Title: The Last Ancient
Author: Eliot Baker
Publisher: Burst Books, imprint of Champagne
Books
Pages: 316
Genre: Supernatural Thriller, Historical Mystery
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Purchase at
AMAZON
Around Nantucket
Island, brutal crime
scenes are peppered with ancient coins, found by the one man who can unlock
their meaning. But what do the coins have to do with the crimes? Or the sudden
disease epidemic? Even the creature? And who--or what--left them?
The answer leads reporter Simon Stephenson on a journey through
ancient mythology, numismatics, and the occult. Not to mention his own past,
which turns out to be even darker than he'd realized; his murdered father was a
feared arms dealer, after all. Along the way, Simon battles panic attacks and a
host of nasty characters -- some natural, others less so -- while his heiress
fiancee goes bridezilla, and a gorgeous rival TV reporter conceals her own
intentions.
The Alchemy of Fiction
Alchemy can be
described as the process of sublimating base materials into precious metals; of
turning lead to gold through. The process is both mystical and scientific,
involving specific materials and properly observed rituals. Fiction writing
shares a similar philosophy. There’s a certain alchemy to nurturing a story
idea into an actual novel.
Stories, like
alchemy, follow a process that varies with the practitioner. First and
foremost, you need your base material. In fiction, that is your creative
vision. Turning that vision into gold requires a host of skills that you must
spend thousands of hours refining. There are dozens of such skills. Here are
ten tips to being a fiction alchemist.
1. State your alchemical
intentions
Whether you call it a thesis statement, a
lead, an executive statement or a pitch, you should be able to come up with one
to three sentences that captures the soul of your story, the central concept of
its action, mood, message, and characters. Even if you have a complex plot—my
novel, The Last Ancient, does—you can
still clearly, succinctly define its core. In doing so, you’ll better nurture
your story to its greatest potential. It’s kind of like raising a child. While
she has her own personality and might grow in a number of directions you hadn’t
anticipated, you can nurture her towards the best path by understanding what
fundamentally makes her tick. The end result might surprise you, but you’ll
love her all the more for it. Your book, likewise, will grow in directions you
hadn’t anticipated but you can keep it from getting out of hand by coming back
to remembering what its core goals are as a story.
2. Remove adverbs from the
mixture
On the sixth page of my book, a potentially
homicidal hunter tells my protagonist, a journalist: “You use too many (effing)
adverbs. Stop writing all flowery and passive. Read some Bukowski.” It’s true. In journalism and technical
writing, adverbs and cliché’s are helpful. In fiction, they are the plague.
When you look at amateurish writing, you’ll
find that it tends to be studded with adverbs. Knights ride beautifully and
fight courageously; girls weep sadly and boys laugh merrily; vampires smile
evilly as they drink thirstily. Adverb addiction creates redundancies. It also
precludes imagery and a unique voice vital for a story to come alive. Adverb
addiction promotes laziness in writing. Removing adverbs forces you to make
interesting language full of vivid images and deep context.
3. Let the gold shine—hyperbole
dulls it
Avoid saying things like, “He was the
strongest knight she’d ever seen with the fastest sword and the most amazingest
armor” or “Brutus was indescribably powerful, and his horse was so unbelievably
fast no one could believe it.” Constantly saying this or that was the most big
or amazing or terrible thing makes your writing sound like a red-faced child
bragging about his superhero Daddy. Try instead to convey the gravity of this
thing or event through its effect on the surroundings, or by people’s
reactions. That will show us what’s happening and establish scene and character
depth. Let your scene sparkle by making us see, feel, taste why this place,
thing, or action is so amazing.
4. Touch, smell, taste, hear,
feel your elixir
Engage the senses, particularly when
introducing a new scene. What music is playing in the restaurant? What
conversations are happening? How does the wind and sun feel in the prison yard?
What does the murder scene smell like? What does fresh squeezed pineapple juice
taste like? How does the rope feel in the sailor’s hands? You’d be amazed at
how many sensory observations you can get across in a single sentence within
the first two paragraphs of a chapter.
And how you’d be further amazed at how much those observations dually
inform us about your characters and bring us into the scene.
5. In dialogue, just
use, “said”
Bad adverb use in attribution actually has
its own term; it’s called pulling a Swifty, after the Tom Swift books others
like the Hardy Boys series: “Tom said swiftly,”
“She said hesitantly,” “He cried indignantly,” “He hollered loudly.” Such attribution gets old quickly. Also, in attribution, avoid
consistently doing this stuff: “He intoned.” “She exclaimed.” “They cried.” “He
wept.” Constantly using your thesaurus for a variation of “said” is distracting
(although in children’s literature it can work). Just use “said.” If people are
always crying and shouting and intoning and interjecting, readers get
distracted. Again, it’s overwriting, like that red-faced child describing the
most amazingest thing that just happened. Your dialogue on its own should
indicate whether characters are crying or shouting or interjecting. Avoiding
such attribution will force you to beef up your dialogue. If you must convey tone,
introduce a descriptive sentence before the character speaks.
“Boris stared into his drink until the sun
broke through the clouds, making him squint his watery dark eyes as he said in
trembling tenor of someone repentant for their sins…” See how much you get
across there? Compare that to, “Boris said quietly while he stared sadly into
his drink as the sun shined harshly in his squinted eyes.”
There are exceptions, but there’s no science
behind it. The story will just demand it. But for the vast majority of the
time, just use “said.”
6. Stir your suspension
The book’s heart is its plot. Tension is its
pulse. Consistent tension keeps things interesting as information and
characters are introduced and dispatched. Some sense of fear and uncertainty
must pervade the narrative. That doesn’t mean you need to write a 300-page
chase scene. Tension can be whether a boy smiles back at a girl; the pause
between a man’s presentation and his superiors’ reaction; a mother’s low
fuel-light lighting up while her baby screams on their way to the doctor.
Tension is pacing, it is the twisting and unraveling of conflict, it is the
pauses in conversations and actions. It is the uncertainty clouding events’
outcomes. Make sure there is always some sense of uncertainty, some tension, in
your story that the reader see resolved.
7. Invert your steps
Write the last page. Know your ending. While
your first page is the most important part of selling your book, the last page
is most important for first getting it finished. Don’t stress the beginning
when you’re in the drafting process. The beginning will be better if you write
it to fit with the ending. Try to imagine an ending to your story, something
you’re working towards. Write it down. It’s likely that your story will go off
in a different direction, but having an ending to aspire to provides you a
guiding light for your outlining and writing.
8. Plan your
reaction
I’m a natural pantser who’s seen the light
of outlining. They’re so, so helpful, even if you know you’ll stray from it.
You can write chapter titles on notecards and lay them on a board. You can make
pictures and sprinkle them on the floor. You can write a straightforward plot
synopsis and cast of main characters, which agents interested in seeing a full
manuscript require. That’s basically what I do.
Or maybe your outline involves graphics, or speaking into a recording
device. Whatever your method, organize your basic plot structure.
9. Isolate your substance
Isolation goes beyond the typical “blow up
your TV and go to a cabin in the woods” stuff. Consider your book a classified
operation. The wrong influences could compromise it. Until your book is done,
be very careful about two things: what you
read, and who reads you. I pleasure
read within my novel’s genre only before and after my novel’s written, but
never during. Otherwise I risk getting derailed; I sometimes find myself
subconsciously affected by a story I like, or admiring too much another
writer’s style. You’re not writing someone else’s book. You’re writing your
book.
Regarding readers: as much as they ask to
read it, there’s a chance the wrong reader will provide damaging and unhelpful
feedback. Just because you love someone doesn’t make them your ideal reader, as
Stephen King calls the person who is most suited to appreciating your work.
Choose your first readers wisely. Try to probe for their tastes, strengths, and
limitations as readers, and then decide whether they’ll give you useful
feedback.
10. Listen to the
voices
If you were to look at your dialogue, would
you know who was speaking without attribution? No? Then consider altering that
character’s voice. Especially the main characters. Consider giving them a
social tick, or an accent, or a go-to couple phrases, or an attitude; think
about making them speak in longer or shorter sentences. John Irving’s Owen
Meany speaks in all caps and declarative sentences. Your characters need
individuated voices that reflect and amplify their personality. Think about a
Cohen brothers movie like Fargo or Big Lebowski or, well, pretty much all of
them—voice practically makes the movies.
About the Author
Eliot Baker lives in Finland. He teaches communications
at a local college and runs an editing and translating business, but would be
content singing for his heavy metal band and writing novels full-time. He grew
up near Seattle,
got his B.A. in World Literature at Pitzer
College, and got his M.S.
in Science Journalism from Boston
University. He was an
award-winning journalist at the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, and before that
he wrote for the Harvard Health Letters. He spent four years pursuing a career
in the sciences while at the Harvard
Extension School,
during which time he spun old people in NASA-designed rocket chairs and kept
younger people awake for 86 hours at a time in a sleep deprivation study. He
likes good books, all music, and bad movies, and believes music and literature
snobs just need a hug.
His
latest book is the supernatural thriller/historical mystery, The
Last Ancient.
Connect & Socialize!
A native of Natchez, Vern Smith is a graduate of San Francisco State University, and the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the Long Beach, Calif. Independent Press-Telegram.
