t point the camera at a wall while superman is battling the super-villain.
3:
A story told primarily in the subjunctive mood? Curious. Stories that hide something very important about the protagonist until the end are not good. For instance, in an example John Gardener uses, if we tell a story about a man who lives next door to a girl who finds him sexually attractive, but she doesn’t know that he is her father, and we tell it from the point of view of the father, we must know that he is her father. It is a cheat not to tell us this. It creates false suspense. The reader throws down the story in disgust. So if Kant Rogers works at a Kenny Rogers, tell us.
This story feels a lot like stories that are primarily flashback. It deals with an event that doesn’t happen in the “now” of the story. Since that is the case, maybe the POV should be changed… This story is a daydream, and although stories like that can be written, these daydreams must change the narrator in some way. Something must happen between the beginning and the end that wouldn’t have happened had not the narrator decided to act in some way. There must be consequences; even if we arrive at the same place anyway, a failure, the protagonist must affect things in some way.
4:
This is a very well written story. The scenes and dialogue and summary and description all flow together well. The character comes alive and we can feel for/against him. But nothing really happens. There is no crisis. Nowhere is Hunter forced to make a decision that may change him. At the end, he winds up…wet. It’s a victim story, and those don’t work. You wrote it very well, and all along it maintains interest, but the end is disappointing.
More on the move and some updates on Looming Thunderheads in the coming weeks—when I have a moment to breathe.
Posted in Writing
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June 8th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
Over the past month I have been writing an essay that addresses the standard to which I would like to hold myself in my novels. I have published the current version of that essay on my website:
http://www.jcbronsted.com/essays/fiction.html
If you read it, please let me know what you think, either through email or via the commentary on this journal entry. I intend to revise it based on feedback.
Thank you in advance!
Posted in Writing
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May 29th, 2009 by J C Bronsted
I have installed WordPress on my website and will be using it for the foreseeable future for my online Journal. I am not sure if I will be mirroring these posts on LiveJournal or not, and I will have to see if I can import a few of my older posts into this for archiving. In the mean time, it took all night to tweak the stylesheets and the page layouts to make them appear the way I wanted (consistent with the rest of the website). I will probably change all the links and add an announcement about this to my main page within a day or two.
If anyone comes upon this journal and reads something that catches your interest, feel free to register and add a comment, or contact me directly.
Thanks!
[update: I have added the journal entries that I had hosted on the site, preserving the dates and times of the original postings. They appear as entries older than this one.]
Posted in Website
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