I spent much of today going over my all time favorite books, looking for patterns that might be useful to me. My first list included Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, Far From The Madding Crowd, and The Lord of the Rings. Then, thinking SF, I added the Foundation series and the Dune saga. I identified a number of common features in the writing of these stories - all of them (although this is arguably true of Austen) are characterized by grandure of scope : the Napoleonic wars (Tolstoy), the savagery of nature (Hardy), the ending of the Third Age of history (Tolkien), the decline of a galactic empire (Asimov) and control of the most important substance in the universe (Herbert). If there is grandure in Austen, then it is in the clash of people from different economic and social classes. Second, all these stories are memorable because they get inside the grandure in intimate ways, either through "everyman" or "everywoman" narrators or principle characters such as Tolstoy's Pierre, Tolkien's Frodo, Hardy's Bathsheba, or Austen's Elizabeth, who must deal with everyday things, sometimes in spite of themselves, or through uncommon characters caught in their more vulnerable youth, such as Herbert's Paul or Asimov's Seldon.

Third, all these stories pose puzzles based on human character flaws or foibles : Can reason overcome savagery? (Asimov) Can one find a marriage partner one both desires and who is good for one? (Hardy) Can a small, everyday sort of person carry out a great and supremely difficult task? (Tolkien) Can a person exercise great power without paying a terrible price? (Herbert) Can a bumbling person achieve happiness in a contrary world? (Tolstoy) Do our first impressions of people determine our fates? (Austen)

Fourth, the writers of all these stories paint intricate worlds full of myriad details. Obviously, the writing is also exceptional, but description is paramount to their success. The pundits all talk about the importance of dialogue, and of course that is also present, but books that are less than memorable skimp on their descriptions. Even Hemingway, lauded for his spare writing style, uses description to advantage, he just does so with an astonishing economy of words. These writers pay attention to the smallest details, and ask us to view the world along with them.

Finally, they all give us likeable, sympathetic characters. But of course, there are books, just as successful, who give us enigmatic, dark or rogue characters. Wuthering Heights comes instantly to mind. This book has the same common characteristics as the others - the grandure of the moors and its near savage denizens, the intimacy offered by the narrator, the humanness of the jealousy and possessiveness of its main character, detailed descriptions of the landscapes and its human inhabitants, but the characters are not so likeable, although they are attractive in a dark way (this is as true of Catherine as it is of Heathcliff). However, Wuthering Heights is also a tragedy, while the other books cited are not. Are there examples of such anti-heros in books which are not tragedies?

Finding dark heroes in fiction turns out to be tougher than you might think. It is easier to find them in film (Hannibal Lector or James Bond) or on TV (e.g. The Sopranos, Dexter, etc.) than in literature (although both of the cinematic figures were literature first!). After combing the internet, I came up with a short list of books I have read, but in almost all of them, either they are tragedies or the anti-hero has some mitigating factor to make him or her more acceptable. Hence, for example, the Count of Monte Cristo, although implacable, begins as a likeable young man and ends by letting go of his need for vengeance (Dumas). Captain Nemo disappears rather inconclusively with his submarine in the end, remaining a bitter man (Verne). Becky Sharp attains a marriage she deserves (Thackeray). The whale hunter is killed by his own obsessiveness (Melville). Alex is "cured" of his violent proclivities (Burgess). The vampire is doomed to eternal despair (Rule).

With regard to these different characteristics of what I consider to be "the greatest books", each separate book of the Chronicles has to meet these criteria, as well as the series as a whole. For grandure, the astronomical scope of the books gives some hope that I respond to this, as does the archetypal thematic of the series as a whole. My story is told through "everyman" or "everywoman" individuals, at least, some of them are (Maeve and Vanu), while the uncommon ones are caught in early stages (Oreph, Grolier and Joere). I hope this gives an intimist flavour to each story. Third, all my stories are based on solving personal dilemmas. I do feel my characters are less "foibled" than those in the great books (although Frodo is not so foibled as he is humble) - perhaps I need to deepen their character foibles and flaws? Grolier is already revealed as developing a certain overconfidence and even arrogance, while Oreph should be more possessive of and confluctual with his loved ones, and suffers the sin of snobbery (while having himself been a victim of it). Vanu isn't just conflicted - he lacks self confidence. This should show up more readily than it does. My dark story is a tragedy, with perhaps a wakeup call after it's too late to do anything about things. In this way my dark character is like Monte Cristo, with a likeable youth, although he is not merely implaccable, he is also diabolic.

Another really interesting feature of all these great stories is that they harbour truly unexpected and memorable surprises. Paul's encounter with the gom jabbar in the very beginning of Dune is totally surprising - the young protagonist has just been introduced and, already, he passes within a hair's breath of death, at the instigation of his mother, no less, for all her trepidation. His paralysis after taking the water of life is unexpected, as is his exposure to the stoneburner's flame and consequent blindness. Boromir's valor is a surprise, as are Gandalf's passing and Gollum's final act. Pierre's marriage to Natasha is a stunner. Catherine's death is a surprise, even though we have been given all the clues - the daughter confuses us. The location of the Second Foundation was a carefully prepared surprise, with lots of red herrings to distract us, as is the Mule's identity, and even the apparent failure of the Seldon Plan.

Writing is like living inside a crucible. It is both terribly hard, and yet terribly necessary. In two days of near total isolation, I have written fragments of two of my stories - Vanu's story in both Books One and Two, and Oreph's story in Book One, which I am rewriting yet again. In Plenum, I am not exactly at an impasse, but I am at a necessary passage that won't yield to any significant progress, for reasons that escape me. So, instead, I started in on Gratia, the Second Book of Deo. I wrote four opening segments - on the fourth one, things gelled and moved forward. In fact, I'm thrilled with the beginning - it starts out in the thick of Vanu's ambiguity, of hir inability to decide whether to favor morality over sexuality, and allows me to explore the minority Fax called NarFax. I've also taken the time to rewrite Pinnacle, inserting the new scenes between Oreph and his mother, or dramatically changing the old scenes. The result strengthens the story in two ways, by introducing additional plot elements and tensions, on the one hand, but also substantially deepening the psychology of the main character on the other hand. Now the story hums, the way it should.

To come back to the crucible, the work is, at least part of the time, agonizing as well as being extremely demanding. I sidetrack myself with films or TV shows designed to distract and enthrall - Game of Thrones, etc.

​

**

​

Made it through the immovable scene, finally. Sometimes these things are stuck because the energy has gone out of the scene...some form of new blood is required to get things started and moving forward again. Or some element is, well, wrong, and has stalled the whole thing. Taking this element back out may be enough to kick start things forward again. I don't know how I know an element is wrong, or where the solution comes from to fix it. It's part of the crucible, that it works like that.

One of the fascinating things about writing the three Books of Deo is that, by placing the action in the far future, I can pull out the theological components I want to speak to from the morass of current doctrine, primarily Christian but with a dabbling of Buddhism and other cults. If I tried to set the books into the present, I'd have to drag along a whole slew of dogma that I feel drowns the issues that are truly relevant.

I have been both reading and watching Game of Thrones with a great deal of interest. The reviews laud this as a dark story with morally complex characters. I do find the characters morally complex, and I do find that interesting, but I realize that my own interest is not just moral complexity, but rather the whole notion that there is more than one truth. The idea of a single truth is one that derives from the hegemony of logic and consistency. Reality is much more complex than that. Different, often conflicting perceptions of the same things abound. There isn't just one truth waiting to be uncovered, despite what science and religion would have us believe.

In my story, Lestra is perceived both as a loving and faithful wife and mother and as a scheming adultress. In a logically consistent world, both cannot be true at the same time, but I think they can be if the world is not required to be consistent. In my story, Vanu is both morally upright and corrupt, albeit at different moments of hir life, but integrity doesn't flow from such moral ambiguity in a consistent world. Oreph is a character trying to bring the wholeness of the world into his life, at the same time as he is scheming to destroy the wholeness of the world to get what he wants. Joere is lover and arch enemy of Oreph, both at once. In a consistent, logical world, this would be impossible... The fivefold structure of my story helps me achieve this, by having radically different perspectives offered on common characters via different books, as it was designed to do. Within each book, a largely consistent story is told. But across the different books, all sorts of fractures and ruptures emerge. I have no idea if others will like this, but I am caught up in the necessities of telling my story in this way!

In many ways, this is the ideal way of writing for me. It sounds crazy when I explain to people that I am working on five volumes simultaneously, each composed of three books. People write one book at a time. But I have always done this. I read a dozen books simultaneously, always have. Let's see, right now I am reading A Game of Thrones, Finnegan's Wake, I'm still working on Joyce's Ulysses, I am reareading The Lord of the Rings, I am working my way through Jung's The Red Book and Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, I've started reading Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime 2 and Vernor Vinge's The Children of the Sky, and also Iain Banks' The Player of Games and Lofting's Doctor Doolittle, and I am contemplating reading a new John D. Macdonald, and a new Patrick O'Brian. So that's ten current and two new, give or take a few that may have slipped my mind. In addition, at the university, I have about eight projects on the go, in various states of completion. I thrive on this kind of multi-tasking, and my writing project really does nothing less than follow that same pattern. It is me, it is how I do things.

I've made a discovery about my books - spoilers are built in to the whole concept! In a sense, each of the "other four volumes" for any of the volumes contains "spoilers" for the fifth volume. You only get to be "spoiler free" on one of the books - and it might be any of them! So the suspense cannot be about events as they unfold...instead, the suspense has to be around how the unfolding events change the characters in surprising and interesting ways! This kind of suspense isn't sabotaged by reading the other books - knowing what's coming may actually enhance the suspense! And the more successfully the strategy is found to be, the more effective the series becomes. It is, in this way, like historical fiction about "true" events - you already know what happened, but it's how it happened that is interesting!

I have spent the past several days struggling to give birth to the physical nature of the Sky City of Diadem on the planet Cocoon. Readers may think my habitats are simple "dreamed up" out of nothing, but in fact my places are more like characters than anything else. Yes, they have to emerge from my unconscious, but no, they are not arbitrary. My characters come into being for "rhythmic" and aesthetic reasons. The story must have a certain scope and balance to work - characters must encounter resistance, abd often this resistance is provided by other characters. There is a dance involved. Furthermore, once a character is created, there is a kind of logic they must follow. Well, places come into being in similar ways.

Sodenheim needed a calm after the storm, and the planet Cocoon came to his rescue. What is interesting about Cocoon is that there is a familiarity to the place, especially for science fiction readers. The "alien planet road story" is a common theme in science fiction, whether one thinks of Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness, Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle, Farmer's To Your Scattered Bodies Go, and so on, I could go on. This familiarity creates a sense of respite that is interesting. The Sky City of Diadem cannot be like Pinnacle's sky cities. This is a very different world, with very different priorities. To get a clear description of Diadem required days of dwelling upon the problem, and allowing bits to crystallize, one piece at a time.  It is a mix of creativity, logic and necessity. My places are as important to the story as are the people, so, perhaps, this isn't so surprising...

Turns out you cannot treat a dyson sphere as just another habitat! It's far too big and complex to allow for any kind of trivial treatment. So the incident has become a major section in its own right. Also, although I had some sketchy ideas about how it is organized, I had to flesh these out into a detailed plan and a clear direction for the writing, otherwise I was just casting about with nowhere to go. The result is, I believe, quite spectacular and exciting. Of course, there are always echoes of other writers who have gone before. I cannot proceed without acknowledging the debt owed to Niven, both for his Ringworld and for the Integral Trees. Also, although the framework is very different, I can't help feeling resonances with Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, at least with regards to the "quest for God".

I have been reflecting on some of the more sustained difficulties involved in producing such a massive piece of work. It's not merely, or not only, a problem of the quality of the writing, but it is also a matter of organizing one's life. It's a very different prospect organizing oneself for six months to a year to write a story, than embraking on a project which you know in advance will take you three to five years, if you're lucky. You can't simply put life on hold while you're doing it! And there are rhythms involved. Right now I'm at a particularly difficult point, both within the current book, but also within the whole project. Within the current trilogy (Shadowcasting : The Books of Uma), I have to write the final part of the Second Book, rewrite Book One, and write Book Three, so I'm about halfway through. Hence nothing to show, yet, after about twenty weeks of work, and quite a ways from having something to show - at least another sixteen to twenty weeks. At least! And in the series as a whole, two years into the project, maybe two years to go, and little to show, yet. It's disheartening, morally difficult. There is a tendency to want to put life on hold, "while I finish it", but it's way too early to be sustainable! No one to talk to, except my therapist, perhaps. I just have to keep going, because that's what I do - I learned not to rely on other people long ago.