Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 7 Comments

Dilemmas

I have a question for you, dear followers. How do you deal with a scene you think will most probably be annoying, if not outright offensive, to your readers?

Here’s my conundrum: The first draft of the chapter I’m editing at the moment, has a scene which I think is too much. By too much I mean too shocking. The scene showed (shows?) a mother with an infant child die to their shadows. In case anyone has forgotten, in the world of The Darkening, the shadows humans make come to life and kill their owners, in a rather gruesome way.

Originally (around last September I think), I had written the scene in a very descriptive way through the eyes of my main character. For both the mother and the infant. Mind you, by ‘descriptive’ I don’t mean graphic. ‘Detailed’ is probably a better word. By the end of it, I realised it bothered me. Because of the baby. Because of what a mother represents. Because of how shocked, whoever the reader, would be. So, I broke my rule about not editing until after the draft was ready, and rewrote part of it. In that new version, I kept the description of the mother’s death, but I intentionally brushed over that of the infant’s. I was still torn between what my main character would actually see (the full detailed version), and what, in a loose way, was politically correct (meaning the censored version).

Several months later, it was time to edit the same chapter this past week, and while rewriting the scene (I’ve rewritten everything, hence the delay in finishing), I decided that even the censored version was too much. Again because of what a mother represents in our culture, in our societies. So I brushed over the deaths completely, and forced my main character, who originally watched the events, to only hear them die instead of seeing them. Now I’m really not satisfied. Usually, the answer to such a dilemma, for me at least, is rewrite everything, choose a different path. BUT! That scene was there to make a point to the reader about the intentions of another character (their deaths are not accidental, someone did it on purpose, you see). I have no doubt the effect will be identical whichever way I write it; the reader will want to actually hurt the bad guys. It’s just that I’m not satisfied. And I know I have to write the story from the point of view not only of the main character’s, but through the lense of a dead world, where no moral values exist. It’s a post apocalypse story after all. I also have to take into account what drives the bad guy to do what he does. The bad guy has reasons for doing what he does, even though it involves something so brutal. But is that a sufficient enough excuse to be descriptive about something that can be shown in a different, less blunt way?

In the beginning of this post, I wrote “how do you deal with a scene you think will most probably be annoying.” This dilemma may very well be in my mind, and not an real problem at all. I’d like to know, however, if you ever had to make such a decision with a scene in your stories. What was your choice based on, and how did you cope with the (probable) outrage of your readers, be it betas, agents, or anyone else?

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 3 Comments

The importance of literary magazines

Ten or so days ago, I submitted a sci-fi cyberpunk short story (damn, that phrase has a lot of S sounds in it) to a professional magazine named Sci Phi Journal. I’ll be honest with you, I really like this story. I like all my stories, they’re like my babies, but this one had something that really clicked with me. Perhaps because of the philosophical implications that most dystopian/post apocalyptic stories have on me. For the record (and this is the hook of the story), it’s the story of a small time crook, who tries to survive in any way possible, in a world where time is the only available commodity and everyone lives to work. Basically, each person is implanted with a timer that shows how much time they have left. Once it goes to zero…

Anyway, at the bottom of said magazine’s submission guidelines, the publisher requests potential contributors to talk about the magazine. The reason for that is there’s no way for the magazine to continue exist and pay professional rates, unless people know the magazine and buy it. And that’s true for every magazine. So, it got me thinking.

Now, there are thousands of magazines out there, most of them short-lived. Which is sad. In fact, one of the magazines I got published is now permanently closed (although in their guidelines they say they are on a hiatus). Which saddened me even more. I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty in some way. Maybe if I had advertised my work more, maybe if I had done this, if I had done the other, and so on. Bottomline, it’s just sad. I understand it’s how the market works, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

So, I was thinking, what would happen if all magazines were to go bust. In a few words as possible, there would be no more places for publication for us aspiring authors. That in turn means, that fewer people would have the chance to perfect their craft, which in turn could either lead to fewer people going after their dream, or that the big traditional book publishers will end up with a slush pile of lower quality. And that will lead to either fewer published books or of poorer quality (assuming they lower their standards to continue publishing a certain book number per year). For some of us (and I include myself in this category), these publishing credits may be the only ones we’ll ever get to see. Quite frankly, I like seeing the byline with my name, don’t you? It’s not a matter of vanity or cockiness. It’s a reward for our efforts on its own, even if we submit our work to a non paying market.

So, I believe it’s important to support magazines (the small ones more than the bigger ones), and through that, the aspiring authors.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 4 Comments

Inspiration prompt 11

What do you think a person, who spends most of his or her time at a place like the one in the picture, gets to see each day? Weird or normal things? What kind of man do you think he is? How would the voice of said man change the style of the story? Is he a bitter man, annoyed by the indifferent and sometimes hard faces that go by him? Or is he a philosopher? Does he do what he does because he chose it or because he was forced? The way the character forms in my mind (and so far I only have the character in my head. A place like the subway – or any train platform or airport – will have more than just one story to tell), is that of an observer, one who tells stories, and accompanies them with his music, whenever he needs to emphasise something from the story.

What about you?

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

The past 10 days or so

The past ten days or so have been a nightmare, with regards to writing.

Remember my post from a few weeks back when I said I had to delete a plot arc that stretched for 25 or so chapters? I thought once I rewrote these 25 chapters (keep in mind please that my editing process involves rewriting the draft in the first place, so that would be rewrite #2), every piece of the puzzle (for the sake of argument let’s call the puzzle, STORY) would fall into place. And it did. Up to a certain point.

The particular arc I had to remove, however, extended like a ripple in a calm pond. It occurred to me about ten nights ago (once again, just as I was about to fall asleep) that since that arc was out of the way, a certain character’s importance lost its value. Said character was supposed to be the big bad guy (in the original draft that evil character fooled the MC, and lead him right into the wolves’ den). Allow me to clarify something here: the adversary in my story was never that person. The enemy was my main character’s attitude and perception (spawned partly but not limited to his madness – another reason I had to shift the voice and style to more “literary” with more inner thoughts), and the environment which kills humans (the Darkening is a post apocalyptic story, in case you forgot). So the big bad guy was originally there to take my main character to the last location the story would unfold, and all the unresolved plot arcs would come to an end. He served shall we say, as a bridge. Lo and behold, said bridge was also part of the plot arc I wanted to remove. Which made the big bad guy’s existence rather unimportant.

In my attempt to guide my characters from one location to another, I had come up with a weak solution (don’t worry, I paid for it), instead of choosing the most obvious option, though not necessarily the one the MC wanted to take. It was there in front of me the whole time, and all I did was run away from it! DOH!

But I did mention of ripple effects, yes? And that is none other than the big bad guy’s presence. He is no longer needed. He no longer serves as a bridge to take the MC from location A to location B, he no longer deceives the MC of his role. Now all he has to do is just be at location B and be the bad guy, who has his reasons for being the bad guy (if he didn’t, he’d be a very flat character, and we don’t want that, do we?).

So the question I’ve been trying to answer is whether or not I should delete him altogether and how am I going to change the rest of the story. Can the bad guy (who, as I said is NOT the main adversary) have a reason to exist in a story, where he’s introduced in the third act, with such a small role to play, yes or no? To remove him completely would probably mean I would have to change the entire story and plot, which means delete the whole thing. At least that’s what I think. For the past ten days I’ve been trying to come up with patches that would fill in the plot holes the deletion of that one minor plot arc created.

I won’t lie to you, I was on the verge of mental breakdown. I even thought about giving up completely. Add this to a series of rejections for some of my short stories that knocked on my door (or rather came through email) and I certainly did not want to see, and you can understand why I doubted my ability to write.  Even when I step back from the story I still can’t see how it will work in the long run. I don’t want to have a story full of plot holes.

Despite all this, I think (and I stress the word think) I managed to patch things up. The problem is I won’t know until I finish everything and give it to someone else more experienced than me to read it. If I had a kingdom, I’d shout “my kingdom for an affordable developmental editor!” Preferably one that offers free patience lessons along with the feedback. Alas, I don’t.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

One year anniversary and Inspiration prompt 10

It’s been a year since I started this blog, and 150 of you have followed me and my weekly ramblings. Thank you all for the support and the advice you have offered!

For the past two years, when I decided to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keys), I feel like I’ve stepped through the threshold of another world. A nice world, not without difficulties and disappointments, but certainly with a lot of fun.

I think the following image relates to that. It reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could enter different realities or worlds by just opening doors and stepping through them?