Paul Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "cli-fi"
This Big Long Purple Paragraph
First some good news. I came up with the title of Altered Seasons while reading H.P. Lovecraft’s prose poem “Nyarlathotep.” The opening paragraph conveys the sense of a world changing in terrifying ways, very basic rules and assumptions on which human civilization is built being thrown out the window with no regard to how it affects us all. When I read this paragraph, I knew I just had to use it as an epigraph. Here it is in all its glory. (You might want to wear sunglasses to read this — Lovecraft’s prose is so purple it’s ultraviolet.)
The good news is that according to this source, “Nyarlathotep” is in the public domain, which will eliminate the need for a lot of negotiating with the Great Old Ones only know who. (Although one paragraph might fall within the realm of “fair use” anyway. And yes, I probably should have looked all this stuff up before getting my heart set on using this quote.)
Now for the not-so-good news. There’s no getting around it — Altered Seasons is becoming very, very long. My original estimate was that it was going to be about 150,000 words. I’m approaching that mark now, and I’m nowhere near done. Assuming Years Six and Seven (see below) turn out to be as long as Year Five (which might be as long as Zero through Four put together), 200,000 words is looking more realistic. This raises the possibility of breaking it up into two or three books. It would split fairly naturally into two books — Years Zero through Five in one book and Years Six through Eight in the other. Three books would be a little more complicated.
On the other hand, I’m in the middle of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Wise Man's Fear, which is the middle book in an uncompleted trilogy — and no wonder it hasn’t been finished yet, since both books are prodigiously long. The Name of the Wind is over 250,000 words long, and The Wise Man’s Fear is a whopping 395,000 words long — as Rothfuss himself points out here, longer than the entire Hunger Games trilogy and more than twice as long as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (I think the “fear” in the title refers to the danger of throwing your back out while picking it up at the library.) That one book is also longer than the entire Locksmith Trilogy is going to be, and much longer than I have any plans to let Altered Seasons become.
If it does get broken up, what should I call the parts? If it’s two parts, I could just call them Parts One and Two or Books One and Two. Or I could call them Altered Seasons: The Northern Monsoon and Altered Seasons: [something ominous and weather-related but not too clichéd]. If it’s three books, maybe I’ll go back to that Lovecraft quote:
Altered Seasons: Daemoniac Alteration
Altered Seasons: Autumn Heat
Altered Seasons: Gods or Forces
Ultimately this is a decision for the publisher, of course. The bigger a book is, the harder it is to bind. (And if I split it up, Part One will be out much sooner.)
And while you're waiting, Cheril Thomas' new novel Squatter's Rights has come out. Check it out.
To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons — the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
The good news is that according to this source, “Nyarlathotep” is in the public domain, which will eliminate the need for a lot of negotiating with the Great Old Ones only know who. (Although one paragraph might fall within the realm of “fair use” anyway. And yes, I probably should have looked all this stuff up before getting my heart set on using this quote.)
Now for the not-so-good news. There’s no getting around it — Altered Seasons is becoming very, very long. My original estimate was that it was going to be about 150,000 words. I’m approaching that mark now, and I’m nowhere near done. Assuming Years Six and Seven (see below) turn out to be as long as Year Five (which might be as long as Zero through Four put together), 200,000 words is looking more realistic. This raises the possibility of breaking it up into two or three books. It would split fairly naturally into two books — Years Zero through Five in one book and Years Six through Eight in the other. Three books would be a little more complicated.
On the other hand, I’m in the middle of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Wise Man's Fear, which is the middle book in an uncompleted trilogy — and no wonder it hasn’t been finished yet, since both books are prodigiously long. The Name of the Wind is over 250,000 words long, and The Wise Man’s Fear is a whopping 395,000 words long — as Rothfuss himself points out here, longer than the entire Hunger Games trilogy and more than twice as long as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (I think the “fear” in the title refers to the danger of throwing your back out while picking it up at the library.) That one book is also longer than the entire Locksmith Trilogy is going to be, and much longer than I have any plans to let Altered Seasons become.
If it does get broken up, what should I call the parts? If it’s two parts, I could just call them Parts One and Two or Books One and Two. Or I could call them Altered Seasons: The Northern Monsoon and Altered Seasons: [something ominous and weather-related but not too clichéd]. If it’s three books, maybe I’ll go back to that Lovecraft quote:
Altered Seasons: Daemoniac Alteration
Altered Seasons: Autumn Heat
Altered Seasons: Gods or Forces
Ultimately this is a decision for the publisher, of course. The bigger a book is, the harder it is to bind. (And if I split it up, Part One will be out much sooner.)
And while you're waiting, Cheril Thomas' new novel Squatter's Rights has come out. Check it out.
Some Progress to Report
It’s approaching the end of August, the month in which I was planning to release the third book of the Locksmith Trilogy. Obviously, that's not going to happen. Locksmith’s War is about half done.
The good news is that Book One of Altered Seasons, tentatively titled Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise, is done. It’s over 141,500 words long. I am meeting with a publisher soon, and am thinking of cover designs. Now comes the fun part — the pre-release marketing plan. First I’ll need a finalized cover image and release date, so everyone will know when to expect it and what to look for. Also, I have two websites, one of which looks about ten years old and the other looks like it emerged from the eldritch mist of Geocities. I’m going to have to get those updated and redesigned before I do anything with them.
Speaking of climate change, there’s been some debate on Twitter and elsewhere over exactly what tone to strike. You may have read this article, for instance. Not everyone is sure that this sort of thing helps. Some say we should emphasize available solutions, and the side benefits they carry with them.
Realistically, if we want to avoid some degree of climate change, the best time to act is… about twenty years ago. It’s already happening. What isn’t set in stone is exactly how much we have to deal with. Think of it as being on a scale of 0 to 10 — 0 being the state of the world at the start of the Industrial Revolution, 1 going on 2 being where we are now, 8 or 9 being the point where the tropics become hot enough to be uninhabitable for mammals like us and 10 being the Canfield Ocean scenario, where the deep ocean basically rots and produces enough hydrogen sulfide to render everywhere uninhabitable. Between 2 and 8 there are many different possible scenarios for the world, many gradations of degradation, each worse than the last. The world doesn’t have to venture very far in that direction for things to get really, really bad. This is the world of Altered Seasons — 2 going on 3, on that scale.
Personally, I try to avoid outright despair, because one thing I’ve noticed is that people who fundamentally do not want to act on the issue, or do not want to grant the government the power to act, will go directly from “no problem, in the future we will adapt and thrive” to “guess we’re all doomed” without ever hitting “this is a problem and we should do something about it.” Ironically, their opposition to acting comes from a love of freedom and a fear of constraint. In times of national emergency, freedom is the first thing to go, and, as said, long before we get to the end of the world we’ll reach something that could easily qualify as a national emergency… except that emergencies are not supposed to last for the rest of your life.
From a writer’s perspective, the most interesting scenarios are some of the nearest and least bad scenarios. Those are the ones where people and governments still have some degree of choice as to how they deal with the situation that confronts them.
The good news is that Book One of Altered Seasons, tentatively titled Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise, is done. It’s over 141,500 words long. I am meeting with a publisher soon, and am thinking of cover designs. Now comes the fun part — the pre-release marketing plan. First I’ll need a finalized cover image and release date, so everyone will know when to expect it and what to look for. Also, I have two websites, one of which looks about ten years old and the other looks like it emerged from the eldritch mist of Geocities. I’m going to have to get those updated and redesigned before I do anything with them.
Speaking of climate change, there’s been some debate on Twitter and elsewhere over exactly what tone to strike. You may have read this article, for instance. Not everyone is sure that this sort of thing helps. Some say we should emphasize available solutions, and the side benefits they carry with them.
Realistically, if we want to avoid some degree of climate change, the best time to act is… about twenty years ago. It’s already happening. What isn’t set in stone is exactly how much we have to deal with. Think of it as being on a scale of 0 to 10 — 0 being the state of the world at the start of the Industrial Revolution, 1 going on 2 being where we are now, 8 or 9 being the point where the tropics become hot enough to be uninhabitable for mammals like us and 10 being the Canfield Ocean scenario, where the deep ocean basically rots and produces enough hydrogen sulfide to render everywhere uninhabitable. Between 2 and 8 there are many different possible scenarios for the world, many gradations of degradation, each worse than the last. The world doesn’t have to venture very far in that direction for things to get really, really bad. This is the world of Altered Seasons — 2 going on 3, on that scale.
Personally, I try to avoid outright despair, because one thing I’ve noticed is that people who fundamentally do not want to act on the issue, or do not want to grant the government the power to act, will go directly from “no problem, in the future we will adapt and thrive” to “guess we’re all doomed” without ever hitting “this is a problem and we should do something about it.” Ironically, their opposition to acting comes from a love of freedom and a fear of constraint. In times of national emergency, freedom is the first thing to go, and, as said, long before we get to the end of the world we’ll reach something that could easily qualify as a national emergency… except that emergencies are not supposed to last for the rest of your life.
From a writer’s perspective, the most interesting scenarios are some of the nearest and least bad scenarios. Those are the ones where people and governments still have some degree of choice as to how they deal with the situation that confronts them.
Cover Me, I'm Going In
It’s time to start thinking about what a book cover for Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise should look like.
For a different sort of book, this would be a lot easier. There are people who do pre-made covers for crime thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, westerns and romance. If you are a genre author and you see a cover that happens to be a good enough fit for your book, you can buy it. From what I’ve seen of these covers, they are excellent works of art, and I have nothing but praise for the artists who make them. But it does say something about the genres in question that people can do this at all.
Cli-fi is a relatively new genre. No one has come to a decision on what the cover of a cli-fi novel is supposed to look like. Authors have come to cli-fi from both literary fiction and science fiction, and this shows in the covers. Some of them are sort of minimalist. These are the covers of The Water Knife and The History of Bees.
Here are three different covers of Flight Behavior.
The covers of The Year of the Flood and American War are a little more dramatic, although in the case of the former that has more to do with the font.
And for contrast, these are the covers of The Burning Years and New York 2140. Note that although one of them was done by an absolute top-of-the-line artist, they both have more of a science-fiction style.
I’m a science fiction writer. I might also be literary, but that decision will probably be reached about fifty years after I’m dead. So for me, the bottom line is that anyone who can do a sci-fi cover can do a cli-fi cover.
The next question is what to put on that cover. You might be wondering why this is my job — normally, the cover artist would come up with an idea. Thing is, I want to get this out in time for Christmas shopping, and I want the image in time to be used in pre-release promotion. Having an artist read through a novel more than 140,000 words long and then come up with an inspiration would not speed the process.
My first idea was to show Isabel Bradshaw doing a dramatic pose at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana. There were two problems with this.
The first one is that although the ORCS arguably deserves to be an American icon like Hoover Dam or the Brooklyn Bridge*, it isn’t one. People won’t recognize it. The second problem was that the ORCS, as you can see, is gigantic. In a picture that showed anything but the smallest part of it, Isabel would be a tiny figure. In fact, in doing this cover I found myself faced with the same problem I often faced during the novel — showing events on both the human scale and the epic scale.
(And something about the idea of Isabel doing a dramatic pose bothered me. Isabel is not the sort of person who does dramatic poses. She’s the sort of person who rolls up her sleeves and does things while other people are striking dramatic poses and making sure the artist is getting their good angle and the light is hitting them just so.)
So one idea I came up with was an evacuation — headlights receding into the distance on both sides of an interstate highway, with a storm on the horizon, as seen in this rough, not-entirely-finished concept art.
Another idea I had was a wall of data and a wall of stormcloud (basically an overcast, stormy sky tipped onto its side) with Isabel in the middle, symbolically standing between order and chaos, as seen in this really rough, half-finished concept art.
Judging by Facebook analytics, the first image was the more popular one, although that might just be because the second one was only half done and depended much more on my own amateurish skills. Also, someone who really is an artist thought Isabel in this picture looked like an actuary, which is not what I was going for at all. Also, I think the band logo on her shirt needs some rethinking.
That said, there seems to be general agreement that a human image of some sort would be good, and Isabel is the most photogenic of my major characters. Maybe if I had her doing a (sigh) power pose on one side and the highway/evacuation/storm combo on the other…
*If it ever collapsed, the Mississippi would have an entirely new outlet and we'd have to abandon the city of New Orleans and move a big chunk of our petrochemical industry somewhere else.
For a different sort of book, this would be a lot easier. There are people who do pre-made covers for crime thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, westerns and romance. If you are a genre author and you see a cover that happens to be a good enough fit for your book, you can buy it. From what I’ve seen of these covers, they are excellent works of art, and I have nothing but praise for the artists who make them. But it does say something about the genres in question that people can do this at all.
Cli-fi is a relatively new genre. No one has come to a decision on what the cover of a cli-fi novel is supposed to look like. Authors have come to cli-fi from both literary fiction and science fiction, and this shows in the covers. Some of them are sort of minimalist. These are the covers of The Water Knife and The History of Bees.
Here are three different covers of Flight Behavior.
The covers of The Year of the Flood and American War are a little more dramatic, although in the case of the former that has more to do with the font.
And for contrast, these are the covers of The Burning Years and New York 2140. Note that although one of them was done by an absolute top-of-the-line artist, they both have more of a science-fiction style.
I’m a science fiction writer. I might also be literary, but that decision will probably be reached about fifty years after I’m dead. So for me, the bottom line is that anyone who can do a sci-fi cover can do a cli-fi cover.
The next question is what to put on that cover. You might be wondering why this is my job — normally, the cover artist would come up with an idea. Thing is, I want to get this out in time for Christmas shopping, and I want the image in time to be used in pre-release promotion. Having an artist read through a novel more than 140,000 words long and then come up with an inspiration would not speed the process.
My first idea was to show Isabel Bradshaw doing a dramatic pose at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana. There were two problems with this.
The first one is that although the ORCS arguably deserves to be an American icon like Hoover Dam or the Brooklyn Bridge*, it isn’t one. People won’t recognize it. The second problem was that the ORCS, as you can see, is gigantic. In a picture that showed anything but the smallest part of it, Isabel would be a tiny figure. In fact, in doing this cover I found myself faced with the same problem I often faced during the novel — showing events on both the human scale and the epic scale.
(And something about the idea of Isabel doing a dramatic pose bothered me. Isabel is not the sort of person who does dramatic poses. She’s the sort of person who rolls up her sleeves and does things while other people are striking dramatic poses and making sure the artist is getting their good angle and the light is hitting them just so.)
So one idea I came up with was an evacuation — headlights receding into the distance on both sides of an interstate highway, with a storm on the horizon, as seen in this rough, not-entirely-finished concept art.
Another idea I had was a wall of data and a wall of stormcloud (basically an overcast, stormy sky tipped onto its side) with Isabel in the middle, symbolically standing between order and chaos, as seen in this really rough, half-finished concept art.
Judging by Facebook analytics, the first image was the more popular one, although that might just be because the second one was only half done and depended much more on my own amateurish skills. Also, someone who really is an artist thought Isabel in this picture looked like an actuary, which is not what I was going for at all. Also, I think the band logo on her shirt needs some rethinking.
That said, there seems to be general agreement that a human image of some sort would be good, and Isabel is the most photogenic of my major characters. Maybe if I had her doing a (sigh) power pose on one side and the highway/evacuation/storm combo on the other…
*If it ever collapsed, the Mississippi would have an entirely new outlet and we'd have to abandon the city of New Orleans and move a big chunk of our petrochemical industry somewhere else.
