Listen to my ~1000 word audio story on Immortal Work’s Flash Fiction Friday read by Angela Wright-Stevens.
Let me know what you thought in the comments.
Submitted the draft of my manuscript to my editor!!!
As I progress through this process of getting a book published, I’m grateful that my manuscript is going through an editor. I know people who have a love/hate relationship with this part of the process, and even though I’m a bit nervous about the editing comments I will get, I am thrilled to be getting them. I love the story I created that is inside my head. I don’t know if I’ve translated that story onto paper as effectively as I hoped. An editor it going to help me achieve that vision.
The best bit of correspondence between me and Immortal Works, my publisher, other than “we want to publish it” is as follows:
“I’m really excited for this book, and together I know we can make Devil in the Microscope a success!”
Thanks Jason!
I’m excited too.
Check out my book announcement at Immortal Works
It’s officially announced at Immortal Works. My mug is there staring back at you. My book’s description is there for all to read. See it all at Immortal Works.
So, what am I doing now? I’m editing like mad, hoping to provide a slick copy for my edit to really sink his or her teeth into, so we can make my book’s words as fantastic as the story is in my head. I should be assigned an editor soon. When I hand off the manuscript, I’m going to dive head first into another project, probably the sequal, but I have another novel that is already 50,000 words long and a complete story. I still have a lot of work to do on that one before it will be ready to send out. Will it be about a mad scientist? You’ll have to wait to find out.
In other news:
My book is going to be published
After many queries to agents and publishers, my book is going to be published. I just signed the contract with Immortal Works Press to publish my novel, Devil in the Microscope.
Devil in the Microscope follows Anika as she moves in with her scientist father in a town he built around his mysterious genetics laboratory. Most of the town are scientists employed by her father, and Anika discovers that the whole town is literally mad, mad like Dr. Frankenstein mad. Anika navigates her way through high school, fending off wayward science projects, vindictive evil geniuses, and the possible threat that her father might be using her for his grand experiment.
Anika finds allies at her new high school, other kids also being experimented on, and they unite around Anika to defeat the mounting threats to their lives. Anika relies on her scientific skills, her wits, and the unusual talents of her new friends to survive.
I love this story and these characters. I’m just starting the editing process, but I can’t wait until I can get my story into people’s greedy hands. It’s coming…
The Mad Scientist in The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1843)
When I was in college, I was fortunate enough to have a Science Fiction Literature class taught by a great teacher using a great textbook: Science Fiction: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology. This book is a chronological look at science fiction through the years with stories published from the 1840s to the 1980s.
The book started out with an old Nathaniel Hawthorn short story called The Birthmark, which may be one of the first mad scientist stories. The narrator of the story doesn’t explicitly call Aylmer, the scientist of the story, a “mad scientist,” but the profile fits quite well upon examination.
The first paragraph calls Aylmer a “man of science” and tells us that he left that life behind and “persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife.” But after marrying her, he becomes obsessed with the birthmark on her cheek in the shape of a tiny hand. She is offended when he suggests the possibility of having the birthmark removed from her face, hurting her deeply. She thought it a charm because it was often thought beautiful by other suitors.
Alymer discovers that he does not think it a charm, but rather a flaw in her beautiful face, which becomes a “symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death.” The man of science is suddenly faced with a dilemma, as he believes he can fix the flaw, but at the cost of putting science above his love for his new wife.
We find, though, that Alymer was delving into fringe science in his earlier days when he takes his wife back to his old laboratory to perform the experiment on her birthmark. As he prepares, he shows his wife his old experiments, which blossom into wonder, but soon fade to ruin before her eyes.
With one shudder as he glanced upon the birthmark, though, her own desire to be rid of it was cemented in her mind. She could not bear to see him shudder at her again. She now hated the birthmark more than him. At this point, she finds Aylmer’s journals and discovers that all of his experiments have been failures in his own eyes because of the grandiose vision of perfection. For some reason, with this insight into his motives, she falls more in love with him. His experiments have indeed pushed forward the scientific discoveries but have been failures none the less.
Even though I am basically spoiling the whole story, I suggest anyone interested in “mad science” as a literary device should read this story, which can be found online for free. This is the madness and the great part of this story. The Birthmark is a great look at the mad scientist persona through a love story instead of a monster story. I use the term “love”, but Alymer doesn’t love his wife.
He uses the birthmark as an excuse to return to his old ways—his old “mad science” ways. He’s messing with things that only “God” should have power over. Heck, the dude even has his own Igor—a hairy assistant of low stature, though that trope may have come from this work. He assumes that if he can rid her of the birthmark then she will be perfect and lovable again.
The funny thing about flaws, though, is that once the largest goes away, the next largest becomes brightly apparent. That is my own interjection, though, because the story doesn’t get to the point where it would explore that scenario.
Both Alymer and his wife know the most likely outcome of his experiments is her own death. He is willing to go through with it because he is mad—mad meaning that he can’t see his own flaws, his own faults, his own ability to change, and his own megalomania in trying to fix his beautiful wife. She is willing because she can’t live in a world where her husband could shudder when looking at her face.
Alymer is successful at removing the birthmark at the cost of her life. The story ends there, and we don’t see his reaction to his wife’s death or the impact that has on his own science career. I wish Hawthorn had continued the story. Does Alymer continue with his secret science, or does he again reject that part of himself? At some point, villagers are showing up with pitchforks though.
Science and Magic are two sides of the same coin
After some contemplation about magic systems, I’ve decided on a new philosophy on writing. This is for me only and not a “writing rule”.
- In fantasy, I’m going to treat my magic systems like a science.
- In science fiction, I’m going to treat my “Pushed” science like magic.
Magic
Magic in fiction can create a sense of wonder and be a tool for the characters. Also, it has the potential to create Deus ex Machina ending, or make the resolution to the conflict be a wave of a magic wand. In order to avoid this issue, writers can spell out the “rules” of the magic. The reader should understand what is possible and what the characters know about the magic. Rules, guidelines, laws are all words associated with science. In a world with magic, that magic would and should be studied by someone at some point, though not necessarily as part of the story you are telling. Often the POV character is learning the rules of the magic as she goes through the story.
The best example on magic as science and magic as say “religion” is the Lord of the Rings. Gandolf has an endlessly unknown and powerful magic that he uses as needed to get out of the situations they are in. His is a religious character and often acts as a savior character. No one could tell you how his magic works. The One ring on the other hand (`snicker`) does work like a science. It was constructed. It always works in the same way. It has rules: can only be destroyed in one place, corrupts, turns the wearer invisible. It is a constant.
Within this framework, you can still have surprises. Someone can figure out new ways to use magic, but they still have to follow the rules. Foreshadowing goes hand in hand with this. You are building up to something awesome, but if you don’t put the pieces in first, the resolutions is going to feel cheap.
So, in my fantasy writing, my goal is to treat the magic scientifically. I’m going to invent rule,s and the characters must use the magic within the set of rules.
Science fiction
Sciences fiction works a little differently, and this whole point depends on how much science knowledge you have and how much of that you want to build into the story. Personally, I don’t have science education past high school chemistry. So, in my science fiction stories, I don’t dwell on or explain the science in the story. I’m only talking about the parts of the story that are different from our current reality. Faster than light (FTL) travel is a good example. Me trying to explain the science of FTL is going to sound amateurish no matter how much research I put into it.
Unless the story is about the scientific effects of FTL, what I choose to do is present FTL as a thing that exists and no one in the story universe questions how. It just works. Kind of like magic. It just works. No one ages differently. Reality isn’t bent. There are no consequences. No side effects. (Unless those are a part of the story you want to tell). Likely, I will never write a story where the effects of FTL are central to the story because I don’t want to try to get the science right.
You could argue that if I don’t delve into the science than the story isn’t really science fiction. That type of story is only a part of the science fiction umbrella. Some call it Hard SF, or at least the more a story focuses on the science, the harder the SF. That one thing that is different has many consequences on how we as humans would think, speak, behave, interact, and react to the world. These human experiences do not depend on an explanation of the science. Those human experiences are what I like to explore in my science fiction. How it works is just magic.
My winning poem from 1999 at Weber State University
These days, I don’t write much poetry, but back in college, I was rather enamored with the idea of being a poet. I actually won Weber State University’s poetry contest in 1999. I have a great story about how this poem came about, but first the poem:
Fluids gone sour…Ripe for the Thirsty
And as Anne said, she drank—a lot—because
that’s what writes do. I cannot write like
Hemmingway.
Do I have to look the part—drink the part?
My paper is wet. Smells funny. Some odd
White-out replacement
smeared ink into design, squinted into place
through likeness to great ones and I am
small.
I walk with a small notebook because dead
people did it, and they are worthy of
being replicated
as if I cannot be me and a writer. Damn Emerson
for his way. I have conformity enough.
Yeah, that poem beat out some great poets of my time at school, including Abel Keogh and Emily Peterson Whitby, who were and still are talented writers.
This poem was lifted from my writing journal almost verbatim. I still have the journal somewhere around here, but I’m not going digging for it. I was in a journal writing class and as a part of the class we were required to journal meticulously. We studied writers who journaled, including the hows. The Anne in the poem was Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird, which I had just finished. I was feeling conflicted. Did I have to become someone else to be successful as a writer? My beliefs made some of that conformity difficult and I wasn’t really interested in the “hard living” method of generating art. I guess I was rebelling from the notion that I had to be a certain way or live a certain way.
That discovered poem I lifted from my journal/poetic rambling won the poetry contest that year.
Report from Life the Universe and Everything Symposium 2016
I just got back from the Life the Universe and Everything Symposium held in Provo Utah. They brought in some fantastic authors and artist who presented great content at the various panels over the three day conference. I think the highlight for me was Shannon Hales’ keynote address about gender inequality, especially on how we unknowingly under-represent girls and artificially limit what we allow boys to experience. All her points also apply to race, even more so. It was thought provoking for sure.
I have always been drawn to the female protagonist in stories, and one of my favorite when I was a kid was Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. I also loved The Blue Sword and Outlaws of Sherwood. To the credit of my parents and older brother, I didn’t know that it wasn’t cool for boys to read women authors or read stories about girls. I’m grateful that I read so many. Two of my favorite books are The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin and His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik. Still, I was the boy who played with his G.I. Joes and He-man figures, though I would act out long-drawn out stories with my Joes, including the female Joes. I professed to hating girl (though I really didn’t) for most of my childhood.
Brandon Sanderson was great in all of his panels I attended. He is definitely in his element at these cons. Great guy. I attended koffeeklatches, which are sit down sessions with authors in a small group, with both Dan Wells and Howard Taylor (both of Writing Excuses podcast fame). Both were great. Dan Wells is a board game enthusiast, and the only big time author I approached. I told him that his podcast was a big motivator in starting my own podcast and gave him a Meeple Nation business card.
Speaking of Writing Excuses. I attended the live recordings of the podcast, which was awesome. They did a great job and anyone who listens are in for 6 good episodes whenever they come out. I wish I had a chance to listen to Mary Robinette Kowal in more panels. She is amazing.
I paid for a pitch session with an agent, and the experience was kind of weird and sort of helpful. I chose to be a part of a group session with 4 other hopeful writers. Our agent was running late and gave us our ten minutes, but was quickly scanning our paper content for errors. She did give us a bit of good advice and gave me two nice comments on my phrasing in my opening page. Still, she didn’t comment on the overall pitch and worth of the story. It didn’t feel like she had any intention of actually considering our stuff. I guess it was worth the $20 bucks for the experience.
I have more to write, but I’ll save it for another post.
I’m attending LTUE in February!
This year I’m make a concerted effort to begin my writing career. I plan to get my writing published with a plan to keep publishing. In order to do that, I’m going to attend the Life the Universe and Everything Symposium (ltue.net). In addition to panels on writing and the business of writing, I’ll be able to mingle with agents and other professional writers for 3 days. Another feature of LTUE is that several writing agencies will be holding pitch sessions, and I plan to pitch my YA novel, my MG novel, and my epic fantasy novel.
I followed all of the agents on Twitter and will be following any tweets for the foreseeable future. I’m also going to make a greater effort to tweet more. Follow me at @RyanPDecaria to keep up with my micro musings. Also, I’m going to post regularly on my blog, so check back here often. Time to make it happen.
UPDATE: I’m all registered for the conference and have sent in my request for a pitch session.
Let 2016 begin!
2015 was another mundane year for me. My new purchases were a water heater and a furnace, and a slew of medical bills for my family. My highlights are starting this website and continuing my podcast, Meeple Nation, past the year mark. I invest a ton of time into my family, but I also tend to waste time doing things that aren’t going to get me where I want to go. So, for 2016, I’m going to do things a little differently. This year, I’m going to invest in myself.
This year I’m going to get my writing published in some form one way or the other.
- Start a comic book. I even have the first 6 scripts written. I need to find an artist to partner with, or I need to find some capital to invest in the art.
- Enter a screenplay into the Nicohls fellowship contest. I have a draft of the script. I need to make it the best I can in the next few months. The early deadline is March 2.
- Enter the Writers of the Future Contest every quarter until I win it. That is 4 short stories a year. The next deadline is March 31. I already have a draft of the story I will submit.
- Attend as many writing conferences as I can fit into my schedule. This first will be Life the Universe and Everything Symposium in February.
- Send out 5 queries and/or submissions every week.
- Write every day, including updating this website regularly.
- Make it happen!
So far, I’m off to a great start. I entered a short story into the 1st quarter of the Writer’s of the Future contest on Dec 31. The story is about a pop starlet who wakes up from cryosleep 300 years after the fall of civilization to find the last boy on earth and his unstable mother. I like how it turned out.
So this year, I’m going to do more, do it better, and enjoy the process. New Year–New rules.
My new life rules for 2016:
- Invest in myself.
- Write as much as I can.
- Put my writing out into the world.
- Enjoy the process