In September of 2007, I started this blog
with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I
figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I
did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I
don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off
of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write.
Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing
output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to
carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your
comments are welcome!
Preparing for this
essay, I realized suddenly that I skipped several markets for it entirely, most
notably, ANALOG, as well as IGMS, LIGHTSPEED, COMPELLING, and (I think)
GIGANOTOSAURUS…so this may lead to another revision in light of these misses!
ANALOG Tag Line
Are Humans more than precocious monkeys? A union of Sentient aliens
wants to know!
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
After First
Contact, a representative of the Unity of Sentients assigned to Humanity – the Shabe
– have watched with condescending boredom as Humans race to find Artifacts planted
by them as a sort of “Turing Test”. Humans have unearthed twelve technological
artifact on Earth. Each one was JUST beyond the capabilities of the most
technologically advanced society of the era in which it appears. It is conversely,
ALWAYS placed in one of the least advanced societies of that era. There is only
one Artifact remaining. It will be just beyond the ability of mid-Twenty First
Century Humanity to detect using technology. INTELLIGENCE will be what will
find it.
Opening Line:
“What did you say
your name was?” the young Haitian National Police officer looked up at her,
squinting, then back down at the stack of identification papers.”
Onward:
“Stamatina Isabeau
Alcine.”
He scowled, “You
don’t look French.”
“I’m not. I’m
American.”
He snorted and
folded her papers to return them.
Stamatina took a
deep breath, held it, then began in Haitian creole, “Paran manman m' yo te asasine pa tonton macoutes pour doktè Divalye,”
the young man crossed himself, eyes going wide. She’d said that her mother’s
parents had been murdered by Baby Doc Duvalier’s tonton macoutes. She continued, “...in 1983. My mother was adopted
by an American family, through their church-sponsored orphanage. She graduated
from high school and went to nursing school. While she was there, she worked
with a study partner, a man from Ghana who eventually got bored with his
education and raped her. I was conceived. As a single mother, family friends
took care of me while mother finished college. I graduated from high school
some years later with highest honors – which I also did from Harvard with a
degree in cultural anthropology. I got a masters with similar honors in
Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience from the College of Veterinary Medicine
at Washington State University. My PhD is in Xenoarchaeology from Texas
A&M. I was asked by the Haitian government to join the team trying to
determine if the thirteenth Unity artifact is really here.”
She wanted to say
more, but clamped her jaw tightly. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper. Taking
a deep breath, she knew she was here to prove that the alien Shabe did not own
Earth; and that in xenoarchaeology, her instinct would trump her archrival’s
technology every time.
A shout came from
inside the electrified cyclone fence the young Haitian man was guarding.
“Matina!” the big, fat, white guy inside cried, arms outspread, limping along a
crushed stone trail.
Her anger drained
away. Glancing sheepishly at the Haitian officer, she tilted sideways, waving
to the man behind the cyclone fence, “Hey, Doctor Gospel!”
What Was I Trying
To Say?
IF there are aliens
out there (while I deeply WANT there to be, but there’s NO EVIDENCE. Yet the
most brilliant minds of our time – Stephen Hawking, David Brin, Carl Sagan, Hillary
Clinton, Jon Willis, Sara Seager, Jim Al-Khalili, and Lewis Dartnell (who,
being an astrobiologist does, by definition – believe in aliens)), I don’t
think they’ll just hook their arm (or whatever) and say, “C’mon down!”.
Just like we have
criteria for membership in every august body on Earth as such diverse societies
as the US Legislature, the Politburo, the League of Women Voters, China, First
Nation, and millions of others, so members must meet the criteria of the Unity
of Sentients. To be considered SENTIENT and able to join the Unity as
participating members, we must pass this Turing Test.
The Rest of the
Story:
Stamatina, aka
Matina, is a xenoarchaeologist, one of the first of her kind. She also has a
history as a half-Haitian, half Kenyan woman. She believes she’s discovered the
Thirteenth Artifact. Her competition, Dukernst André Frisch believes the same –
that HE has discovered the Thirteenth Artifact.
She’s the one who
has, with the help of her mentor and friend, Profesè Evangile.
End Analysis:
My best analysis is
that the story is…muddled. Parts of it are clear – the history, locale, and
even the main character, Stamatina, are all real and well-researched. I got
that. The feel – I felt the pounding Haitian sun on my head during the winter
of 1980, when I was there as a short-term missionary. We started work on an
orphanage. It was my very first experience with extreme poverty…Matina really
WAS the daughter of a friend of ours (though the name and other information has
been changed to protect her and our friend!)
But the story itself
(once again, I must sadly say) suffers from too MUCH story. Also, it’s the
beginning of a much longer story rather than a separate story.
Reflecting last night before falling asleep, I realized that after reading a
recent issue of my favorite magazine, not one of the stories I read really had
a “take-away”. Not ONE of them “spoke to me”.
All of them were
professional quality, interesting, entertaining, even. But they didn’t “say
something”. I didn’t walk away unable to stop thinking about either the
characters or what the author was trying to communicate. That’s not true of the
magazine all the time, but since the elder editor passed on the mantle…the
stories haven’t decreased in quality. They’ve decreased in “weight”…
I should point out
that the highest rating on my scale would include Anne McCaffery’s first Pern
short story, “Weyr Search”; David Brin’s (it’s the first section of his Nebula
and Hugo award winning STARTIDE RISING) “The Tides of Kithrup”, and Lois
McMaster Bujold’s spectacularly haunting, “The Mountains of Mourning”.
All three of them
carried deep questions that never intruded on the story. Perhaps I’ll iterate
this idea the next time WRITING ADVICE cycles through…
Can This Story Be
Saved?
Sure – and I think I
will try and save it. I haven’t exhausted the markets and I like the story. It’s
just so muddled, I think a thorough going over with a steel-toothed comb might
comb out the snarls. First off will be clarifying the reason for finding the
Thirteenth Artifact; though to be truthful, I’d never clarified it to MYSELF
until I just finished it an hour ago, so “No surprise!” I wasn’t communicated
the idea very well.
So – I’ll do it.
Soon. Though I have MORE than enough writing work to do at the moment…
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