Types of Dystopias

My slight digression on dystopias (or is that dystopians?) got me to thinking about how dystopia books could actually be split into different categories, so I decided to give it a shot (including False Utopia because it is a type of dystopa), Disagreements? Additions? Feel free to leave comments!

Fight The Man

This is your typical "overpowered government being overthrown by a group of rebellious teens" type of story. It has existed for as long as the Little Guy had negative feelings about the Big Guy. The world sucks, and the main difference between your Fight The Man and False Utopia is that in Fight The Man everyone knows it sucks but are powerless to stop it (also, everything is gritty and dirty). Here are some examples:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Worldshaker by Richard Harland (this one is both Fight The Man and False Utopia, because it has two main characters, each at both extremes. See Technology Girl and Tribal Boy for more details on instances of this.)
Wool by Hugh Howy
The Host by Stephanie Meyer



What Used to Be

One way or another the Big Thing has already happened. People died by the thousands, our knowledge and use of technology have been lost for at least a hundred years or more. Usually there are ruins of skyscrapers in the background at all times during the story. Sometimes the characters live underground and discover the surface world, or live on the surface and discover a technological underground base. Zombies are sometimes a part of these stories, but the requirement is that zombies have to be part of the characters lives since birth. If it was only in the last few days/weeks/years that zombies came about (like The Walking Dead), then it technically counts as part of the Apocalypse genre. Examples of What Used to Be are:

Envlave by Ann Aguirre
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The Maze Runner by James Dashner (I only read book 1, but I suspect it belongs in this category.)
Wither by Lauren DeStefano
Angelfall by Susan Ee
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Mayberry
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
Daybreak-2250AD by Andre Norton
Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Blood Red Road by Moira Young
It Takes a Wizard (don't know the author, it's a manga though.)




The False Utopia

Everything is great, everyone gets along, everything is usually white, shiny, and well lit.
Until it all comes crashing down, of course (usually with the power of love for some reason). This sometimes includes fighting The Man, but the difference is that the False Utopia includes the implied "Wake up, sheeple!" Examples include:

Uglies by Scott Westerfield
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Matched by Ally Condie
Starters by Lissa Price
Feed by Matthew Anderson

What I Read in 2015: First Quarter.

Or: It's Still Winter, Shouldn't There be Snow?

For something different this year I decided to add the descriptions of the books when I'm not feeling lazy. There weren't a whole lot during this period because it Februruary and March were a flurry of editing rather than reading for me. Also, due to some feedback, I will be spacing these out over time rather than as one lump sum at the beginning of the year.


January

Two for the Money by Janet Evanovich

This one I got halfway through because I realized I had read it before. At first I wasn't sure if I was supposed to read book two or book three next, so I went with book two. I've reread books that I haven't read in years, but this was the first time I reread one that I didn't remember reading. It was weird, I didn't know what was going to happen in the story, but I got a really strong sense of deja vu while reading it. I sorta hazily remember the end, so after that I lost the inertia to read it, especially when I was grabbed by...

Libriomancer by Jim C Hines

Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of the secret organization founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg.  Libriomancers are gifted with the ability to magically reach into books and draw forth objects. When Isaac is attacked by vampires that leaked from the pages of books into our world, he barely manages to escape. To his horror he discovers that vampires have been attacking other magic-users as well, and Gutenberg has been kidnapped.

I bought this one by accident. An author's blog had an interview of the author and the story intrigued me. On Amazon I meant to click "Send Sample" but hit "Buy Now" by mistake, which I've always worried about, but it's never happened until now. Amazon has a 24 hour grace period to return Kindle books but, since I was interested anyway, I decided to keep it.

BEST MISTAKE EVER!

Libriomancer is a breath of fresh air in the stale urban fantasy genre and continuously had me bouncing in my seat every time the character used something from a book, like a TV show making references to things I enjoy.

The only reason I haven't gotten the sequel yet is because I haven't decided what format I want it in.

Flee by Miranga Kavi

I can fly.

I have to keep it a secret.

Everything was fine, until I met him.

I can’t stay away…

Aurora Lockette has a supernatural ability she hides from the world. Gavyn Dhaval is a newly famous actor that shies away from the spotlight. When Aurora and Gavyn literally collide in a fender bender on her first day of law school, they are irresistibly drawn to each other.

When Aurora’s secret is revealed, she has no choice but to abandon Gavyn to go into hiding to escape the media frenzy. A secret society of gifted humans contacts her to warn of dark forces that seek to destroy her and everyone she loves.

Aurora must try to understand who and what she is while she fights to protect herself and her loved ones from a hidden, sinister force.

I already spoke about this one in my 20% Rule post, which I wrote last year. To recap, however: If your book starts with "I can fly" then you'd better be flying. Despite my 20% rule, I read 25% of the way through. Also, the old cover for the book was way better looking than the generic shirtless (and mostly headless) torso.



A short list for an entire month, but I spent much of January free time working on a cross stitch and reading Calvin and Hobbes.


Feburary

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell. 

This is a good example of a terrible book when 7 out of 10 of the top-rated reviews are one star. I had my doubts for a long time. Long enough for a used paperback copy to show up in my favorite bookstore. Gag, I wish it hadn't. Everyone talks like they have monocles glued to their faces. When they're not at the Yale/Harvard/Oxford library they're sipping wine, playing chess, or doing yoga. I did do something with this book that I have never done before though. When I decided to stop at 20% I looked up a plot summary to see if it would get good later and if I was missing out. Dancing and horseback ensue, as well as more nothing. Glad I missed out on this snoozefest.

 Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

Randomly decided to reread Dresden Files book 4 because books 4-10 are always a bit hazy in their order for me.

March

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters--or Freaks--who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight--guided by Fade's long-ago memories--in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs.

This one is a good example of being in a specific mood for a book. About six to nine months prior I had given it a try. I only got about 6% of the way through before going "guhhhh..." It wasn't because it was a bad story, I really enjoy YA dystopian novels. Rather, at that moment I was reading about the dark they lived in, and how hungry they were, and how dangerous it was. I wasn't in the right mindset and, frankly was a bit burned out on my favorite genre. When I picked it up again, however, it pulled me right in and I loved every moment of it. I actually whined out loud when it ended on my Kindle at 76% because I still craved more (it apparently included a short story).

It's not "for fans of the Hunger Games." That term gets thrown around entirely too much, like how, ten years ago, "for fans of Harry Potter" was abused like crazy. Hunger Games is more "fight The Man," dystopia. Enclave is more "rediscovering what once existed."

Best of all, though, is that it didn't get stale. Halfway through everything changes. I can't wait to read book two as I want MOAR.

This is all, of course, I got over giggling every time I heard the main character's name. "Tee hee, Deuce."



So what else did I do during March?
Editing Dusted
Dusted
Dusted
Dusted

Also some Crystal Witch, but that's still a long way off.

You Can't Blog in the Stone Age

Hey!

We interrupt this blog to tell you that I will be on hiatus while my Interwebs gets fixed. In the meantime you can check me out on Facebook and Twitter!

Using a Pen Name

I never gave pen names much of a thought until recently. As I've had to break out into the public world with my presence I've sometimes wished I had used a pen name.

If you clicked that last link you're now responsible for tearing a hole in the universe.

This article does a pretty good job covering a lot of reasons that I hadn't even considered. The part about being hard to pronounce is significant as well. Justine Larbalestier (her real name) has mentioned before on her blog that an agent accused her of using a ridiculous pseudonym.

Whatever you do though, don't use a name you'd see on a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet. No one would ever take your seriously as Sapphire Greentree. Save that for when Forgotten Realms comes knocking at your door and keep your pen name relatively normal.

Unless you are, in fact, an elf

I ultimately chose to use my real name because I sell myself as a local indie author. Many of the people who read Dusted see me on a day-to-day basis. If I were to write under, say, Gwen Harper, it might be less believable and, ultimately, I have no real reason for it.

Besides, I don't pay attention when people call my name as it is.

Fanfiction: A Writer's Training Wheels

Orson Scott Card wrote, “Writers should not waste their time or talent trying to tell stories in someone else’s universe.”

I disagree.

Fanfiction has been on my mind a lot lately with the popularity of 50 Shades of Gray and Kindle Worlds (which I'll get to towards the end), as well as talking to a friend who primarily dabbles in it. I've never written fanfiction, myself. Any attempts quickly fizzled out after page one. I find it to be difficult to write and it goes nowhere on a professional level, like trying to walk up a down escalator.

Fanfiction also strips your skin off and kills children...wait I think I'm getting lost here.

Fanfiction is usually where a lot of writers these days get their start. Cassandra Clare, author of City of Bones, wrote Harry Potter and hilarious Lord of the Rings fanfiction before she was published. 50 Shades began life as a Twilight fanfiction. That doesn't make it any good, but that's not the point. The point is that fanfiction has a purpose.

Think of fanfiction as training wheels to writing. With fanfiction you don't have to stress about setting up an entire world or intricate backstories to characters because all of that already exists. All you have to do decide what happens. It's like fanart. You learn how to become good at drawing by sketching out other people's characters, eventually working your way up to your own original characters. Fanfiction lets you ease into and hone the craft of writing.

Sometimes, however, people never get brave enough to take those wheels off.

He may look like a child, but he's actually 38.

I've seen examples of people writing beautiful work yet are held back because it's fanfiction. You leave the training wheels on too long and people become dependent on them and scared of the thought of moving beyond that. They worry their writing won't be good enough if they wade out into the wide, open world of original publishing.

Here's a secret though: Nearly every book is, in a way, fanfiction.

Every epic journey with a group of characters is Lord of the Rings, every "magic school" is Harry Potter, every airhead "oh gee he's so dangerous but hawt" YA paranormal romance is Twilight. I don't make it a secret that Crystal's voice in Dusted is the lovechild of James Patterson's Maximum Ride and Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden.

The trick is, once you've got the art of writing down pat you just take everything you love about everything and piece it together to make it your own. The great thing about original fiction is that you're not playing by someone else's rules.

After a few fanfictions move on. If you keep writing them then, years later, you'll be exactly where you were before as a writer.

Kindle Worlds has been a recent invention of Amazon and, while it may look like a shining beacon to fanfiction writers, I believe it's damaging in the long run. By clutching onto already existing properties a writer misses out on an entire process of writing: the creation of characters and worlds.

If you find yourself writing nothing but fanfiction and craving to break out into original work start small. Consider just changing the names of the characters, or write a completely original story and put just one character from your favorite fandom in it. Change all the rules of the fandom, see what happens.

Sure, you might crash a couple of times (or a lot), but so have I. Dusted isn't perfect, nor will it ever be, but I can be proud in the fact that I can call it entirely my own.

Or, you know, as long as no one recognizes all the stuff I ripped off.

My New 20% Rule

As you well know (and are probably tired of hearing) I complain a lot about books. A lot of them are crap (to me, your mileage may vary). I force myself to suffer through them and do nothing but waste my time that could be better spent on better books or procrastinating editing.

I'd better clean this before I start on chapter 14...

So I've decided on a new rule based on the few books I've been trying to read for the past few months. If descriptions or reviews give me certain expectations then they'd better deliver before I'm 20% in or else I'm done. Period.

Wait I'm not THAT done.

I've really waded through some books that were considered pretty awful to me. So what was the ultimate breaking point?

It was a book called Flee by Miranda Kavi, and it was the first sentence:

"I can fly."

I waited...

And waited...

And waited...

Watching my cat proved more entertaining.

Yeah, she hovers 1/16th of an inch off her seat at her desk a couple of times for a few seconds. However, if your opening sentence is "I can fly," you'd better be flying pretty soon.

Here are some examples of what's going on 20% of the way through various other books:

In Maximum Ride, the flock are sheltering in a cavern on their way to rescue Angel. Max is separated from them and trying to escape someone who had just shot her with a shotgun. Might I mention plenty of flying has already happened?

In My Life As a White Trash Zombie, she just received an anonymous note that says "If you crave it, eat it," and she's freaking out because she's craving brains.

In Twilight, Bella fainted and had to be carried by Edward (okay bad example...)

In Divergent, Tris just got the tattoos of her birds and gets beat up to the point of landing in the hospital. They've already done extensive training.

In Starters, she wakes up from one of her times of being "rented" and has already done so several times.



Meanwhile, in Flee (which I actually made it 25% of the way through) it was instant romance of movie star, girly teenibopper talk, and "omg what to wear?"

Now, if you're into that kind of reading, more power to you. The point is, I'm not going to put up with books I don't want to. If they promise me X and deliver nothing but S (S being an unknown factor that of which equals suckitude) then I'm not going to put up with it for the entire length of book.

Of course there are some exceptions, like The Hunger Games. It doesn't launch right into the teen-filled death sport (the name of which escapes me at the moment...)  it has a lot of setup, but the important thing is that it's still interesting.

So, I have decided to implement a new rule on myself. That being if a book doesn't grab my interest 20% of the way though. Looking it up, one website says 50 pages. The problem with giving a hard and fast page number is that books vary in length so much that 50 pages could mean you've finished it (especially with ebooks being shorter than most, it seems) or it could just barely be getting into the intro.

The hardest part, however, is stopping. The first book I ever stopped reading in the middle of was really difficult, so were the other few. It becomes much easier once you realize stopping in the middle of the story isn't the end of the world. If it's bad enough, you'll forget it pretty easily.

Besides, it's much worse to agonize over it, thinking "Why did I waste my time!?"

The sooner a bad book is given up, the sooner a good one can be discovered.

What I read in 2014 Fourth Quarter: I Should Probably be Editing

October

Tricked by Kevin Hearne

I read the entire book in three days. The only thing that stopped me from reading the next one so fast was that I had to work.

Trapped by Kevin Hearne

This one flew by by pretty fast too.

Hunted by Kevin Hearne

This one I didn't seem to like quite as much. Most of it involved running from A to B. Although I still enjoyed it, and it had its good moments, it just didn't totally grab me.

Obsidian Curse by Barbara Aninno

The first three Stacy Justice books were fantastic. Book four, Emerald Isle, however, just didn't have the same spark. I didn't plan to get book five but it was 50% off as a daily deal and decided to give it a shot. Sometimes there's just one book that doesn't seem to "work" with the rest of the series (like Ghost Story in the Dresden Files series) and I wanted to see if that was the case.

It felt like the author seemed to scrap some of the buildup/cliffhanger plot elements of book Emerald Isle and just shrug her shoulders, introducing different plot elements rather than tying them from the previous book. Still, it was a letdown and, while I finished the whole thing, it was a forced effort.

November

Shattered by Kevin Hearne

First, I had to get past the fact that it had a deckle edge (dun dun duuuuuunnnnn) I enjoyed it, and it wrapped up a lot of the stuff that's been going on since Hammered, but there are times when I feel like the author made the story too big, too fast. I keep reading and, for some reason, yearning for the main character's past adventures before things got so convoluted with a bazillion pantheons and an impending Ragnarok.

My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

I was sucked in just reading Amazon's book preview a while back and was dying (pun seriously not intended) to know what happened next. I think I read the whole thing in 2-3 days. It's a little bit Warm Bodies, a little Sookie Stackhouse, and a little Dead Like Me. It's a very satisfying read, and different than the bazillion zombie novels that have come about in the last few years. Best of all, the whole story wraps up neatly without needing any sequels (although there are some if you wanted to continue.)

December

Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

I didn't like the previous two books, so this one took me awhile to get to. Luckily, it feels like it's getting back on track. Still, the main villain of the story felt completely random, like the author threw a couple of darts at some ideas. I didn't see much that contributed to the overall arc of the series, though I suppose I might be missing some stuff that will become more obvious in the next book

I'm actually pretty baffled, as I could swear that I read a couple more books in December, but I couldn't remember since I was getting lax about writing down what I had read. I also spent a lot of that time doing other things.

On to another great year of reading!