A Wylde Sale Appears Yonder!

The Kindle edition of Rosaria of Venice, Book One of The Renaissance of Rosaria Adalberto, is on sale for the holidays!

In the year 1491, during a steam-powered Renaissance, Rosaria Adalberto seeks a theory of electromagnetism—but finds conspiracy and intrigue instead.

The Kindle ebook will sell for 99¢ on Christmas Day only, and $1.99 every day thereafter until the New Year.

If you have yet to experience the Steampunk Renaissance, this is your chance. Buy the Kindle ebook today!

Friday Fiction – Excerpt from Rosaria of Venice

This weekend, I will be shooting part of the Kickstarter video for my novel, Rosaria of Venice. With that on my mind, I thought I would share an excerpt from the opening with you today. You may read it here.

As I am still revising the novel, I'm very interested in hearing feedback anyone might have on this chapter. In any case, I hope you enjoy the read!

The Devil in the Details: How Contact with the Americas Affected World Cuisine

Historical fiction—even alternate history—poses a unique challenge to authors: the ordinary circumstances of the past are not those of the present. In writing my novel, I came to a scene where the protagonist jury-rigs a primitive battery. This being 15^th century Italy, this is a fairly impressive feat. I was ready to detail how she affixes wires to a potato and exploits this household root to produce a current.

Then I stopped. I had forgotten one important fact: there were no potatoes in 15^th century Italy.

This Week on Runicfire: April 1 - 7

I hate doing anything important around the first of April. It always makes me feel silly. But with that aside, here's this week's schedule.

Monday's links cover a little more on the propaganda model of mass media, the Fermi paradox (or why we haven't made contact with aliens yet), and the history of food.

Wednesday continues the food discussion as I explore how contact with the Americas altered Western cuisine, and Italian food in particular.

And Friday, I have some more fiction to share with you.

Be well, and please stay tuned!

The Care and Feeding of Ugly Duckling Drafts

Many writers talk about “Shitty First Drafts,” to use the term coined by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird. These are your horrific first attempts at your story. They’re hairy with adjectives, and stumble about on improperly placed limbs. I like to call them “ugly duckling” drafts because, despite their deformity, they are merely good works in their infancy.

I used to believe I did not write these. In recent times, I have discovered the extent of my error. Here are five lessons I learned on how to bring ugly duckling drafts to maturity, which may be of use to you as well:

1. Write action, trim description. Action is the currency of your story. Your readers may forget your paragraphs of prose poetry on an ancient horn’s carvings. They will remember what your characters did—because that is the story. Description works best riding on the trail of action, so marble your action and description like meat and fat in a good steak.
2.   If you must describe at length, make it sound like action. Writing figuratively allows you to make things incapable of action come alive. We already say that vines coil and patterns flow, so let your imagination play with the possibilities. Start by turning gerunds back into verbs: "His steep forehead sloped into a thick brow," instead of "He had a steeply sloping forehead and a thick brow."
3. Give your characters something to do. Even bit characters should make themselves of use. This goes double for characters who usher us into the story. The first draft of my novel-in-progress opened with a beleaguered priest waiting in the rain. He waited for three-quarters of a page. When I showed the passage to an editor, the opening failed to capture her attention. She recommended that I give him something to do. I followed her advice, and his plight became far more interesting. Conflict drives stories, and conflict dies when characters do nothing.
4. “Omit Needless Words.” E.B. White said it best.
5. Weed out the cliches. Avoiding trite phrases and tropes is difficult on your first draft. But second and third drafts grant you the benefit of hindsight. Now is the time to chuck those old chestnuts and try something more lively. If you feel your story requires a scene that would be considered cliche, ask yourself aspects of that approach are important. Then find another scenario that fulfills those requirements. If you cannot, then cut everything not essential to the task.

Nothing is novel about these suggestions. I suspect that ninety percent of what we know about the craft of writing is old news. The remaining ten percent is unique to every writer, and we must each discover that for ourselves.