Writing Edgy in 2023

Whoa! That last blog post nearly ended the year for me. Seriously, a couple days after posting it I came down with a true illness not seen since August 2019 before anyone gave it a name. But I've recovered, thankfully. (By the way, greetings and salutations for the new year!)

However, something good came out of my drug-induced stupor: creativity. Dreams turn into notes, that turn into outlines, then become paragraphs on pages. And before you know it the first chapter exists. And the writing has not stopped. I'm in a zone where I cannot sleep at night or in an afternoon nap because of the on-going scene construction that would be better done by a Hollywood studio.

Back in 2020 when everybody was alarmed by a mysterious illness and we engaged in lockdowns and all sorts of lifestyle changes, I thought it would be the perfect time to write a post-apocalyptic novel. That lasted about two weeks. I read a few novels on the theme during the following year. Finally I was ready to write mine. When I found a way into the story (e.g., a single mom, her teen son, and a tuba), I could begin.

The first book of my FLU SEASON pandemic trilogy The Book of Mom came out late last year (click that link!). That was all well and good, but during the weeks of cover art and during the publication process, I finished book 2 in the trilogy The Way of the Son, which I expect to be available sometime in spring. Again, a good effort: two full novels within a year. But wait! There's more.

I couldn't find the entrance to the story for book 3 in the trilogy, Dawn of the Daughters, even though I knew the basic story. Then I got sick, swooned a while, and arose at the keyboard to pound out that manuscript. As I stare at this blog post, book 3 sits at what I consider to be 2/3 of the way to the end. That could change, of course. The story left to tell could be a full novel in its own right. I'm tempted to add a fourth book....

But here's the thing. I had two overarching goals for the first book - before I decided half-way that this would be a trilogy - and those were (are!):

1. a story of ordinary (if quirky) people and how they handle an on-going pandemic - without resorting to unusual motifs like zombies or other more sci-fi elements of most stories of this genre.

2. push myself to the edge of the envelope with regard to the sex and violence meter - not to throw gratuitously depicted action in readers' faces but to address the unfortunate likelihood of such aspects in a pandemic-ruined society.

So I let her rip. Book 1 opens with an anecdote of how our narrator was conceived on a nude beach when his mother was technically underage. I let "Mom" be her true self (not in any way based on my own mother), teasing and flirting yet offering quips of wisdom and songs played on her tuba. I introduce a love interest for our narrator, becoming a teen romance - but allowing our teen lovers to do what teens will do.

And the violence! It doesn't appear to shock or to drive an agenda. Rather, the violence our characters encounter is what may very well occur in that lawless situation. It pushed home the real nature of what we might expect were we to be them on the road, seeking sanctuary not only from a virus but from other people who would kill us for an old sandwich. It escalates as they travel from one destination to the next, expecting but not finding a refuge.

But the destination, a barrier island where the family's vacation home still sits, is not truly a sanctuary. Gathering people who are not infected, a kind of community has formed, but not a free society. They are, instead, something of a cult. Again, I push myself to press that envelope to its tearing point. Book 2 takes it much further as our characters try another way to varying degrees of success - yet not enough to settle down.

As I crash through Book 3, having a new narrator tell the story, the opportunities for my twisted mind to unfold schemes is enhanced. And I take full pleasure in the dirty and the dangerous which they encounter in their experiences. They gradually come into the greater world and we see how society is trying to rebuild. It seems a better place and readers may get a sense of hope, but soon the darker underbelly shows through the cracks.

I've stated on my social media how this trilogy may be my final work, with me getting old and surly, my fingers less sure on the keys, my mind taken to greater flights of fancy. Therefore, I'm allowing myself to be as naughty and violent as I can imagine for my characters. They all hate me for it, obviously. And yet I persist. I push and press and kick them forward into their fate! Why? Because I can. Because I'm mean and gnarly, and want to see them suffer. Because I want them to cry out to the universe their misery and pain! To shriek how their suffering brings universal truths to light. And they finally get it: the message. 

Oh, sure, I may, as happens with most of my novels, rein it in during revision. I tend to get the shivers. What would my mother think were she to read this? Well, Mom, I'm all grown up now, so I'm not holding back any longer. I'm being edgy now! Just remember, FLU SEASON is not a theater of the macabre but a view into the near future of what could be. It is a warning not to be too surprised when things don't go our way!

Book 1 THE BOOK OF MOM is available now in paperback and for Kindle. (click the link)

Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON will be available in spring. The manuscript is completed, revised, and edited. Cover art is in process.

Book 3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is nearing completion and is expected to be available by the end of 2023. (We also get the story behind Mom's tuba and why it is so precious to her.)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

FLU SEASON: The Book of Mom - cover reveal

This year has been full of stress. (That's 2022 for those who may read this in the future.) Of course it's stressful to write about the stress of surviving a pandemic in a novel while surviving a pandemic. 

However, even more stressful has been the revolving door of cover designs for my forthcoming pandemic novel FLU SEASON: The Book of Mom. 

(Note: FLU SEASON is the series title; The Book of Mom is the first book's title.) You may have read my rant in my previous blog post. If you haven't, don't worry; I'll be recalling some of it here. Covers revealed below!

In my previous 15 novels, the cover design was not too intricate. Yes, they could have been more detailed, more compelling, more artistic, but what I ended up with suited my tastes if not readers' tastes. For science fiction and fantasy, the genres demand artistic, fanciful, detailed art depicting some scene related to the story. I could not achieve that by myself with the skills I have. (My best artwork comes from my 7th grade art class: a portrait of a Neanderthal man in tempera paint. Be amazed below!)

So I went to my usual art friend who has managed to please me through several novel covers, hoping she could do some of that art stuff for me but more complex art. Unfortunately, she was not then available. My first thought was to do it myself. I have made a couple covers for my novels but the design was simple - some effective that way, some not so much. The main obstacle was gathering the images I needed and relearning Photoshop. I did create a decent cover but I didn't feel confident in it.

On Twitter (@StephenSwartz1) I'm following/followed-by other writers and - as they choose to connect with me - various cover designers and publicists looking for work. One fellow writer showed off her covers. I liked them, thought it was a good example of what I needed for my book. I asked who did them for her and she put me in contact with her cover designer.

This was an adventure. No offense intended, for he ultimately did good work, but the process of working with a one-man-band proved to be frustrating and dragged the project out longer than necessary. I should have used that time to go through my manuscript once more for any final tweaks, given the time it took, but I kept expecting the finished product any day. When I finally got the finished product (full covers for print and e-book plus assorted promotional images featuring the cover) I was delighted. But...not wowed.

He created a cover that exactly matched what I said I wanted. It was technically correct based on my description. A couple of friends had valid criticisms of the finished cover. One said the cover looked too much like a comic book rather than a more serious novel about a tuba-playing mom and her teen son escaping a city in chaos for what they hoped would be relative safety in the countryside. I fretted over whether to use this cover or not. As the first book of a trilogy I was also concerned with the subsequent covers based on the standards of this one. 

I submitted the files for the manuscript and the cover, got my proof copy, and saw it with fresh eyes. It did look a bit too comic - but that was what I had described unknowingly so I could only blame myself. Having the physical book in my hands also showed me how big it was. The font was needlessly large for one thing (looked fine on a computer screen), so the page count had expanded. Right away I reduced the font throughout by 1 point, which shaved 40 pages from the manuscript.

All right, I thought to myself. I was then half way through that final reading/tweaking of the manuscript as I waited for the finished product to arrive. That "final" read through allowed me to snip here and there to further reduce the size. I knew I would need to resubmit everything and I worried that the cover may not match because of the change of the spine width due to having fewer pages.

At about the same time, I was contacted by a short-term follower who happened to be a cover design artist. Actually, she represented a business that designed covers and promotional material. Feeling distraught at my situation, I inquired about their services and found it reasonable. I gave them less instruction for the cover, hoping the artist would use his/her imagination more. I received a good rendition of my earlier description, however; the only problem was switching out a French horn for a tuba (I did specify a tuba).

They sent the files two weeks ago but I was traveling and forgot or missed seeing the email with the link to the files. Once I'd caught up and gotten the files, I was pleased - though two weeks behind my own timeline. I did see an error to fix and as long as they were fixing that I might as well ask for a couple other minor changes - which they fixed in 24 hours and resent to me. 

I don't know which cover is the best. They are all similar and yet differ in some ways. You may comment on your favorite (or, more likely, the one you like more than the others) and I will wait until I get the consensus I want before sending that cover to the publisher. I will reveal (although you might guess in the meantime) which is done by which designer. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Now that I have everything - the manuscript tweaking is finished - I will resubmit everything and hope the next proof copy will be perfect. If it is, you will soon have Book 1 of FLU SEASON The Book of Mom available in print and for Kindle before the holidays.

Book 2 (The Way of the Son) is finished and undergoing appropriate revision and editing. The cover design shall commence forthwith.

Book 3 (Dawn of the Daughters) has begun, with much note scribbling, and may be used in this year's National Novel Writing Competition in November (just have to write 50,000 more words than what I have now).

Thanks for your support!

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

FLU SEASON : a pandemic trilogy

Contrary to rumors, I have not been mindlessly lazing away my summer. I have been writing and editing the second volume of my pandemic trilogy, titled The Way of the Son, which as of this blog is around 75,000 words with about 30,000 to go in order to complete the story. It is a continuation of the first book, obviously, but do not allow that fact to be a spoiler.

Now that I finally have the cover artwork, I can continue the process of production and begin marketing this newest science fiction novel of mine. Here is a summary (as much as I can reveal) of Book I:

I. The Book of Mom

In the beginning was the virus and the virus was with us. Or something like that. Just as you and I experienced in 2020. We faced uncertainty, fear, the unknown, and reacted to what politicians and scientists thought was the best way to deal with the emergency. What we know now in 2022 may be different than our initial thoughts and actions. But what if it continued unabated? We feel safe again, returning to some kind of normal life yet with some elements not quite the same as we knew them before the pandemic. Yet what if we were in a longer crisis?

In FLU SEASON, a stand-alone novel that has blossomed into a trilogy, we follow teenage son Sandy as he accompanies his mother in fleeing their city. With the pandemic in its sixth year, everything has collapsed into an unbearable situation. Mom decides it's time to leave the chaos of the city for what she believes will be relative safety at her parents' farm. After the struggle to get to the farm, however, they find the chaos has invaded the rural areas, as well. Violence and the stark reality of survival hit them hard. What to do? They cannot return to the city.

They will go to Mom's older sister's house in another city. But everything there is also not what they expected and not a good place to stay, so they travel on to the other sister's home. There they face a big turning point in their plans, one that shapes the rest of the trilogy. Along the way we experience as they do the ways the world has changed, what the new normal actually means with random violence, no law and order, lack of food and fuel, as well as the on-going pandemic and the necessary precautions everyone must take. We follow how they figure out how to live in this altered world. They encounter others along the way, who represent various views of what is happening, some who have a better chance of surviving than others.

Ultimately, Mom takes Sandy and his cousins to the barrier island where the family has a beach house, a place they often visited when Mom and her sisters were young. It is a place with special memories for Mom - memories which she has kept hidden from Sandy all his life. On the island, however, are already people who are trying to survive. Their leader has set the island community on a path to become some kind of utopian society, but one that is not very appealing to Mom. But what can they do? Endure the strict rules for a year or so then leave when the mainland is safe again? Or can Mom make the island community into a safe place for as long as sanctuary is needed?

Our narrator is 19-year old Sandy but his focus is on his 36-year old mother, a single, never-married woman who had a wild side during his childhood yet became a professional tuba player and music professor. Her precious tuba is a family heirloom, not to be left behind or mistreated. Music saves her and she relies on her tuba in times of stress. Sandy doesn't get it; all he knows is his Mom has been his whole life, the only person he has been able to rely on. The pandemic suddenly throws everything out of balance and he grasps at whatever stability he can find while struggling with his Asperger's syndrome (high-functioning autism) and his Mom's often erratic behavior.

FLU SEASON : Book I. The Book of Mom is coming this fall...which is only a few weeks away...available in paperback and for Kindle.

[NOTE: FLU SEASON contains scenes of violence and adult situations but none are gratuitously portrayed.]

You can read the blog post introduction to the FLU SEASON trilogy here.

Read about the challenges of writing a disaster story here.

The writer as main character (or not), using FLU SEASON as an example, is here.

Tying FLU SEASON to the long line of apocalyptic fiction is discussed here.

How to write Young Adult Erotica, like in FLU SEASON, is explored here.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

What could go wrong?

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 4

We have all been through it, whatever 'it' may be: the lockdowns, the protesting, the looting, the shortages of food and supplies, the worry, the fear, the numbness of being helpless. It is the stock footage of most "post-apocalypse" novels and films. And our reality the past couple of years - and others back through time when things just didn't seem too good and people had to deal with their world.

When I started to write a 'pandemic' novel during the first lockdown period, thinking I could fill my time best that way (while teaching virtual classes for the second half of the semester), I realized my first mistake: trying to write about the very thing I was living through. It all seemed surreal to me and other sci-fi writers who had been through it before via stories we'd read. I did manage to start planning what became my pandemic novel FLU SEASON and, two years in, I've now completed it.

The first thing I did was think of what could happen in the actual situation around me. I refused to go full Mad Max or, as a working title, the A Boy and His Dog film version of a post-apocalypse situation. For us, it was a virus, hence pandemic (rather than, say, a nuclear holocaust) that shook up everything. But I didn't want to get into discussions of disease and health care, so I didn't want my main characters to be medical or science people but ordinary citizens.

So as society broke down around them, what would they observe? I imagined going two ways:

1) Less Freedom to move about, to purchase or otherwise obtain needed items such as food, water, fuel, medical supplies, toilet paper, weapons and ammunition.

2) More Freedom to move about, breaking into stores and homes, taking whatever was desired or needed, ruling the streets through might and fright, making your own laws. 

I suspected most people would fall into the first category. They would obey the laws, the mandates, the changing customs as best they could...until they stopped and refused to go further, at which time they would either revolt or succumb to hopelessness and death. Or they would flee a worsening situation - which makes a better story. Have an escape plan! At what point will you 'pull the trigger' and run away from all you have in the world for the lonely trek through a lawless landscape?

Those in the second category would get right on it, exercising their newfound command of the streets, law enforcement too strained to respond to everything. In films we typically see rioting, people protesting their mistreatment, demanding justice, eager to fight each other for a piece of soylent green or worse: actual, unprocessed meat. They would be less concerned for what may be corrupting the environment than those people in the first category.

But let's go with the people in the first category: They flee the harsh and dangerous city. They have a plan: go to the grandparents' farm to wait out the pandemic. It will be safe there. If they must, they can eat the farm animals. Then the story becomes what happens along the way. Unlike A Boy and His Dog, where our heroes traverse an empty nuclear wasteland, in FLU SEASON the trip out of the city is full of traffic jams and fighting among people trying to leave - but they know this will happen and so take to the lesser roads, winding through the rural areas where everything seems as it should be. You could almost forget there is a pandemic ravaging the world.

What can happen on the journey? We might first worry about our vehicle and its fuel, which will run out eventually and not be replaceable. Full tank to start with full cans in back as spares. Even electric vehicles will fail when charging stations (assuming there are any far from a city) are no longer supplied with electricity from power plants. You stock up and take food and drink and other supplies with you, but these will run out as you use them up. You will need to stop for restroom breaks - but what will be open given the situation? And would you trust this odd toilet during a pandemic? Drinking fountains and bathroom faucets would most likely be turned off - as many were from the start of the pandemic, discouraging people from sharing them. 

So far, it's not too different from the usual road trip. However, you are out on the road, where help is not too easy to come by. And even the 'help' may be dangerous: yes, there are good cops and bad cops, but which will you get when the lights flash and you pull over? They can do whatever they wish with you - especially with new laws regarding vaccination cards and face masks giving new excuses to harass travelers. Meanwhile, rioters, looters, and other criminals run rampant in the city but not so much in the rural areas. That doesn't mean the rural areas are safe: country folk may have their own ideas of right and wrong and see a lone vehicle as an opportunity to "get me some o' that".

Basically, you have one shot to make your escape: one fuel supply, one day on the road, hoping not to encounter anyone because you don't know if any of them is safe (not infected) or dangerous (violent). You must assume everyone is a threat. You think you can handle whatever may come at you but you have your teenage son with you. And you have your precious heirloom tuba that you'd rather not let get harmed. But you can make it to your parents' farm, expecting to find comfort from a difficult life in the city, and not what you actually find when you finally arrive there.

Then you'll need a new plan, one which takes you into even more dangerous territory....

NEXT: Setting up a New Community (a.k.a. Let's rebuild society in our own perverted style)

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Schizophrenic Nature of the Writer

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 3

As I prepare my latest novel for publication, I consider each revision pass with different eyes. In fact, I'm forced to see each scene and the characters in it in a new light. Partly this is simply the product of an additional reading. It is also an opportunity to revisit an invention and reflect on where and how the parts of that invention originated.

I'm talking about the characters who inhabit this story of a teenage son and his mom (and her tuba) and their escape from a pandemic-ravaged city for what they hope will be relative safety in the country. I can sit back and know where I got bits of each character. The son is not based on me, however, and the mother is not in any way based on my mother. They are composites: part of this person I knew and part of that person I know. Other characters begin as stock figures, perhaps, but as their role in the story expands, they take on other traits borrowed from...wait for it: people I have known.

A common aphorism for writers is "write what you know". That may end up as an autobiography, or turned into a work of fiction by changing the names. Many writers' first novels are thinly veiled autobiographies, we understand. I think the idea is to write about things I know from direct experience. I may be an expert on those experiences, of course, but how can I say that people want to read about my exact episodes? Sure, we believe anything can be interesting if written in an interesting way...but really? You want to read about my tuba lessons? Don't worry, I can embellish them to make them fun to read. I'll admit it is a lot easier to write about something (or use it in a work of fiction) if I have experienced it myself. But a good novel needs more and that requires borrowing, inventing, or straight-up guessing (if access to research isn't available). But that could get a writer in trouble.

If we do not write about only what we know directly, we could be accused of borrowing (or "appropriating" in certain contexts) details we may include in a work of fiction. There are many easy examples. How can a male writer write a female character? is a common question, less so the reverse about how a female writer can write a male character. Usually I can answer both questions thus: writers are professional observers. We observe, describe, borrow from people we have known. The same goes for writing characters of different races or ethnicities from the writer. Or any of a number of categories like these. In most cases, I don't think the writer is trying to portray a different character in a deliberately offensive way, though it may result in such. Rather, the writer gives the best effort possible in depicting the character realistically within the context of the story.

So what we have as a bottom line is the writer is either writing from direct experience or writing as a phony. Let me suggest another answer: the writer is an actor, and inhabits each character as needed, essentially becoming that character for the purpose of acting in a given scene. I can understand that not all writers welcome this schizophrenia - recognizing the mental health condition as a serious malady and not to be used jokingly, of course. My usage of the term is merely to suggest the multiple personalities a writer may operate within in order to create believable and compelling characters. We want readers to welcome a character, no matter how close that character may or may not be to the author's true self.

In my forthcoming sci-fi novel FLU SEASON, I've realized how each major character is an act: me playing that character, seeing the world through that character's eyes, speaking through that character's mouth, acting in that character's body - as though I was indeed a puppet master pulling strings. That is, naturally, part of the fun of creation: I become this character for a while and rather enjoy it. It's often exhausting being that character, suffering bad things but also sharing in the joy of good things. It's really the reason writing a novel is an enjoyable endeavor, no matter how much I then need to work through plots and edit and worry about the details and whether anyone will want to read it.

If readers wonder how I know how this or that character would think, well, I'm imagining, certainly, but not absent any knowledge or experience. For example, the teenage girl character in the novel is based on the appearance and personality of a girl I knew in high school. The mother character has the spunkiness of the mother of a friend of mine during my high school years. Some of the townsfolk in the second half of the novel are based on people I have known, borrowing both their appearance and their way of speaking - which reflects their way of thinking. The story the vagabond in the pine forest tells our protagonists is actually my own experience with the virus. And the teenage son, although not based on me, I have let borrow some things from me and my experiences: for example, the tales of the Schnauzer and the bunny, as well as his Asperger's traits. Another 'borrowing' is when one character tries to set up their new society based on the society portrayed in a famous novel.

A good writer is a good actor, let us agree. Then comes the translation of the acting into words on a page. The story telling then the story writing. The idea then the craft. But it is all made easier when it's the same person doing all of it. I often feel lucky in having my particular set of quirks, which both entertain myself as well as, I hope, those who read what I put together as novels. Thank you for your continuing support; it makes the acting worthwhile.

UPDATE: The revision stage has come to an end and the cover art is starting. Publication is expected in mid- to late summer. Next post, I'll break down some of the events in the novel.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

5 Things every Disaster Story must have!

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 2

I grew up during the decade of the disaster movie. They were all the same: meet a cast of people who would become victims and watch them fight to survive or, if less popular, to die trying. What changed was the source of the disaster: overturned cruise ship, burning skyscraper, airplanes, comet/asteroid strike, volcano, earthquake, tsunami, or some disease.

With the exception of the 3rd book of my DREAM LAND trilogy in which our heroes deal with an incoming comet on another world than Earth, I have not tackled a novel with an on-going "disaster" until my current FLU SEASON, which follows the misadventures of a boy and his mom and her tuba across a lawless, pandemic-ravaged rural landscape, a trek eventually to a despicable island community that was supposed to be a sanctuary but has its own challenges.

I started to write a pandemic story in April 2020, right after the first lockdown, believing it was a great time to hunker down and get some writing done. I quickly learned I couldn't just sit down and start writing - especially when the subject of the story was so real at the same time. But by summer 2021, I'd found the way into the story of people surviving in a viral pandemic and went with it. The result is a contemporary story of regular people handling the crisis.

That premise isn't so sci-fi as most stories about pandemics tend to be. Usually we find the situation well advanced and the Earth mostly uninhabited, a kind of post-apocalypse scenario. That does make the cast smaller and easier on the movie budget. In my novel I tried to play it close to the daily news. The story (in my mind, the pandemic already going on for six years) could start for real next week. Even a couple months from now it still might start the following week. (I avoided firm time references, not wanting to be tripped up like I was with my vampire trilogy, written in 2014 and set in 2028 but failing to mention the 2020 pandemic.) That factor was crucial to the story; nothing fantastical could be a part of it, just real people acting in real ways to solve real problems.

In thinking back over the story, I realize what I had to do, what I had to come up with, to make it work. And I think all disaster stories must have the same.

1. SETTING

Of course the place where the story occurs is a crucial element. It makes a difference whether it's a modern suburb, a medieval castle, or a space station. However, how the disaster happens must fit within the limits of that setting - obviously. An asteroid could take out any of those places but how it affects the people in those places would be very different. The people involved must have the knowledge typical of people in that setting or else they would not be able to handle the crisis; they wouldn't know what to do and be killed quickly, leaving us no story to follow.

In the case of FLU SEASON, my main characters leave their home in a modern city that is already suffering a breakdown of social norms - hence the reason for them to flee. We've all seen such situations play out in recent movies: traffic jams, people pushing grocery carts, people hijacking a kind driver's car, and most important of all: fuel, or the lack of it. Are gas stations empty? Are we at the stage where most drivers use electric cars? How does that play out with supply chain issues? And food? Same thing: supply chain issues, no products on shelves, looting, money apps not working due to the network being down, or - think conspiracy theory - the government restricts your banking app to your own neighborhood as a way to keep people under control. And nobody touches cash because it's covered in viruses.

2. MAIN CHARACTER(S)

As a young writer I focused on the "cool" what-if situations and little on who was involved, but in my MFA writing program I learned one thing: readers want to read about people (or dogs, robots, etc.) doing things, not so much the things themselves. So who is the story about? Who tells the story? Why that person? In other words, what does that character bring to the story that makes readers want to follow? Is it the character's expertise which is useful in the crisis? Or is it the character's innocence and lack of expertise which makes the story compelling? Will they survive? If so, how will they survive? If not, how far can they go before finally succumbing to the crisis - hopefully with some heroic self-sacrifice? How do they handle adversity? 

In FLU SEASON, I randomly chose a boy and his mom...riffing off that 1975 post-apocalypse film A Boy and His Dog based on a Harlan Ellison story...which itself is a riff on the innocent childhood tales of any boy accompanied by his pet dog. So, rather than a dog, I adding the boy's mother, thinking that would set up a quirky, awkward dichotomy; they could play off each other in an entertaining fashion. Of course the mother has to be a unique individual, interesting in her own right, ultimately with a dramatic back story. And the boy isn't really a boy but a teen, a young man, but he has autism - another element which comes to bear on the crisis: what might seem a hindrance is at times a benefit. And the mom insists on bringing her tuba, a precious family heirloom with its own back story, further complicating their journey. Neither of these characters is a doctor or medically trained but they run into people and everyone has an opinion or a personal story to tell so we get multiple views of the crisis. I focused on the Mom character - made her a tuba player, just to mess with her - but had her teen son tell the story, and his view is exclusively focused on what Mom does. (I explain the origins of this novel in a previous post.)

3. MOVEMENT

You have a disaster, so what are you going to do - assuming you're a character in the story? Only two choices, depending on what kind of disaster it is. You can stay put, build a fortress, hoard supplies, keep locked and loaded, and wait it out, hoping the crisis will end before you do. Or you go: you flee the bad situation with the hope of finding a safe place to...hunker down and wait it out (or perhaps you would be safe enough that a new life can begin). If the disaster is a viral pandemic, as in FLU SEASON, it's everywhere so where can you go?

Already we are getting accustomed to wearing face masks and some may go full hazmat suit and air in a tube to get through a dangerous area. Where can you hide, though? What will you encounter along the way? Think of the geographic challenges: everything from a road being washed out or getting a flat tire, or coming upon vagrants looting a store and they turn on you...to bad weather, to questionable shelters, to the ever-present need for food and water. Are your characters knowledgeable about surviving without modern conveniences or are they just quick-witted ordinary people from a city where everything is available (or used to be)? In such a story, detours to get supplies or to avoid trouble are inevitable.

4. DESTINATION

If your characters choose to leave wherever they are when the story begins, where do they go? Do they arrive or do they die trying to reach the place? Or, perhaps more interestingly, what do they find when they reach the place? People leave a disaster zone to seek safety, either short-term (until the problem is finished and everything goes back to normal) or long-term (it will never go back to normal). We have adopted the term 'new normal' in our real lives, and a contemporary story like FLU SEASON, uses that concept, too. The main characters (boy and his mom) constantly compare their present moment to what's been the norm prior to their escape and to what they hope they will find at their destination.

Two kinds of stories: stay or go. I decided to write about both as two sides of the same coin: the journey and what happens when they arrive. (Is that a spoiler? that they do arrive? Forget that.) Actually, in the early stages of writing, I was only going to cover the journey - with all the incidents that happen along the way (Note: like any quest story in a fantasy novel, things happen and must be planned for or else the quest is a boring walk.). However, simply arriving there - after what they had been through - didn't seem a big enough way to end the story. So I felt I had to write on to tell what they found at their destination, which becomes a new story.

5. MORALITY

Disaster stories are meant not to bring us down but to illustrate and affirm the strength of humanity to survive anything (in theory). We like them because someone will survive in the end and that gives the rest of us hope. So in every disaster story, people must change, must learn something (e.g., tricks to get by, or something in their moral make-up), must find something (e.g., the one tool needed to solve the problem, or a realization within themselves) that helps them rise above the disaster. The main character(s) must change from going through the experience.

In writing FLU SEASON, being a "pantser" (i.e., writing by the seat of my pants; i.e., not outlining and planning first), I actually did not know what would happen next until I wrote it. Hence, I had no particular arc in mind at the start. However, as the characters became real to me and started to act on their own, they led me through their moral development and plot arcs. In revision I worked to highlight some moments which made their ultimate change more relevant, more plausible, and more satisfying to readers. In some ways, like real people everywhere, they change for the better but also change in some not so good ways. In the end, either the dominant traits present at that moment will lead them or else they can rationally analyze themselves and choose the righteous path, so to speak.

I've probably given away more than I should, but I'm keeping the details close to the vest. I recommend listening to as much tuba music as you can, in preparation for Mom's recital in chapter...which one was it? 

More juicy details next time....

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 1

Now that my list of tasks has been completed, I can turn to blogging about my work-in-progress now forthcoming pandemic-themed novel. I have now begun my retirement from a career of teaching writing, literature, and linguistics. I've relocated to another state. I've dealt with the holidays, tax season, and a wedding. Through it all, going back to last August, I've been working on a new novel which is close to its final form as I type this blog.

When our favorite pandemic began in March 2020, I was still teaching. As we headed out to spring break activities, we were advised that we would be going to virtual classes for the two weeks following the spring break week. By the time spring break week ended, we were informed that we would have virtual classes through the end of the semester. And, as it has turned out, I never set foot in another classroom to this day.

I'd been searching for my next novel as I prepared to publish my new sci-fi novel THE MASTERS' RIDDLE, where we experience a story of anguish and redemption from the point of view of a wrongly captured non-human alien being. However, me being stuck at home, I felt the obvious topic for a novel was the pandemic we were just then starting to experience. I dove right in and quickly stopped. I wrote about my own experience with the virus. I also had a head full of disparate ideas based on several post-apocalyptic novels and movies but couldn't connect the ideas into a good story. I deliberately read a few post-apocalypse novels and non-fiction books on the relevant medical issues to stoke the fires of my muse.

Then, as life continued to go on, I got busy with other matters including, as I stated at the beginning here, arranging my retirement. I could've gone longer in my career, but suddenly the requirement for an old dog to learn new tricks in order to continue teaching but in a new way seemed too daunting for me to accept. As fate would have it, this push coincided with me reaching the age, the years of service, and the right viral conditions for me to make the decision to 'pull the trigger', as it were.

Eventually, I found myself toying around with a completely different idea, based on something I'd read or seen somewhere, and thought this new idea might be the perfect vehicle for telling the story of a pandemic - and my project was back on. 

I thought again of that B-movie A Boy and His Dog, based on a Harlan Ellison story, which follows the sordid adventures of the title characters across a post-apocalyptic landscape. Instead, I thought of a boy and his mother. I laughed at that. It would be awkward, I considered; awkward enough to be interesting. And let's make the mother a tuba player. How about that? Yes, quirky. I could work with quirky, especially if the overall theme is serious and our worldwide pandemic fit that theme. (To protect myself from whatever the future might hold, I set the story a little ahead in time from the actual year I was writing it and then never mention any years in the story. However, it's mentioned that the pandemic has been going on and off for about six years.)

"A boy and his Mom and her tuba" became the tag line for my working file. I planned for the boy - actually a grown son, age 19 - to tell the story of his mom, a kind of memoir of her in the pandemic, with all of her quirks. Amused, I labeled the draft file as MOMoir: Mom + memoir. Get it? Hah hah! (NOTE: The boy is not me and the mom in the story is not based on my mother; but I was indeed a tuba player.)

With no outline, I started in, letting my young protagonist tell about his life with Mom and her tuba - and then the pandemic hits and they decide to leave the city, a place where chaos is breaking down society, and travel to the grandparents' farm. That was as far ahead as I had thought it through when I started. Then I literally wrote scene by scene as I thought up each scene. Things happen along the way, of course, making the trip dangerous and arrival at their destination never certain. (As they go, we also learn about the tuba and sample some of the repertoire.)

When I write a novel, no matter whether it is contemporary or literary or something of sci-fi or fantasy, I think of it has having three stories (a few I've written have more) interwoven in it. There is: 1) the setting of the place and how it impacts and influences the characters and their actions; 2) the main character(s) and how that character changes through the story based on what happens during the story; and 3) the interaction between the main character(s) and other characters in the story, how they play off each other and influence each other. 

For "MOMoir" I had the son and I had the mother. They are together almost every scene so they could be considered as a single entity. They meet other characters, both good and bad, throughout the story and each encounter pushes, pulls, or otherwise influences their next move. Then we have the situation and the setting of the story: a pandemic, which itself consists of the viral dangers as well as the methods of mitigation and the government's efforts to both keep the virus in check and limit the population's activities. It makes for an interesting mix - a rich playground from which I could fashion a story of ordinary people trying to survive extraordinary circumstances beyond their control.

MOMoir didn't seem a suitable title for the novel so I considered other titles, settling on The Book of Mom. And with that change of title, and getting to the end of the draft so I knew how it ended, I pondered making this project a trilogy. A pandemic trilogy! More on these developments next time.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

On keeping up with the Future

Most novels cover a certain span of time, and we see characters develop over that timeline, regardless of flashbacks or foreshadowing. Some science fiction is set in the future so we begin the story ahead of the present. For writers of science fiction, this can be tricky. Far enough in the future and the author will be long gone and perhaps the copyright expired and the work forgotten so it won't matter how the years turn over after the book is published.

However, writers setting a story in the near future - close enough that readers only a few years from the publication date will be able to look back and read of events which did not happen as the author wrote about them - are screwed. Unfortunately, I've fallen into that trap with the second and third volumes of my vampire trilogy. I failed to predict how the years 2020 and 2021 would actually unfold. 

My vampire trilogy begins with A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, which is the first symptom of vampire transformation our hero Stefan Szekely notices. The book is set in 2014, which is also the year in which I wrote it, and set in the same city where I lived. I actually "lived" our protagonist's experiences week by week so I was up-to-date with whatever events were happening. I included a tornado that actually struck my city. Then I wrote two more novels that were unrelated to this vampire novel.

Eventually I had pondered enough what may have happened to our hero 13 years later - thirteen being an ominous number. So I began writing the sequel, SUNRISE. I knew at the time that it would be a trilogy and I loosely planned the third book (SUNSET) while writing the second book. With the second book beginning in 2027, I felt I was sufficiently far in the future that I wouldn't need to worry about the future catching up to me. But wait!

At one point a character from the first book reappears [trying to avoid spoilers] and because they have been apart for so long, the arriving character tells our protagonist what has transpired during the absence. The narrative switches to a first-person account of the misery the character has lived through. Remember I wrote this second book in 2018, with the story set in 2027-2028. (SUNSET opens in 2099 so we're good.) Then we learn in the pages what happened in 2020: nothing particular. No virus, no pandemic, no lockdowns, no vaccine - as we have seen play out.

Here's the scene, where Penny Park is explaining to Stefan:

Then I got the reality check for real: the mirror.

Remember the mirror, Stefan? We used to stand naked in front of that wide mirror in my bathroom, side by side, staring at ourselves. One woman, one man. You were slender, a geek. Me with no boobs. We were a couple. Those were good days. But you know mirrors can lie. You told me that more than a few times. Especially when you started poking at those dry patches on your face. You cursed the mirror. Then you turned them down or covered them, you said. You refused to look at yourself. But I saw you. I looked at you, Stefan. I was your mirror, and I saw you falling apart. Every single day. I still went ahead and put my eyes on you, no matter how bad you looked.

March 15, 2020. The next worst day of my life. I stared at myself in the mirror. I saw the patch on my cheek. Brown. Scaly. Itchy. Mottled edges, sort of diamond-shaped. If I had never met you I wouldn’t have a clue what it was or how I might have gotten it. I would try what you did, what I first suggested: apply some lotion. Dry skin needs lotion. And hydration. I can’t laugh anymore at how many times I told you to hydrate. Your skin was too dry, so hydrate. Remember?

You know me: I hydrate like a fish. So that was not my problem. I tried lotions, which softened the patch—patches, eventually, on my face, shoulders, back, also my chest. There didn’t seem enough lotion in all the stores of the mall to cover my needs.

But I did know you, so I had a clue. A creeping feeling started to run up my spine.

I know what you’re thinking: Why does she have this problem? She is not Hungarian. She doesn’t have those genes. And she eats a ton of garlic in that Korean food. I wondered that, too. It made no sense. But there I was, naked in front of the mirror in the bathroom, examining myself, staring at my brown-patchy skin, wondering what to do.

And my mother walked in!

“What are you doing?” she asked, half in shock to see me naked.

“I was about to take a shower,” I told her. “I was checking these . . . a few spots of bad skin.”

She stepped closer and took a look at them. She doesn’t have any medical training, but she is a mother. That must count for something, right? But she had no idea. Then it was déjà-vu all over again: “You better see dermatologist.” 

So she gets some medical problem, sure, but she doesn't mention the entire world having a medical problem. Yes, everything is serious in 2027, as though there is a world-wide problem, but nothing is mentioned about what we have all come to experience in 2020-2021. 

What to do? I could explain it away as her focusing only on her own personal issues and not bothering to say anything about a pandemic. I could go back and add a couple sentences to cover it, then republish the novel. Or I could let the trilogy fade into the sunset and write something new.

Well, my latest work-in-progress is about what happened in 2020-2021 and the years after. It's the pandemic novel I tried to start in March 2020 but didn't get far. We sci-fi writers are used to imagining scenarios, even truly awful situations. So when something awful actually happens, we may not feel that it's so real. I wanted to wait and see how it unfolded. More than a year later, I've seen enough that I can write my own version of a post-apocalyptic novel. This one is about a boy and his mother and a tuba. Should be out in 2022...if we live to see that day.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2021 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Solitude, part 8

As you all must be tired of reading, last summer I was driving through Canada thinking about what my actual process was for writing a novel - and then I did write a novel, ironically. So I wrote out my process and have been sharing it step by step this year during my stay-at-home solitude. In the previous post here, we covered the agonizing revision and editing steps. Now comes the most difficult steps of all, which I must share before I can go on my summer staycation.

Step 9

A lot of people think it's finished now. A lot of people think it's finished when the first draft is complete (haha), but then the revision and editing begins (mwah-haha). So even now, there is still much to do. The most difficult thing to do is write a blurb. That short copy is often more daunting than the 100,000-word book it's about. 

The blurb is a short description of the story intended for the back cover of the book but also may be used for advertising purposes. The trick is to suggest the main points without giving away the story. If this is for an agent or publisher, the blurb would be expanded into something longer often called a synopsis, which does include everything, spoilers and all, because the people you work with need to know the complete story.

The blurb, however, is only about 200 words. In submitting a book manuscript to a contest, for one purpose, there is often a limit on the word count for the blurb. For the back cover, you must be aware of the space which the text takes up.

For EXCHANGE, my JFW (just-finished-work, as opposed to WIP, work-in-progress), I dabbled with the blurb well before I even reached the middle of the writing. There is a basic template which helps sometimes, hinders at other times: Introduce main character and situation/setting; mention chief problem faced; discuss why it will be difficult to solve problem or what the ramifications will be if problem is not solved; end with a question, something like "But will he succeed?"

Here is what I've been working on for EXCHANGE and continue to tweak:

Bill Masters has a good life as a high school teacher in suburbia. But that life is shattered when his wife and daughter are killed in a mass shooting. Prepared to wallow in depression and drink himself into numbness, Bill must pull himself together when their foreign exchange student arrives not knowing what has happened. Forced to try to be a good host father, Bill finds Wendy Wang from China to be both a hindrance to his recovery and a boost to his will to go on. As Bill struggles through the stages of grief, however, he must battle on-going crimes and threats to his peace, giving him a second chance with Wendy. He will protect her. This time he will not fail - no matter what it takes.

That may look like a lot of text yet it is only 129 words. In it, I have who the story is about, what the situation is, the main obstacle(s), and a suggestion of possible love-interest or foil, and the direction the story will take. As it is, it's rather clunky. Tweaking continues. 

[Note: Because the book is finished and has been published, the tweaking has stopped and a much tighter blurb made it to the back of the book cover. See image below.]

Step 10

In the indie publishing world, we hire someone to make a cover for the book. If it's an ebook such as for Kindle we only need a front cover. If it will be a paperback, we need the full front, spine, and back.

Looking at recent covers of literary fiction in my local Barnes & Noble, I see the trend to have a single image which suggests the main character, the plot, or the setting. The title and author's name is enlarged to cover much of the image. Not my favorite style but it seems the trend today, so I'm following it.

Science fiction and fantasy are known for their elaborate and evocative cover art. Romance covers usually feature a couple. Crime fiction features some prop that suggests the crime. You get the idea. But literary fiction can be about anything as long as it is contemporary.

So, following the latest "rules", I have a front cover for my newest literary novel, EXCHANGE. The image is of one  character in a provocative pose. Actually, there is nothing particularly provocative about it, but readers may find it provocative because of the way other elements of the cover come together.

Breaking the title into three lines adds drama and symbolism. The letters could be seen as prison bars, which may add a mysterious tone. For colors, I went with gray to emphasize the nature of the gun debate: there are no black or white solutions. My designer made sure her eyes were not obstructed by the letters because eyes on a face are primary attention-grabbers for potential buyers. The required phrase "a novel" lets you know this is a work of fiction and not a book of essays on gun control. My author name gets a good location. A couple previous titles being mentioned can add to my Christmas bonus; I chose two from my shelf that are in the same genre (i.e., literary and cross-cultural romance). 

For the back cover, I like how the front cover image continues, but a different cover might have different art. Be aware that the back cover will have small text on it (the blurb) so the art should not be too complex to obscure the readability of that text. Note the "Gun Free Zone" tattoo on her shoulder. Glowing quotes from readers, serious author picture, publisher logo (in gray) are other elements of the back cover - plus the bar code, which has not been applied yet to this image (it goes in the white space below the publisher logo). Always check for the readability of the blurb (contrast, size, font). Then wait for things to happen. Meantime, start at Step 1 on a new project.

This concludes the Process posts. We hope also that the Solitude comes to an end, as well. Too much idle time makes Jack a dull boy, as they say.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2020 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.