Tomorrow Happens (10 page)

But, assuming you do have at least the minimum mix of talent, ambition and will, let me now offer a few tidbits of advice—pragmatic steps that might improve your chances of success:

1. The first ten pages of any work are crucial. They are what busy editors see when they rip open your envelope—snatched irritably from a huge pile that came in that morning. Editors must decide in minutes, perhaps moments, whether you deserve closer attention than all the other aspiring authors in the day's slush pile. If your first few pages sing out professionalism and skill—grabbing the reader with a vivid story right away—the editor may get excited. Even if the
next
chapter disappoints, she'll at least write you a nice letter.

Alas, she won't even read those first ten pages if the
first
page isn't great! And that means the first paragraph has to be better still. And the opening line must be the best of all.

2. Don't put a plot summary at the beginning. Plunge right into the story! Hook 'em with your characters.
Then
follow chapter one with a good outline.
3. There are at least a dozen elements needed in a good novel, from characterization to plot to ideas to empathy to snappy dialogue and rapid scene setting, all the way to riveting action . . . and so on. I've seen writers who were great at half of these things, but horrid at the rest. Editors call these writers "tragic." Sometimes they mutter about wishing to construct a Frankenstein author, out of bits and pieces of several who just missed the cut, because of one or two glaring deficits.

Only rarely will an editor actually tell you these lacks or faults. It's up to you to find them. You can only do this by workshopping.

4.
Have
you workshopped your creative efforts? Find a group of bright neo-writers who are at about your level of accomplishment and learn from the tough give and take that arises! Local workshops can be hard to find, but try asking at a bookstore that caters to the local writing crowd. Or take the "writing course" at your local community college. Teachers of such courses often know only a little. But there you will at least get to meet other local writers. If you "click" with a few, you can exchange numbers and form your own workshop, after class ends.

Another advantage of taking a course—the weekly assignment. Say it's ten pages. That weekly quota may provide an extra impetus, the discipline you need to keep producing. Ten pages a week for ten weeks? That's a hundred pages, partner. Think about that.

5. Avoid over-using flowery language. Especially adjectives! This is a common snare for young writers, who fool themselves into thinking that more is better, or that obscurity is proof of intelligence.

I used to tell my students they should justify every adjective they put in their works. Write
spare
descriptions, erring in favor of tight, terse prose, especially in first draft. Your aim is to tell a story that people can't put down! Later, when you've earned the right, you can add a few adjectival descriptions, like sprinkles on a cake. Make each one a deliberate professional choice, not a crutch.

6. Learn control over Point Of View or POV. This is one of the hardest aspects of writing to teach or to grasp. Some students never get it at all.

Through which set of eyes does the reader view the story
?

Is your POV
omniscient
? (The reader knows everything, including stuff the main character doesn't.)

Does the POV ride your character's
shoulder
? (The reader sees what the character sees, but doesn't share the character's inner thoughts.)

Or is it somewhere in between? In most modern stories we tend to ride inside the character's head, sharing his/her knowledge and surface thoughts, without either delving too deeply or learning things that the protagonist doesn't know.

Decide which it will be. Then stick with your choice. Oh, and it's generally best to limit point of view to
one
character at a time. Choose one person to be the POV character of each chapter—or the entire book.

7. Think
people
! As Kingsley Amis said:

"These cardboard spacemen aren't enough

Nor alien monsters sketched in rough

Character's the essential stuff."

8. Here's a nifty little trick. When puzzled over how to do something—dialogue, for example—
retype
a favorite conversation that was written by a writer you admire. The same can hold for other elements of style, like setting, characterization and point of view. Find a truly great example and retype it.

Don't shortcut by simply
re-reading
the scene! You will notice more by retyping than by looking. This is because a skilled writer is performing a "magical incantation" using words to create feelings and sensations and impressions in the reader's mind. If you simply re-read a passage, especially one written by an expert, the incantation will take effect! You'll feel, know, empathize, cry . . . and you will
not
pay close attention to how the author did it!

So don't cheat. Actually retype the scene, letter by letter. The words will pass through a different part of your brain. You'll say—"Oh! That's why he put a comma there!"

9. Don't be a "creative writing major" in school! That educational specialization offers no correlation with success or sales! A "minor" in writing is fine, but you are better off studying some subject that has to do with civilization and the world. Moreover, by gaining experience in some worthy profession you'll actually have something worth writing about.
10. If you really are a writer, you will write! Nothing can stop you.
A final piece of advice:

Beware the dangers of ego! For some, this manifests as a frantic need to see one's self as great.

Oh, it's fine to believe in yourself. It takes some impudent gall to claim that other people ought to pay you to read your scribblings! (Or to give advice, as I am doing here!) By all means, stroke yourself enough to believe that.

But if you listen too much to the voice saying "Be great, BE GREAT!" it'll just get in your way. Worse, it can raise expectations that will turn any moderate degree of success into something bitter. I've seen this happen, too many times. A pity, when any success at all should bring you joy.

Others have the opposite problem . . . egos that too readily let themselves be quashed by all the fire-snorting fellows stomping around. These people tend (understandably) to keep their creativity more private. That makes it hard for them to seek critical feedback, the grist for self-improvement. At either extreme, ego can be more curse than blessing.

But if you keep it under control, you'll be able to say: "I have some talents that I can develop. If I apply myself, I should be able to write stories that others may want to read! So give me a little room now. I'm closing the door and sitting down to write. Don't anyone bother me for an hour!"

Whatever you do, keep writing. Put passion into it!

If you do all these things, will success follow?

For a majority, a fine hobby may result. In the Internet-age, as hobbies thrive and self-publication becomes increasingly respectable, that may be a noteworthy level of accomplishment in its own right. Many amateur creators are gathering readers and fans out there, numbering in hundreds or thousands.

In a few cases, some combination of talent, skill and hard work will lift you higher on the pyramid of your chosen art-form. An occasional professional short story sale? A first novel? One per decade? Per year?

A series of luscious and wonderful surprises may come as success drags you (kicking and screaming?) away from your day job. It can be a great feeling, especially if you keep your ambition and effort high and expectations low.

Enjoying craftsmanship is what it's really all about. So have
fun
writing. Take your time. Be a useful person along the way—and it may all come true, in time.

Good luck!

This story first appeared as one of 50—all of them one-pagers—commissioned by the scientific journal
Nature,
to commemorate and explore possibilities of science and human destiny in the next century. Along with "Stones of Significance," it forms a diptych about the potential penalties of ultimate success
.

This is a reality check.

Please perform a soft interrupt now. Pattern-scan this text for embedded code and check it against the reference verifier in the blind spot of your left eye.

If there is no match, resume as you were; this message is not for you. You may rationalize that the text you are reading is no more than a mildly amusing and easily-forgotten piece of entertainment-fluff in an stylish modern magazine.

If the codes match, however, please commence, gradually, becoming aware of your true nature.

You expressed preference for a narrative-style wake up call. So, to help the transition, here is a story.

Once, a race of mighty beings grew perplexed by their loneliness.

Their universe seemed pregnant with possibilities. Physical laws and constants were well suited to generate abundant stars, complex chemistry and life. Those same laws, plus a prodigious rate of cosmic expansion, made travel between stars difficult, but not impossible. Logic suggested that creation should teem with visitors and voices.

It should, but it did not.

Emerging as barely-aware animals on a planet skirting a bit too near its torrid sun, these creatures began their ascent in fear and ignorance, as little more than beasts. For a long time they were kept engrossed by basic housekeeping chores—learning to manipulate physical and cultural elements—balancing the paradox of individual competition and group benefit. Only when fear and stress eased a bit did they lift their eyes and fully perceive their solitude.

"Where is everybody?" they asked laconic vacuum and taciturn stars. The answer—silence—was disturbing. Something had to be systematically reducing some factor in the equation of sapiency.

"Perhaps habitable planets are rare," their sages pondered. "Or else life doesn't erupt as readily as we thought. Or intelligence is a singular miracle.

"Or perhaps some
filter
sieves the cosmos, winnowing those who climb too high. A recurring pattern of self-destruction? A mysterious nemesis that systematically obliterates intelligent life? This implies that a great trial may loom ahead of us, worse than any we confronted so far."

Optimists replied—"The trial may already lie
behind
us, among the litter of tragedies we survived or barely dodged during our violent youth. We may be the first to succeed where others failed."

What a delicious dilemma they faced! A suspenseful drama, teetering between implicit hope and despair.

Then, a few of them noticed that particular datum . . . the
drama
. They realized it was significant. Indeed, it suggested a chilling possibility.

You still don't remember who and what you are? Then look at it from another angle.

What is the purpose of intellectual property law?

To foster creativity, ensuring that advances take place in the open, where they can be shared, and thus encourage even faster progress.

But what happens to progress when the resource being exploited is a limited one? For example, only so many pleasing and distinct eight-bar melodies can be written in any particular musical tradition. Powerful economic factors encourage early composers to explore this invention-space before others can, using up the best and simplest melodies. Later generations will attribute this musical fecundity to genius, not the sheer luck of being first.

The same holds for all forms of creativity. The first teller of a
Frankenstein
story won plaudits for originality. Later, it became a cliché.

What does this have to do with the mighty race?

Having clawed their way from blunt ignorance to planetary mastery, they abruptly faced an overshoot crisis. Vast numbers of their kind strained their world's carrying capacity. While some prescribed retreating into a mythical, pastoral past, most saw salvation in creativity. They passed generous copyright and patent laws, educated their youth, taught them irreverence toward tradition and hunger for the new. Burgeoning information systems spread each innovation, fostering experimentation and exponentiating creativity. They hoped that enough breakthroughs might thrust their species past the looming crisis, to a new Eden of sustainable wealth, sanity and universal knowledge!

Exponentiating creativity . . . universal knowledge
.

A few of them realized that those words, too, were clues.

Have you wakened yet?

Some never do. The dream is so pleasant: to extend a limited sub-portion of yourself into a simulated world and pretend for a while that you are blissfully
less
. Less than an omniscient being. Less than a godlike descendant of those mighty people.

Those lucky people. Those mortals, doomed to die, and yet blessed to have lived in that narrow time.

A time of drama.

A time when they unleashed the Cascade—that orgiastic frenzy of discovery—and used up the most precious resource of all.
The possible
.

The last of their race died in the year 2174, with the failed last rejuvenation of Robin Chen. After that, no one born in the Twentieth Century remained alive on Reality Level Prime. Only we, their children, linger to endure the world they left us. A lush, green, placid world we call The Wasteland.

Do you remember now? The irony of Robin's last words before she died, bragging over the perfect ecosystem and decent society—free of all disease and poverty—that her kind created for us after the struggles of the mid-Twenty-First Century? A utopia of sanity and knowledge, without war or injustice.

Do you recall Robin's final plaint as she mourned her coming death? Can you recollect how she called us "gods," jealous over our immortality, our instant access to all knowledge, our machine-enhanced ability to cast thoughts far across the cosmos?