Lessons Gleaned from Ken Follett's Jackdaws by Wil Hough
Published by The Penguin Group
ISBN: 0-525-94628-4
The strength of a Ken Follett espionage novel goes far beyond the elements of plot. Breathing in this one in particular reminded me of the importance of character development as the prime engine in plot movement. Too often authors focus on the super-heroic exploits of their protagonists. Even when antagonistic elements are introduced, they are set up as evil or stupid straw men for the heroes to simply knock down – YAWN. Or, often worse, the author spends way too much time developing a “family history” of every character involved in the hefty tome. This, thankfully, is not the case with Follett's well-balanced, three-ring circus of performers.
The plot of Jackdaws is simple enough. It’s a week before the D-Day invasion of NAZI occupied France. The French Underground has failed in its attempt to destroy the main telephone exchange used by the German forces. This exchange is vital to coordinating the ability of German forces, under the direction of Field Marshall Edwin Rommel, to react to and stave off the invasion of the Allied Forces. A new plan, making use of an all female team of espionage agents, is conceived. At the head of this team, code named “Jackdaws,” is Felicity “Flick” Claret. “Leopardess,” as she is known to The French Resistance, is to lead her team, disguised as a cleaning crew, into the fortified site which is also the local headquarters of the Gestapo. As a result, all “the girls” have to be fluent in French, able to jump out of an airplane, and possess specific talents such as an understanding of demolitions, telephone exchanges, or weaponry and the willingness to use them. Finding and putting together these indelicate females produces quite the motley crew to say the least.
Unbeknownst to Leopardess, former German police detective, Major Dieter Franck, has infiltrated the local Resistance cell. In charge of protecting Field Marshall Rommel’s communications infer-structure from attack, he has set a trap for her. Her capture and torture on the very eve of the D-Day invasion could lead him to other elements of the French Resistance. It is Follett’s development of his two combatants as they repeatedly act and react that creates such an intriguing battle of wits. Amazingly, Follett so develops the character of Dieter Franck that the reader cannot help but become sympathetic to his plight as he battles for his own sense of “rightness” against not only the British invaders but also against the Gestapo and its ham-handed local head Captain Weber.
As any effective antagonist should be, Major Franck is a mix of good and evil. On the one side, the Major is a master of torture with a keen insight into what will quickly break the will of his subjects. On the other hand, he hates the process of dehumanizing his victims and does so only because he truly believes in the righteousness of his cause; a chilling warning to the best of us. Despite my feelings on the matter, I found myself identifying more with Dieter Franck than with the cold-blooded hero of the story, Felicity Claret.
Felicity has her good and bad points as well. She is a passionate individual, diminutive in physical stature but huge in her resolute determination to accomplish her task despite interference from her superiors in MI6, the British Secret Service, and anything the Germans might throw at her. However, as the most accomplished British agent working with the French Resistance, she has not earned her reputation as the Leopardess without developing a cold-blooded attitude. Nor is she above applying the coup d’ grace to the head of a helpless collaborator, whether it be male or female. That we can easily surmise her mission will succeed is a foregone conclusion. However, it is the intricate dance of tactics between Major Franck and Felicity that makes the book hard to put down before its scintillating conclusion is reached. Studying how Follett balances the characteristics of these two antagonists and their supporting cast is something from which any author can learn.
Wil Hough is Poetry Editor and Graphics Editor for Rose & Thorn Journal. He earns his living as an artist/writer who lives and reads in the environs north of Chicago, Illinois.
Interview with Laura Martone by Angie Ledbetter
R&T: What has your writing journey been like so far?
LM: It's been a bumpy journey, to say the least. I grew up an only child, surrounded by books and movies, so literature and cinema fascinated me at an early age. I enjoyed both writing and filmmaking in high school - even won a few writing awards and attended a radio/TV/film program at Northwestern University between my junior and senior years. By the time I was ready for college, I knew I wanted to focus on three kinds of writing: fiction, screenwriting, and travel journalism. So I returned to Northwestern for two undergraduate degrees—a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Radio/TV/Film. While there, I was accepted into two two-year writing programs: The Theory and Practice of Fiction and Creative Writing in the Media. That was my first foray into critique groups, and boy, those college kids were harsh.
I landed a technical writing job (ick!) at a now-defunct educational multimedia company near Chicago, and I wrote a few online articles for Sidewalk Chicago (the precursor to Citysearch). Although my technical writing job was somewhat awful, I did meet my future husband there. Soon afterward, we both quit our jobs and moved to England, where I started (but didn't finish) a novel. When we returned to Chicago, we both found lucrative marketing jobs at the kind of Internet start-ups that tempted us to work long hours in exchange for beanbag chairs, free bagels and ice cream, and pool tables. Not long afterward, we both decided we'd had enough of the corporate life, so we sold all our furniture and hit the road in an RV, our kitty in tow.
I wrote an online ecotourism column for The Ecotourism Observer and sent queries to travel magazines. My first magazine article was a piece about South Padre Island, Texas, in MotorHome magazine. After writing a few more articles (for MotorHome, RV Journal, and Route 66 Magazine), I started updating travel guides for Insight Guides. Eventually, I started working for Avalon Travel until I finally had the chance to write my own guide. Since then, I've written the first edition of Moon Baja RV Camping and the third edition of Moon Michigan, joined the Society of American Travel Writers, and started work on the first edition of Moon Florida Keys.
When I'm not doing the travel thing, keeping up with my blogs, beta-reading my friends' novels, or helping my husband with our two film festivals, I try to squeeze in time to work on my current novel - which is technically my second one (the first being the one I started in England). After working on it, I finally thought it was ready for the querying stage this past spring, but the invaluable beta-reading process taught me otherwise. So as soon as I've finished my latest travel guide, I'll be hard at work on the revision. In the meantime, I'll keep learning what I can from the ever-informative blogosphere.
R&T: How far along on the WIP trail are you, what's it about, and what comes next?
LM: My work-in-progress is actually done, but it's way too long at the moment. So I'm in the midst of the revision process. During the summer, I summoned the aid of several different beta readers to help me see what I clearly cannot…which characters, scenes, and other tidbits are simply not necessary.
The WIP is tentatively called Hollow Souls. The premise is pretty simple: A woman longs to return to her childhood home, a secret underground village in southern Kentucky, where her first love lives, but she's reluctant to abandon her husband and daughters back in New Orleans.
Once I'm finished with what I hope will be the final revision of Hollow Souls, I plan to query potential agents. And while I'm querying, I intend to work on my second novel, the coming-of-age, road-trip tale titled Red Road Crossing that I started in England.
R&T: Do you find it hard to build your blog and author platform while writing and thinking about the next step -- querying?
LM: Most writers have to juggle multiple tasks these days. Besides family, friends, hobbies, perhaps a day job, maybe even classes, and of course, the works-in-progress, there's now the added pressure of building an author platform before, during, and after a book is published. Like others I know, I definitely find it challenging to squeeze so much into a single day. For several years, I locked myself away (so to speak) and focused on my fiction writing - when I wasn't working a full-time job or spending quality time with the hubby. Earlier this year, I finally decided to come out of hiding and explore the big, bad world of publishing—and goodness, I was in for a shock. Although I'd already created a temporary website for my novel, I had yet to take the blogging plunge. Now, however, in addition to my "real" work as a travel guidebook author and film festival co-director, I'm juggling four blogs - one about my novel, one about travel, one that gets the creative juices flowing, and one about all of that and more.
Here's the funny part, though: I haven't found it hard to build my blog and author platform while writing and querying. I've found it hard to write and query while I'm building my blog and author platform. In other words, I'm having so much fun blogging that I'm finding it difficult to work on my revision - which is obviously a necessary step before querying. I've found the blogosphere incredibly rewarding. I've met so many wonderfully generous writers—some of whom have even been willing to help me with my novel—and I've learned so much about the craft of writing and the state of publishing. I know that I'll soon have to minimize my blogging activity—a fact that honestly makes me a little sad.
R&T: Tell us what it's like living in THREE different states!
LM: Yes, it's true. The hubby and I have trouble keeping still for long. After we left Chicago in an RV, we roamed around the country for about a year before settling down in Los Angeles, where we run the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. But after about five years, we grew a little weary of the southern California vibe and decided to hit the road again. So for the past four years, we've divided our time between New Orleans (my hometown and site of our other film fest), where we spend the spring and fall; Los Angeles, where we spend the winter; and northern Michigan, where we spend the summer.
Obviously, we avoid extreme heat and extreme cold by traveling this way and getting to know three distinct places has definitely helped with my travel writing career. Of course, we appreciate the uniqueness of each locale, but part of why we travel so often is that neither of us has found the perfect place yet. We both like the vitality of urban areas like New Orleans and the peace of isolated rural areas like northern Michigan, so our current nomadic existence fulfills us in a way that staying in one spot wouldn't. When we tire of the city, we move on to the country, and when the quiet begins to drive us mad, we return to the people (and the traffic) of the city.
It's certainly not the life for everyone, but it works for us. It would be a different situation if we had children—which we don't. And luckily, our kitty doesn't mind traveling around the country with us. Honestly, the only drawback is the frequent packing (and unpacking). That part I could do without.
R&T: What's the best pieces of writing and blogging advice you've gotten?
LM: Wow. This is probably the hardest question. Since April, when I first entered the blogosphere and discovered how helpful blogs and beta readers could be, I've learned so many wonderful tips for writing, revising, and blogging. Some bloggers, in particular, have been most helpful, namely Nathan Bransford (who provides invaluable information about agents and publishing in general) and Susan Mills (who helps to navigate her fellow writers through the ins and outs of writing, revising, and preparing for the professionals).
But perhaps the best pieces of advice I've received have come from my beta readers. Regarding writing, all of them are in agreement that I need to scale back on descriptions, let the reader's imagination fill in the details, and start "showing" what I keep trying to "tell" so that readers live, feel, and think through my characters, instead of just being told what they're experiencing. It might sound like obvious advice to most writers, but for me, it's been a hard lesson to learn. After all, one of my favorite authors is Charles Dickens, and he was definitely a "tell versus show" kind of guy.
Weronika Janczuk, one of my beta readers, has offered a treasure trove of information over the past several months from hints about book covers to tips for getting the most out of beta-reading. In a three-part series entitled "A Blogger's Life," she offered some invaluable advice about improving the look of one's blog by doing things like adding photos and breaking up the content—advice that definitely informs one of my own blogs.
R&T: Do you write in any other genres?
LM: At the moment, literary/mainstream fiction seems to come most naturally to me, but I once sold an erotic short story and a horror screenplay that I co-wrote with my husband, and I intend to complete my horror, mystery, and fantasy WIPs in the future. I must admit, too, that I've always wanted to write Westerns. I think it's the rugged landscape that inspires me most.
R&T: Fill in the blank: "I wish I'd have known __________ before I started seriously working on my novel."
LM: This might sound a little too simplistic, but I wish I would've known the acceptable word count ranges for a debut novel before I started seriously working on Hollow Souls, which is currently way too long for most agents and publishers. When you've written, revised, proofread, and repeated said process more times than is sane—and found it harder to see the story clearly each time—that's when beta readers and their varying perspectives become invaluable. Without them, I'd have found it difficult to attempt yet another revision—no matter how necessary it is.
R&T: Tell me something about yourself or your writing life that I didn't know to ask.
LM: Well, when I was little, I was obsessed with knives, collected them every chance I got. I never used them, mind you, I just found them amazing. Even my high school boyfriend participated in the mania, giving me several knives over the years. Of course, this was also the boyfriend who let me play with his pet tarantula, scorpion, iguana, and pythons.
As for my writing life, well, music inspires me when I write, but for the most part, I can only listen to classical music and movie scores—nothing with lyrics, which only confuse me while I'm writing. Strangely enough, though, I can listen to Willie Nelson and Tracy Chapman, neither of whom disturbs the flow of my writing. I'm still not sure why their music resonates with me and doesn't interfere with my creative energy, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
Thanks for interviewing me, Angie. I enjoy gabbing with a fellow Louisianian!
You can read more of Laura’s work at the following sites:
lauramartone.blogspot.com
rubyhollow.com
moon.com/blogs/american-nomad
comeincharacter.blogspot.com
beverlyhillsshortsfestival.com
bigeasyfilmfestivals.com
Angie Ledbetter is Co-Editor and Publisher and Prose Editor at Rose & Thorn Journal.
Self Publishing, Amazon Encore, and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award by Yu-Han Chao
For the past decade new writers with a completed manuscript have debated whether to a) self-publish or b) go through the process of querying agents or publishers and/or add their manuscripts to slumbering slush piles. Self-publishing is quick and easy but requires the author to invest his/her own time and money to market the book (if at all), whereas blind querying and submitting may land the manuscript an agent and/or established publisher, but the process can take decades. The deus ex machina that solves this dilemma comes in a most unexpected incarnation: Amazon.com.
Amazon Encore is a new program that selects previously self-published or unpublished books that Amazon perceives as having potential and (re)introduces in print and Kindle format (some in audio format also), fully supported by Amazon’s existing marketing channels. So far, Amazon Encore has chosen ten books, all due out by April 2010. The list includes previously self-published titles, young adult fiction, women’s fiction, multicultural literature, LGBT, crime/detective, romance—there’s a book on the list for any reader. Have a look at Amazon.com.
According to Amazon, customer reviews and other information help them discover new titles, and another way for writers to get Amazon to read their manuscript is to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA), which is open to self-published books as well as unpublished manuscripts. Each year one winner (though this year there will be two) receives a publishing contract from a shiny press (e.g. Penguin), but last year four entrants who did not win received good news: Amazon’s brand new program, Amazon Encore, wanted to sign a publishing contract with them, too!
Who do you want to publish and market your book, Amazon.com, or Indie Press #251? We love and try to support our beloved and noble indie presses, but many a writer will likely choose Amazon. After all, Amazon is famous! Amazon was one of the first to recommend purchases for customers and display advertisements based on customers’ purchase histories—even the money-burning, publicist-hiring big presses cannot beat Amazon when it comes to marketing power and existing customer base.
So, maybe you can have your cake (publish your ten-years-of-sweat-and-tears-in-the-making novel instantly) and eat it, too (still get a fat contract later on with Amazon and have your book re-released with a shiny cover and dazzling marketing plan.) This year’s ABNA is already in progress; quarterfinalists will be announced March 23rd (Did I forget to mention that you get a FREE Publisher’s Weekly review just for being one of the 500 quarterfinalists?), Amazon customers will vote on the six finalists beginning May 25th, and the two winners (one for general fiction, one for young adult fiction) will receive their much coveted Penguin contracts by June 14th, 2010. Self-published and unpublished writers, why not polish up your manuscript and prepare to enter the ABNA next year?
Yu-Han Chao is Poetry Editor at the Rose & Thorn Journal. Her poetry book, We Grow Old, was published by the Backwaters Press. Visit her writing and artwork at her Web site.
Personification in Prose by Nannette Croce
Personification is a device we most often associate with poetry. It means assigning human characteristics to nonhumans or inanimate objects, as in the classic, and probably overused example of Joyce Kilmer's Trees.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts its leafy arms to pray
Here, Kilmer poetically describes the tree and the earth as having the physical attributes of a person––mouth, breast, eyes (looks), and arms.
Those of you who follow my zine writer blog zinewriter.blogspot.com/ know that I have been revisiting the classics through audiobooks on my iPod. Listening recently to Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge had me thinking of ways to employ personification in my own prose. (BTW, there are some things I do love about Google Books). In this scene, Michael Henchard (the Mayor) has suspicions that Lucetta, the woman he is courting as his second wife, has fallen in love with someone else.
"Her windows gleamed as if they did not want him; her curtains seemed to hang slily, as if they screened an ousting presence."
Those lines blew me away, not just for the use of personification, but for the unusual way it is used. In this case, the personification doesn't enhance the description of the object. I can't imagine what a "sly" curtain might look like. What the personification does here is give us insights into the viewer's suspicious state of mind and his personality (sensitive to the smallest slight).
More often, but just as effectively, personification attributes a physical action to an inanimate object, like this line from John Steinbeck's story "Flight."
"The farm buildings huddled like the clinging aphids on the mountain skirts, crouched low to the ground as though the wind might blow them into the sea."
In the real world, windows do gleam and curtains do hang, but buildings don't "huddle" and "crouch." The use of personification here does more than describe the buildings themselves. With just a few words, Steinbeck broadens his description to include the location––the seacoast at the foot of a mountain––and the weather––so windy it could blow the buildings into the sea. Without personification, that description might have taken an entire paragraph.
Personification also serves to make descriptions––well––more poetic. No surprise Will Shakespeare employed it.
"Come gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night." [Romeo and Juliet]
That language, where the character addresses the object or time of day, is probably a little over-the-top for modern fiction, even very literary fiction, but poetic personification can still work well. For example, "The black brow of night enveloped the orchard."
When we think about adding depth to our writing, we usually focus on sensual details and descriptive settings. Things like weather can also add mood. Personification is another way to round out descriptions or tell more about the characters.
Nannette Croce is Prose Editor for Rose & Thorn Journal.
Why Traditional Forms Still Matter by C.L. Toups
As a free verse poet, traditional forms have always intimidated me. I often thought the practice was best left to those bearded, dead poets who’d spent enough centuries perfecting the art. Their legacy didn’t need any contributions from my own shaky pen. Plus, there was always the angst I felt that traditional forms would constrain my creativity. I admit it was an unfair prejudice; one I had to reassess this past January at the Key West Literary Seminar.
This year the seminar honored former Poet Laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Wilbur. Despite criticisms that Wilbur’s metrical poise renders his themes complacent and, at times, out of sync with contemporary poetic concerns, it was clear in Key West that many regard him as one of the most skilled craftsman of traditional verse in modern poetry, one whose work consistently underscores the value of composure over chaos in expression.
For Wilbur, the conventional is organic. During one panel discussion, he remarked, “Form in good poetry is meant to be violated and complied with. You break the rules for expressive reasons.” Of course, to break the rules you must know them. The most experienced artists will tell you that one of the best ways to establish originality of voice or style is to study those that went before, draw from their influence, and meld the nuances into an attitude that is recognized as your own. This is the challenge of poetic tradition: how to honor echoes of the past by assimilating them into unique expressions of the present.
Traditional forms are the foundational tools that make it possible for us to create. As one seminar panelist explained, “To do away with [them] is like saying, ‘I want to build a house, but I’m held up with all these nails and wood.” Even when current literary fashion dissuades the use of traditional forms, their elements still subconsciously pervade our poetic choices, namely in how we arrange words for aural effect, break lines to establish rhythm and pacing, and order stanzas for meaning and coherence. Could we not consider these decisions a type of form or pattern for free verse? An echo from the past?
Traditional forms and free verse need not be mutually exclusive. Rather they should be explored in tandem. Take the sonnet, for example, one of the most durable poetic forms. From Petrarch to Shakespeare, Spenser to Hopkins, Yeats to Auden, Heaney to Muldoon, the sonnet’s conventions have proven themselves pliable, both in form and content, and continue to intrigue the modern poet. They invite emulation and encourage adaptation, whether through the alteration of rhyme patterns or total lack of them, the variation of stanza length, or the introduction of sequences such as the crown of sonnets or the sonnet redoublé. One aspect of the sonnet that translates seamlessly into free verse is the turn. That unexpected moment of revelation when an observation or argument is amplified or even refuted, brought to some unanticipated conclusion. This is poetry’s DNA carried through the generations.
Knowing that certain forms can actually enhance a poem by giving it a framework against which to test the content’s durability should make us appreciate the wisdom of craft that they offer. And oddly enough, I now see how these same forms can liberate the creative process by prodding me to consider themes, rhythm patterns, metaphor construction, and stanza effects from new and different angles. Perhaps Wilbur sums it up best in a 1999 interview with Peter Davison for The Atlantic Monthly online:
I must say that I never think of form as directing. I don't think of the form itself as making any demands. In this I suppose I'm very close to being a free-verse poet. I think of the form as something that you choose because what you want to say is going to be able to take advantage of it . . . .Every form I think has a certain logic, has certain expressive capabilities. . . if one chooses form rightly, one is not submitting to the demands of the form but making use of it at every moment.
C.L. Toups is Managing Editor and Senior Poetry Editor of Rose & Thorn Journal.
Book Review: Balzac of the Badlands by Steve Finbow
Balzac of the
by Steve Finbow
Future Fiction
ISBN: 978-0578021164
Reviewed by Yu-Han Chao
If there was a bookshelf in your local bookstore labeled “literary thrillers,” a few copies of Balzac of the Badlands would reside there. Somehow art-for-art’s-sake and a plot-driven page-turner at the same time, Steve Finbow’s debut novel brings together elements that do not usually share the same page: postmodern prose, a gripping mystery plot, love scenes where you can feel every stubble and touch, gangs, militants, detectives, drug smugglers, human smugglers, you name it, it’s all in there.
Balthazar Zachariah, in search of a client’s missing daughter, brings readers on a Ulysses-style tour across
Whether his scenes are of kidnapping, torture, lovemaking, or landscape, Finbow maintains his lilting, vivid style in every sentence.
I hear gunshots. One loud and one less distinct. A crack. Then a muffled pop. Everything slows down. The darkness ripples. Corrugated. The leaves, fleshy, green and incarnate. Waves. Waves. Something flies through the trees, the papery beat of its wings heavy, getting heavier, slowing, faltering. (204-205)
The violence somehow seems less violent and more beautiful, filtered through such poetic descriptions, though when Finbow dedicates entire paragraphs to sights and colors of the landscape, he also manages to foreshadow the violence ahead with such clarity the reader can practically hear the “death knells” from bluebells and the explosions of petals and pollen:
A row of cannabis plants yields in their wake, trodden down by impatient feet, strangely human in colour. Nor does the tide spare local flora. Oxeye daisies trampled in its onslaught. The purple leaves of Devil’s-bit scabious torn and scattered. Willow-herbs rock on their skinny stems. Fleabanes burst like burning novas, their small sun heads exploding in bursts of pale pink petals, golden-yellow pollen. Bluebells ring out their own death knells, falling to the ground in heavy drops of chalk-blue and steel-lilac. (171-172)
It’s a pleasure to read such short yet descriptive sentences. It’s also reassuring, almost moving, to remember that they were written by a contemporary writer. Nabokov, Joyce, Ginsberg and Angela Carter have all passed on and become canonized, but the musicality of their style and their colorful use of words have not been buried with them. In fact, Steve Finbow himself once worked for Allen Ginsberg, something that may not surprise readers of Balzac of the Badlands.
But you must read the book for yourself—no mere summary of plot or ten-sentence excerpts will do the book justice. The traditional genres of literary or mainstream converge here and gives us aspiring writers and avid readers hope—that a beautifully written book of prose can at the same time be plot-driven and marketable in content.
Steve Finbow's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, and on literary websites. In the late 1980's, he worked for the poet Allen Ginsberg. He is an Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at
Yu-Han Chao is Poetry Editor at the Rose & Thorn Journal. Her poetry book, We Grow Old, was published by the Backwaters Press. Visit her writing and artwork at her Web site.
The Yin and Yang of Words by Wil Hough
As I was finishing The Sword of the Lady, S. M. Stirling's latest novel of his triple trilogy "The Change" wherein human civilization has been drastically altered by a supernatural annulment of the laws of thermodynamics, I experienced a further revelation in the paradox of interpersonal communication. It occurred at the culmination of the hero's quest for a divinely crafted sword as he is visited by Deity in the form of three women: youthful, matronly, and aged. When Rudi asks why they have summoned him, he is told, "You are here to understand... a little. We have to come towards you in forms you can grasp so that we can talk at all, but that limits Us." Here, we begin to get at the crux of Rudi's problem, and ours, as writers who rely on words to translate our descriptive visions to the reader.
How could a parent tell its entire mind to a child, or a god explain the divine plan to mere mortals? When the Diety attempt to explain to Rudi what it will take to get the electricity turned back on, he is more confused than ever. Things are both true and untrue at the same time. Beings are both singular and plural, as well. Is the godhead one? Or many? Or both? From their words, Rudi can visiualize nothing but a black and disorderly universe. He asks if it is truth. "Yes. No," he is told. Ah, words. With each one being a private metaphor all of its own, it is amazing anyone can understand anyone else at all.
The mother figure of Diety smiles sympathetically as she denies Rudi certainty, and the blond maiden points out the obvious issue, "It is so hard to say this in words."
The aged one tries to further explain their vision of the future, finishing with, "That is us, including you, many times removed. More than you can imagine. More than we can say in words."
"You keep saying that," Rudi states in frustration, "but you speak in words nonetheless. And it's more ignorant I am afterwards than ever I was before."
This is the yin and yang of words. It reveals the drawbacks of exposition as opposed to poetic expression, where the power of poetry can overcome the weakness of essay. "Then see!" Rudi is told as each new vision is meant to lead him towards ultimate understanding. But, we the readers do not experience the same visions. Or do we? Here is where Stirling skillfully combines exposition and poetic expression to paint Rudi's visions with... words. The very same tools that could not take the author's protagonist into understanding, transport us into his vision so that we can stand behind Rudi's eyes and SEE what he is experiencing with all his senses.
I was captivated by this experience. S. M. Stirling has proved himself to be a master wordsmith, and reading his work provides a good apprenticeship to any writer looking to improve his or her own understanding of the descriptive possibilities of craft. Indeed, though it might take a thousand words to paint the picture, the end product will be well worth it. It's motivated me to get busy with my own writing again.
Now, if Stirling would only get the next book in his fabulous series finished and out to us...
Wil Hough, a senior contributing author for Rose & Thorn Journal for which he also serves as Poetry Editor and Graphics Manager, is a grandfather still earning his living as a faux finishing artist and painter.
Confounding Evil Designs by Wil Hough
Imagine what would happen if electricity no longer flowed, if gasses no longer expanded with explosive force, if all the marvels of modern life suddenly ceased to function. Just consider what would occur in the cities alone! Beginning with Dies the Fire, that is the milieu created in the first three volumes of S. M. Stirlings series of “the change.” The heavenly powers have grown weary of Mankind’s destructive behavior. Part of the heavenly mind-set looks for a way to chastise and instruct its wayward children while another simply wants to do away with humanity altogether. A “timeout” is instituted while the Godhead argues with itself over what to do. The population of the earth is literally decimated by disease and starvation. The handful able to adapt is returned to the days of sails, sweat, and swords.
The lesson of evil acts confounding evil designs comes into focus in the second act of what appears to be planned as a triple trilogy. Society has adapted. Thirty years have passed. A new generation scattered about sparsely populated areas of the continent considers tales of the “old world” as so much mythology. However, as they begin to reach out to one another, they come in contact with a demon led cult known as the Church Universal Triumphant, or CUT. These crazed survivors of the cataclysm have been promised glory in the next higher existence if they help obliterate all mankind in this.
The head CUT Seeker continually laments Rudi’s knack of winning friends. As annoying as this is to him, he never seems to “get it.” The heavy-handed tactics employed by the CUT continually work against them. Even the new American Indian Nation, put off by CUT activities, adopt and abet the little band when they are most in need of “tribal brotherhood.”
Once they reach Des Moines, Rudi finds his progress arrested by the power-mad Governor of the Provisional Republic of Iowa. But, once again the CUT, led by their demonically possessed Seeker, trip themselves up. The Seeker grows impatient with waiting for the Governor to release Rudi to his custody. When he takes matters into his own hands, the reigning Governor and his security chief are accidentally killed. A power shift takes place with a new governor sympathetic to Rudi taking office. Beyond allowing Rudi’s quest to continue on, this new administration leads Iowa, the strongest single pocket of survivors, into a solid alliance against the CUT.
In the Kickapoo Valley of Southeastern Wisconsin, Rudi develops a deeper understanding of his role. The quest is not just about the destination but the journey as well. Each surviving group he has helped upon the way has added to the collective strength of good versus evil. The heavy-handed tactics of the CUT, on the other hand, has had the opposite effect of hindering their evil plans. With winter coming on, the ultimate occurs when the frustrated CUT Seeker calls upon nature itself to hinder Rudi.
An early winter blizzard descends with a vengeance. Rudi insists on pressing on. The newly allied Republic of Richland provides his group with skis, dogsleds, and guidance. The CUT have no such resources. They struggle on with worn horses through a hell of their own creation. Even the demonically motivated attack of a huge bear works to the good, as the meat, fat, and skins of the now dead bear provide needed sustenance. Rudi, at long last realizing what the CUT have been up to, ceremonially “apologizes” to the spirit of the bear for the necessity of its kill and cries out for vengeance on those responsible. His plea is heard and the karmic “Three-fold Law” turns against the CUT effectively ending their pursuit.
There are many rules of conflict for writers to consider in Stirling's series. Related to how “the best conceived plan seldom survives contact with the enemy” is how a stronger evil can often lose to a weaker good simply by getting in its own way. This is true not only because it is reality, but because it makes for such unexpectedly entertaining plot complications in creating effective fiction. A perfect historical example of this deals with Enrico Fermi, the man credited with developing the atomic bomb. What if Hitler and Mussolini had not started the policies leading to The Holocaust? Fermi, whose wife was Jewish, might not have fled Italy and the Axis Powers might have therefore won the war. This, along with the loss of Germany’s other Jewish scientists, further proves how evil acts can confound evil designs.
Wil Hough is a Rose & Thorn Journal senior contributing author specializing in poetry, religious heresy, and historical fiction.
Podcast: "Absolute Zero" by Brian Wilkins
Download | Duration: 00:00:00
Interview with Brian Wilkins by C.L. Toups
Brian Wilkins is the editor of Scarab: a literary magazine for the iPhone. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. His work can be found or is forthcoming in Two Review and Permafrost, Pure Francis, and Sententia.
R&T: Brian, how did the idea of pairing a literary magazine with the iPhone come about?
Wilkins: Through the threat of looming unemployment. I was finishing my MFA at UNH and my partner (and Scarab’s resident technical genius) Ian Terrell was in between projects. We were roommates at William and Mary and had always wanted to collaborate on a creative project that utilized both our skills—of course, when those skills are poetry and computer science the opportunities are few and far between. We originally pitched around the idea of a web-based journal but became more and more enamored with what the iPhone offered: the ability to mix together media in an application that was portable, slick, and felt (because of the tactile element) like the natural extension of the print magazine.
R&T: Do you think this pairing represents part of a larger shift in the literary world from print to digital media?
Wilkins: I think that shift is inevitable for certain media: newspapers, magazines, even paperbacks. As the cost of producing a physical product for what are essentially disposable commodities goes up, it’s going to be increasingly attractive to move these items to digital formats. We’re at an odd point in the process, though, where not everyone has the capacity to view the new media; things are still in flux. What we want from Scarab is to stake out some ground; we want anyone who comes after us to take our values, the primacy of the voice conveyed both in sound and writing, into consideration.
This is not a new process. We still live in Gutenberg’s world and probably will until we can transmit ideas directly to each other’s minds or something equally far-fetched. All that’s changed really is paper. People shouldn’t worry about the disappearance of the book, though. The book is a part of us now: just because there are quicker ways to make wine doesn’t mean people stop aging it in oak barrels.
R&T: I agree. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Can you tell us the significance of the name Scarab?
Wilkins: We went through a lot of names; we wanted something short, without any literary nonsense gunking the gears. The Egyptians associated the scarab with the dawn and believed it was born of itself, emerging out of the dung. While I don’t want to imply anything about past literary magazines, Ian and I were both fond of the idea of something reborn but rooted in tradition. It was sealed when a friend of mine, without knowing anything about this process, gave me a scarab necklace as a graduation gift. I figured that was sufficiently serendipitous.
R&T: What do you look for in the works you decide to feature? Is there a particular focus on poetry versus prose, vice versa?
Wilkins: We do tend to focus a bit more on poetry as it suits the medium a little better. But I love good short prose, so we try to slip in a short story or a couple essays per issue.
As for the first question, I sort of hate answering it. Any definition of “what I want” inevitably excludes the possibility of being surprised by new work. Generally, though, I want works that are pleasurable to hear and stand up to further scrutiny in the text. I think of literature like a good meal: overwhelming at the table and something you can’t wait to sneak down and scrounge out of the fridge in middle of the night. If your piece does that, I’ll publish it. If people want anything less metaphorical just read the magazine. I like all of that.
R&T: That’s a great analogy. What do you feel having audio capability adds to the reader’s experience of the work?
Wilkins: Ian wanted to know, right at the beginning, what we could do with the iPhone that was missing from a print literary magazine. There are probably other answers, but to me the first had to be restoring the voice to the text. The written word, as fantastic a solution to the problem of “How do we talk over time and distance” is, is merely a substitution for the sound of language. Of course, what we have is a chance to collapse the binary between reading a poem and the performance of it. History does us a favor: because this all started at an oral art that moved into a written form, when we combine them into one medium you don’t lose either pleasure but gain both. You gain immediate access to the music and tone intended by the author as well as the ability to ponder all the implications of a text.
R&T: What has the feedback been like since you debuted in October?
Wilkins: Generally positive, particularly after Apple allowed us to offer the application (along with sample work) for free and charge only for the issues. We received good reviews on Wired.com and various blogs—even a couple in the Netherlands and Norway, which is fun. People seem to get it and like it—now we just need to get more attention for it.
R&T: What is your vision for the magazine in the future?
Wilkins: We’d like to add some minor improvements to the application, obviously, and we’re thinking about having a contest issue soon. What I’d like is to continue with what we’re doing: providing our readers with a chance to read along with some of the best contemporary writers.
Ian and I also run Old Brick Press, LLC, which is accepting submissions for novellas and chapbooks to be published as applications along the same lines as Scarab.
What we hope for most, though, is to use the tools at our disposal to support artists through publicity and payment. 22% of Scarab goes directly back to the artists in the issue, so the more we can sell the better our payments for a poem or work of prose get. We hope that we can contribute to a marketplace where an author can make a living through their published work.
R&T: How can writers get in touch with you if they are interested in submitting work?
Wilkins: The best way to submit work for Scarab is through our submission manager on our website, www.scarabmag.com. If you’re interested in submitting for the chapbooks and the novellas you can email me at submissions@oldbrickpress.com
Thanks, Brian, for sharing your time with us. You can check out Brian’s poem, “Absolute Zero,” in Rose & Thorn Journal’s Winter issue starting January 15th as well as a listen to his Podcast on our blog.
C.L. Toups is Managing Editor and Senior Poetry Editor for Rose & Thorn.
