Slow process

In my last post on wrapping up a story, I commented on the complexity of story wrap up. But that's hardly the only time consuming moment in the process of writing a novel. In my (admittedly limited) experience I notice four distinct periods of writing:

• Inception and research
• >60% sprint
• Story wrap-up
• Editing and publishing

In no way I'm claiming generalisity here, these are just my four phases. Anyway, the inception is clear: picking a storyline, a situation, a main character from my backstory world. Then starts a short period of research, filling a big basket (document) with concepts, ideas, situations, people, places, ships, all which might figure in the story. Sometimes you have to revisit this step halfway, to bring in more depth to the story, it's definitely a tool to use when wrapping up is hard.

The bulk of the story is written in one quick sprint, depending on the size of the book this can be done in a few weeks. The faster, the better as the ideas are still fresh and therefor have a natural flow. Biggest challenge in this period is to slow the pace of the story down enough. It's very easy to take too many shortcuts or be way to brief in situation descriptions, all because of writer enthiousiasm.

But eventually the pace runs out, it always does. And in general this happens at about two-third of the story, at the start of this wrapping up period. We already know the characters, most story arcs are in place and somewhat integrated. In some cases it's even possible to write something like a ~300 word summary of the ending. However, this is where things slow down dramatically. Life happens (=holidays, family stuff, work, busy, busy) And you're missing that starting enthiousiasm that drove the story telling. The harder to solve story arcs need solving, and it becomes hard to keep pace while necessarily deepening out stuff. We can't stay shallow the entire story, we need depth.

I've seen a near 80/20 rule here: 80% of my time is spend on that final 20% percent (=actually more of a third, but hey, who cares?)

After wrapping up the first write-through of the whole book, the slow editing phase begins. In my case I'm doing this fully on my own, where "real" writers would use external editors. Because this is a relatively non-productive period (=you're not really adding to the story, just making it more readable) it's easy to be slack and hasty with this. But how would you expect any readers to stay, if you can't be bothered to lift the level from scratchbook to actual novel? So, this should also take time and effort.

With my newest book (no. 4, yeah!) I've now officially reached that point. The story is finished, the editing begins. I expect to be adding two or three more "chapters" during that process (because something is still lacking), but the book is already on a healthy 77k words. Not bad, not bad at all.

Wrapping up a story

(Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers! (and Lord of the Ring's spoilers:) ))

Next weekend will be the final episode of the Game of Thrones. It's been a huge ride, with a worldwide appeal, mostly due to its combination of visual beauty, gruesome appeal and story writing depth. But many, many people are disappointed about the way the story is wrapped up in this final season. I'm not one of them, but it got me thinking about how to wrap up a good, long story.

When Tolkien worked on wrapping up the Lord of the Rings, he needed a way to rescue Frodo and Sam. Otherwise, the story wouldn't have ended on the hopeful note of Sam's return home to Rosie. So, in came the giant eagles, picking up the two hobbits, carrying them out of hell and sure death. Many readers have later wondered, isn't that too easy? Why didn't they fly in on the eagles in the first place?

With Game of Thrones, you see a similar problem: the writers having to wrap up many complex storylines, in a consistent manner. To make things worse, they overtook George R.R. Martin's books, so they ran out of source material. I believe they did a good job so far, keeping consistent and true to the earlier story. You can wonder about specific arcs, I would have loved to see Dany snap more realistically. It would have been easy to slip in some triggering event just before the supreme moment of her decision. (Maybe wound Drogon? Maybe show a taunt by Cersei? Just a shot of a single defiant soldier?) Anyway, the main story works and they need to wrap up. Never easy.

During the writing of the final chapters of Shadow Upon Saturn's Rings, I needed to wrap up my main story arcs. Most importantly I needed a good reason for Tiffany to want to go board the enemy ship alone. In my original plan, Molly was a good guy (girl), Hell died by the torpedo attack and Tiffany was only driven by the need for revenge. But this didn't work, it didn't make her believable, at least not to me. So, I took the decision to fundamentally change the wrap-up, adding several weeks to the writing. But I'm very glad I did. Now the story makes sense to me, Tiffany going after Molly to prevent the spread of the secret info. It's consistent. And makes Molly (and Bernard) more relevant.

Wrapping up a story is hard. I've gotten feedback on Mercury's Child, stating that the sacrifice by Anni didn't make sense to some people. I don't agree, it makes sense to me, but it shows how hard it is to wrap up a story in such a way people agree and feel connected. In that sense, I don't envy the writers of Game of Thrones. But they have been doing a good job, given the pressure of needing to wrap up in such a comparatively short timespan. People will just have to accept that the show is over.

World-building

One of the fun parts of writing any fiction is world-building, especially in Fantasy and Science Fiction. You can go as wild as you want, like the Discworld series and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. On the other end of that spectrum, you can weave a story that sticks close to the real world, with many books from Arthur C. Clark as an example. This latter style is called Hard Science Fiction. It starts by having a world that sticks to a stable set of rules, each as close to real science as possible.

Being an engineer by trade, I like my books to be on the more realistic side of this scale. The stories play out in the real world, in the real Solar System. Technology is as realistic as possible. In this post, I'll introduce some of the rules behind the world.

One of the main reasons why I want to stick to realism is because I don't want to spend too much time in the stories to discuss technology. Much of it has to be common knowledge to the main characters and due to the first-person-present-tense writing style, there is little room to fully discuss the tech. My stories must be about human experience, development, and growth, with future technology as the context with which the protagonists have to deal.

This brings me to the first rule of the world. Human life is the driving factor of the stories, therefore there is no alien interaction, nor strong AI, which takes center stage. To accomplish this, I've introduced a partial apocalypse, a large massacre in which an AI has killed a large part of the population, and more specifically a significant part of the scientific community. This story device led to multiple important results:  A technological slowdown, a clear move of society to the outer planets, and a deep distrust of AI and therefore a return to a human-centric future. Computers are kept small, relatively simple control systems, and the level of connectivity strongly reduced. There are laws that govern these technological limits, called the Mercury Limit.

The scientific and technological slowdown is also important. This solves a problem I was faced with, where I want humanity to be spread-out through a significant portion of the Solar System, while still using a recognizable technology level. I'm aiming for a similar vibe as some of the older Science Fiction works, especially the old works by Isaac Asimov, those predating his seminal AI work. In those books, the lack of AI was the result of not yet knowing what could be possible. In my case, I've reached this by banning AI with a reason.

Outer space is a hard environment to live in. Much of the technology development will have been focused on keeping people alive. Life-support systems, both at a large scale, and at a small, personal scale, take center stage. That has to be reflected in the books as well, even as this subject will encompass more fictional tech than other subjects. Much of this technology has been developed before the Mercury Massacre, with the loss of science making sure it would take another hundred years before significant new progress is made.

On the subject of survivability in space, there is another choice: humanity can somehow adapt to living in much lower gravity fields. I assume that human life and reproduction can still work down to 10% of Earth's gravity. This allows life on the larger moons and smaller planets in the Solar System. Permanent settlement of Mars and the moon are clearly without problem in this regard. However, people that have grown up at less than about 33% Earth weight can't easily adapt back to full Earth gravity. With very specific training, for a long time, they are still able to regain enough muscle strength and heart pressure, but in the normal case, Earth (and Venus) becomes a no-go zone.

There are two scientific subjects where I've introduced a real deviation of what I believe is possible in real life: Direct manipulation of spacetime to locally modify gravity, and material sciences allowing cloth to be stronger and change shape.

Regarding the material science, this provides the possibility to create spacesuits that can be activated and deactivated at will. Throughout the books I've called these suits, Jumpsuits, referring to their normal shape and the speed at which they can activate. Basically, they are full-body suits, with a high-tech life-support system build into an integrated backpack. Upon activation, a piece of transparent cloth moves up from this backpack and forms a dome over the head of the person, closing at the neck like a helmet. Such a feat is far beyond our current technology level regarding shape-memory materials.

The subject of spacetime manipulation is the largest deviation of real science. The idea behind it is that we somehow found out how to locally warp spacetime electrically. The first application of this technology is the Grav push disk. This is a large disk of a few atoms wide, which is spun at near lightspeed in a magnetic field. By vibrating this disk an asymmetrical force can be applied, accelerating the whole disk and the connected vehicle, through space. It offers electrical propulsion, which allows ships to continuously accelerate. This fundamentally changes spaceflight, reducing distances from months travel to several days, especially for smaller, lighter ships. Later applications of this technology are the development of faster-than-light travel and the introduction of moon size artificial gravity fields.

It's important to note that Grav push disks can't accelerate ships by more than around 35% of Earths gravity at most, and this can only work for small ships with relatively large disks. (Or some of the better military ships, which are strongly overpowered) This does mean that such ships can only launch from smaller bodies, with Mars being the largest planet where such engines can still be used. 

The Taggart Advanced Drive Technologies books are about a human future. Technological advances are meant to support this future. I hope that with these few rules I've managed to paint a convincing, consistent, and interesting environment for my stories to thrive in.

Point of view

An important part of the general vibe of a book is formed by the chosen point of view. And in the case of the Taggart Advanced Drive Technologies series, I've chosen for a bit of a non-standard approach: The books are all written (except for the first one, I really should rewrite Mercury's Child!) in the First Person Present Tense point of view. Basically, you are placed inside the head of the main character while events are unfolding around our hero. "Look, that girl is funny! I wonder if she knows it?"

Most books are written in a Third Person Past Tense point of view, where a narrator is recounting events around one or more protagonists, as it happened in the past. "John walked into the room, got himself a glass of water and drank as if he tried to drown himself." This form is very flexible, allowing many different styles. And it allows the narrator to provide hints of future events, things the protagonists can't know about, yet. "Little did she know about what was about to unfold." When the narrator is also the main protagonist, you get into the First Person Past Tense writing style: "As I walked up to the crest of the hill, a magnificent vista opened up before me. It was breath-taking, but as I was about to find out, also very dangerous!" This does allow the story to be more personal, as you can somewhat look inside the mind of the narrator, but it's also a redacted view on the truths of the past events. The narrator had time to think about it, had time to reflect and can choose to give his own version of the truth. The last common form is the Third Person Present Tense point of view, with an external narrator giving a live view of unfolding events. This is the "film" point of view, with us as viewers looking into the scenes. "Tom walks in and starts to shout! The dog clearly doesn't like this and starts to bark at him in return. It's a decent cacophony!"

The least common form of these four styles is the one I've chosen for the books (first-person-present-tense). I have a couple of reasons why I made that choice, with the most important reason being that it forces me to keep the story personal. I want the stories to be about how exceptional situations in the personal lives of the protagonist lead to a growth in character. And because this is about personal development, I like to get the "raw" experiences, without the reflection, just when it happens. The reader should be surprised at the same time as the main character, should get angry about similar things, get hurt, fall in love, be happy,  and laugh in tandem.
Another benefit of this form is the natural way dialog fits into this style, with the main character being able to have an internal dialog in parallel to the actual dialog.

However, there are also several drawbacks of this style: It's harder to provide back-story to the characters. As a writer, you need to place the protagonist into situations where it's logical to remember some background information. One way to do this is through dialog. Letting someone ask some background info or recount something that happened in the past. In a way, the main character has a head start on the reader because it knows more about the past and the world. Similarly, it's a bit harder to "paint a picture" of what's happening right there and then, as most people don't consciously describe what they see. So, in a sense, you are continuously falling out of the style to provide some background info or a description of the current situation. "I walk into the room. Nice couch!"  vs. "I walk into the room. There is a nice couch standing in the middle."

Another drawback is that it's hard to control the progress of time. People are continuously waiting, and similarly, people have the tendency to do all sorts of small tasks while walking around, mundane stuff that doesn't need to be described in a book. "I need to leave for work, so I grab a quick glass of water, pack my bag, put on my shoes, check the lights, put on my jacket, grab the bag, open the door, walk out, turn around to close the door again, etc., etc."
So, this can be replaced by something pacier. "I need to leave for work, so after grabbing a quick glass of water, I walk out." You can skip quite some time in this way, although that's not very reader-friendly. For example, check out this sentence: "After a good night's sleep, I'm leaving for Paris." For this writing style to be effective, these type of time-jumps should be minimized. It's better to close the scene and restart a new scene afterward. But then you need to tell the reader that it's now later, without falling out of the writing style. "Great to have had a good night sleep. I'm leaving for Paris now."

I have a natural tendency to write "information-heavy", compact, but fast-paced. Through the chosen point of view, I'm forced to slow the pace down somewhat and therefore keep it realistic for the main character. The style protects me from one of my more problematic tendencies as a writer. And hopefully, the viewpoint of the main protagonist also helps me in taking enough time to describe the world in which our hero lives.

Role models (Statement on Homophobia)

In the Netherlands, there is currently a heavy discussion, regarding a translated version of the Nashville Manifesto, which among other statements, uses (Orthodox) Christian arguments against homosexuality and other non-traditional relationships. As a writer of fiction, especially Science Fiction, I have the freedom to create my own future society. That society is not a utopia as that wouldn't be an interesting environment for any stories or books. But I made a conscious choice to make my books' society fully inclusive regarding sexuality, the way I hope our society will become.

Love is all-inclusive. Deep, real, human relationships can also be found between two people of the same gender. In Jenny's Dream this is made implicitly clear regarding Patrick. In my next book, this will be made explicitly clear, in the relationship between the main characters.

My books are not meant to be an explicit statement, no manifesto. But my sense of good and evil, my morals are at the base of the stories and their characters. Jenny, Jack, Tabby, Ross, Neal, and Monkey Wrench, they all can be some form of role model for myself, for my daughters, for any reader. And in their lives, there is no place for homophobia, it isn't part of their society. And that's how it should be.

Timeline of the books

My books all are situated in a fictional future, a couple of hundred years from now. I've started by writing down a rough timeline, which gets updated while writing. Therefore none of this is "canon" yet, although changes tend to be gradual.

The challenge is to have a believable timeline, including why certain technological progress has not been achieved. This lack of progress on several subjects is vital to keep the books about human nature and human experience. The largest setback in the history below was the Mercury Massacre of 2368.

Major Timeline:

• 2050 First humans on Mars, Moonbase
• 2056 Microbial life found on Mars
• 2060 Start of the “Heat century”, massive flooding, large setback. Energy crisis on Earth, the introduction of large scale nuclear energy, solar energy, wind energy, to counteract the Carbon Dioxide crisis.
• 2100 Moonbase >100.000 people
• 2100 First Jupiter bases
• 2107 Ocean life found at Jupiter moons (fish size, no intelligence)
• 2150 Mars colony >1b
• 2164 Ocean life found at Saturn moons
• 2175 Jupiter moons >100.000 
• 2180 First Saturn bases 
• 2200 Venus cities created >50.000 people
• 2200+ Earth temperature back to normal, oceans receding. Several large cities emerge, are rebuilt.
• 2226 Proclamation of independence of outer colonies
• 2290 Mercury research station created ~50000 
• 2300 Earth hit 15b people, Mars 5b, Venus 750m
• 2368 Mercury AI starts its attack, Mercury itself had 60.000 people, all killed. Massive destruction on all inner colonies and earth, massive food poisoning (nuclear waste based)
• 2373 Humanity won (quickly), Mercury destroyed, huge humanitarian effort to save as many of the population of the inner colonies as possible, 2b refugees to Mars!
• 2379 Most technical infrastructure restored, start of the science restoration project, declaration on AI acceptance(limiting allowed levels of AI)
• 2400+ Some knowledge still lost, but society recovered mostly. Earth society stays relatively small. Mars grows back to old numbers, largely due to refugees. 
• 2450 First human stellar colony ship (slow)
• 2445-75 Golden age of piracy, mostly around outer moons of Saturn.
• 2461 Mercury’s Child
• 2468 Revolution on Earth, getting rid of technocratic government, nature/green government with relative democratic structure, growing towards a dictatorship by the head shaman.
• 2474 Second stellar colony ship leaves, lost contact in 2527.
• 2500 Science levels back to pre-massacre level, ideas service about technology enhancements to get to Fast than Light travel, Conference about this at Jupiter.
• 2503 Shadow upon Saturn’s Rings
• 2510 Civil war at Saturn moons, old piracy nature still there
• 2517 Technology brings peace at Saturn, mostly through better living standards for outer moons. Society more open democracy compared to the more technocratic juvian rulers.
• 2525 First stellar probe that is FTL (unmanned)
• 2532 Saturn overtakes Jupiter in wealth/size, Mars overcrowded at ~8b 
• 2535 First manned stellar ships
• 2542 Jenny’s Dream
• 2546 Life found at other star systems
• 2547 Human mission sent to 2450 colony ship, bringing them a FTL probe, scouting capability
• 2553 Introduction of first on board artificial gravity fields
• 2559 First colony at other star system (Second colony ship)
• 2584 FTL stellar colony ship sent to new colony, mostly from Mars 
• ~2600 Colonies on smaller bodies introduce artificial gravity for better general health
• 2650 10 Colonies founded at various stars, ongoing trade. Mars back to 5b.
• ~2650 Earth population starts growing again, gravity technology allows for easier access to space
• 2673 Intelligent life found at star system, at very early bronze age levels.
• 2679-2693 Civil war at a star colony 
• 2750 Earth back on 7b people
• 2753 Advanced intelligence found, peaceful interaction
• 2884 First war with intelligent aliens

A new begin - writer's life

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog, life distracted me. I've also noticed that just posting thoughts on philosophical subjects by itself isn't very fulfilling. But since slightly over a year, I've found a new medium to channel such thoughts and ideas, while doing something enjoyable at the same time. I've started writing science-fiction books. It's like reading a book you like, but at the same time having the possibility to mold the story and the world into a puzzle of storylines that need to fit, be consistent, believable, enjoyable. I can honestly say, I like the process and I can see myself continuing writing for a long time. (contrary to some other hobbies that are fleeting, just a couple of months, next...)

For now, I'm mostly writing for myself, although I would have no problem if one or more books would be picked up by larger groups. I'm not going to "sell" the books, but I'll work on letting them be discovered by putting their existence out there.

This blog and its future posts can be part of that process. I'll use it as a means to discuss the writing process, the world around the books, the timeline, the characters. And I invite any readers to ask me questions about the books on this blog.


You can find my books through Amazon and Kobo:
Books at Amazon
Books at Kobo