After the Fall - #1 - A seven-part red carpet roll out for Out of the Ashes

AFTER THE FALL

(A BEHIND THE SCENES LOOK AT THE MAKING OF A BOOK OR

HOW A POLITE EMAIL LED TO A NEW ELAN SERIES)

It takes four to seven years to obtain a PhD, seven to become a lawyer, and about fourteen to sixteen to become a neurosurgeon. I took thirty-four years to become a novelist. Now, there are two ways to look at this: either I’m a really slow learner, or it’s much harder to write a good book than it is to obtain a license to cut into people’s brains. 

Part of the problem is there isn’t a clear-cut path to become an author. If you ask a hundred successful writers about how they got to where they are now, you'll hear a hundred different stories. But for the vast majority there will be years (or decades) of struggle, depression, and failure along the way. I don’t know a single university offering a program that guarantees your first novel will be a success. There is no "novelist" degree that you can receive after a few years of study. I hold these facts up as evidence that creative writing can’t be taught (despite the many classes on the subject).

The profession I've chosen isn’t a science. Nor is it a trade or a craft as many people tend to profess. Creative writing—novelization in particular—is truly an art, which has creativity at its core. And while you can recognize it, explain the conditions in which it often blooms, and describe some of the techniques that can give rise to it, you can’t teach any of those things either. Sure, you can explain what colors will make green when mixed together. Or demonstrate the chords make an uplifting impression and which ones evoke remorseful emotions. You can profess it’s better to show rather than tell, but all those things are like explaining the best technique to hold a scalpel and then sending the aspiring surgeon into the operating room to transplant a heart. The basics are called that for a reason, and art and creativity require more than fundamentals to be consistently successful. Sometimes it takes thirty-four years of practice just to get started. 

But as you are about to discover, sometimes it doesn’t.

On Friday, February 27th in the year 2020, I was just finishing the first draft of my novel Farilane, and Covid was still two weeks away from being labeled a pandemic. That's when I received an email from an unknown woman:

 

Hi, Michael! I'm writing to ask a question, but first I want to take this opportunity to let you know how much I appreciate your work. You inspired me to fulfill my lifelong dream of writing.  

 

I began reading novels very early in life and always believed I would one day be an author. I have a fairly good grasp of grammar and vocabulary and thought that would automatically translate into writing ability. Nope! Writing is difficult, and I never made it past a couple of pages before remembering that and giving up.  

 

That changed when I read your work. You demonstrate that a talented author can just tell a damn good story without relying on endless descriptions, stuffy dialogue, and a thesaurus the size of an unabridged bible. Your writing style was a revelation. I began to realize I could find my voice and that it didn't need to mirror anyone else's.  

 

I admire all of your books and stories, but Royce and Hadrian hold a special place in my heart and always will. I love them both, of course, but Royce is my favorite fictional character of all time! I often feel that the characters represent two parts of myself. Everyone knows I'm a Hadrian, but only a handful of intuitive friends understand a Royce lurks inside, too.  

 

 When my supply of Riyria stories was exhausted I was lost. It felt like two dear friends had moved without leaving a forwarding address. To fill the void I began reading fan fiction. I saw my love for your characters reflected in the stories of other fans and decided to try to write my own. I had no training and had never penned anything more advanced than a Yelp review. I started from square one. Your blogs were incredibly helpful and I attempted to apply your writing advice. If I had studied my college textbooks with even a fraction of the enthusiasm with which I studied your novels I would have earned a Ph.D. After countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears, my lengthy story is finally complete! I'm sure it contains plenty of rookie errors, but who gets it right the first time? 

 

The story was never meant to be seen by another living soul—not even my husband. It was simply an experiment to find out whether I could do it and an attempt to transfer a story to paper before it drove me crazy bouncing around inside my head. My sister pestered me relentlessly about reading it. To prove she was serious she read every book in the Riyria Revelations and the Riyria Chronicles so she could offer the best critique. In the process she became not only a devoted fan of your work but also my first beta reader!  

 

It was my sister who insisted I share the story on a fan fiction site. That was never the plan. I'm intensely shy and my story is very personal. However, I understand I need feedback. I have finished the outline for an original novel and need experienced writers to show me what I did right, what I did not so right, and what I did wrong, in order to improve as a writer. Feedback would be invaluable in determining whether I have any natural ability that can be cultivated or whether I should just cut my losses and take up knitting.

So this was a ridiculously long-winded way of asking for your permission to share my story on a fan fiction site. Because I'm a newbie I don't know whether it's the norm to ask, but I'm not willing to risk insulting my favorite author by assuming it's okay to use his characters without consent. 

 Thank you so much for your time! I'd like to add that I received my copy of Age of Death and am excited about your new Kickstarter campaign. I also read you're working on a new Riyria adventure, but I'm trying not to think too hard about that in the same way I try not to think too hard about Christmas. Thank you for all you do! Your talent is a true joy for your readers and an inspiration to aspiring writers like me!

In the realm of fandom, mine is quite small. Still, on one website, Archive Of Our Own, there are more than 822,000 words written across 94 stories based on my novels. How many exist worldwide? I have no idea. Why? Because no one has ever asked permission to post a fan fiction based on my stories before. I only know about Archive Of Our Own because I just now did an Internet search and it was the first that showed up. 

After reading the email above, I was surprised, and touched, at the respect extended by asking for permission to do something other people had already done without ever thinking to ask. So I thought I should write back, and here was my rather short reply: 

 

You have my permission to share your fan fiction. You also have an invitation to send your work to me so I can read it to see if I can help you improve.  That was a very nice letter. Thank you.

MJS

 

Then I forgot all about it. I thought the most likely response about my offer to help would be a lack of belief of the aspiring writer would become terrified and disappear. But lo and behold, the very next day I received this:

 

Hi, Michael! 

 Thank you so much for your response. I don't even know what to say. To receive permission to share my story on a fan fiction site is exciting. For you to offer to take a break from what must be a ridiculously busy time for you and read my story is simply astounding. I would love that!

I'd like to offer a couple of disclaimers. This really is the first thing I've ever written in my life, so I understand it won't be great. I have no illusions or ego about that and am ready, willing, and able to learn from any and all feedback. I tried to make the fanfic stick to the general tone of your books, but that train probably went off the rails rather quickly.   

 I think a lot of fans might not react well to the story's subject matter. Some pretty bad things happen to Royce and Hadrian. It worries me that you might be put off. It's one thing for you to torture your own creations, but perhaps quite another for someone else to do it. All I can say is that I tried to faithfully reproduce the story that was in my head. The story was started in 2019, which was easily the most traumatic year of my life. It was filled to the brim with unexpected loss that I'm still struggling to make sense of. Hadrian and Royce had the misfortune of being caught in the middle of that, but I believe I treated them with the respect my deep love for them demands. 

Thank you so much for being so supportive of your fans. I really appreciate how available you are, and have always been, to us. It's rare and refreshing! I attached the story to this email. I have zero computer skills, so I hope it made it through intact instead of scrunched and scrambled. If it's jumbled, missing italicized words, and so on, I can try again to send it. I don't expect to get feedback right away (or even in the near future); I'm just happy to have this opportunity!

 

Look at that, she’s back and had the courage to actually send the story. 

I stared at the attachment and sighed. It would have been better if she had chickened out. She seemed like such a nice person. I didn’t want to rip out her heart and stomp on it. Unfortunately, that’s what I do. I can’t bring myself to lie to a person about their work because everyone else usually does. Spouses, friends, even teachers all avoid the truth. Their intensions are come from a place of kindness: either  positive, or polite, or because they honestly don’t know any better. I’ve been in writer workshops where twenty people will say how great a piece is, then it gets to me and I have to give my honest opinion which results in the piece being torn apart. I’m the bad guy. But when planning to submit work at a followup meeting, they always want to know if I’ll be there. I used to assume it was to avoid me, but I soon discovered they wanted my opinion because it helped, and the can’t improve without being challenged. All those prior experiences didn't make looking at this pieces any easier. I really am a "nice guy," but  I felt bad as I opened the file and began reading.

 

***

My wife came home a few hours later. She had been grocery shopping or some other sensible thing. This was five years ago, so I can’t be certain exactly what. I wasn’t taking notes because important moments never appear that way until you look at them through the rearview mirror. 

“I want to read you something,” I told her and began reading the story I had just finished. 

 

After a page or so Robin stopped me. “What is this? Are you writing a new novel?”  

 I shook my head. “I didn’t write it.”

“Is this person self- or traditionally-published?" she asked.

 I didn't answer, I just went back to reading. 

When I got to "Duster" her mouth dropped. "This is fan fiction?"

I grinned.

“How long has she been writing?”

 “That’s the crazy part. This is the first thing she’s ever written . . . outside of what I can only imagine is a killer Yelp review.”

I read Robin the emails as she sat on the couch, stunned. “Wow.”

 And so on the following day, I wrote back.

 

I have read your story, and you might want to take a minute to sit down before reading further. 

Sitting? Good.

 Two things stand out. 

 The first is that you are a good writer. 

I am certain, while that might be pleasing to hear, it sounds remarkably like a simplistic platitude—a polite thing to say, perhaps. Sadly, because you don't personally know me, your jaw is not presently on the floor where it should be. I receive an enormous number of requests from aspiring writers, self-published authors, agents, and writers published by the likes of Tor, Del Rey, Simon & Schuster, Orbit, and many others. They do so in an attempt to get an endorsement for their books. Why they continue to ask, I have no idea because I rarely ever endorse. I have a ridiculously high bar and a very narrow mind, so for me to say that you are a good writer is huge. There are authors making six-figure incomes that would love to hear me say something similiar to them. 

 Before I inflate your ego too much, allow me to say you aren't a great writer. Your work suffers in a few aspects. You could stand to focus a bit more on clarity. You need to gain a better understanding of what is excessive and unnecessary as opposed to what is needed and missing. Your pacing, situation clarity, and overall plot logic needs work. But compared with the issues I usually find, that's like the skin versus the apple. 

I would like to encourage you to keep writing. You should not take up knitting. Learn to plot logically. Learn to look at your work like a reader and find the things that are in your head that you didn't get onto the page. And also, seek and find the messages and wisdom you feel are worth giving to others.

 Allow me to get on my soapbox for a moment.

Fantasy is the heir of myth and fable. Myth and fable were means by which societies taught their people to live their lives well and safely. Little Red Riding Hood was originally a gruesome story not suitable for children, except those you wanted to scare so badly they wouldn't go wandering in the woods—ever. Today, fantasy still has a role to play. It needs to reflect the realities of our world to be relevant, but it also provide a signpost for where humanity ought to travel. It shouldn't be forgotten that art also inspires reality. What is conceived in fiction often is mimicked in real life. Man went to the moon because of writers like Jules Verne, and black women gained confidence to aim higher because of Star Trek. Even my wife admits that much of her values were formed partially from watching M*A*S*H as a youth. Fiction serves to teach empathy by revealing what it is like to be someone else. Negativity breeds negativity. Art—I feel—ought to aim at beauty even if it is found in ugliness, perhaps especially if it is found there. 

 I prefer to be a light of hope with my work. I don't presume to suggest I'm making the world a better place, but I'm pretty sure I'm not making it worse. My creed is that I want anyone who reads a book of mine to feel better about themselves, others, and the world in general than they did before they read me. Just consider that as you write, as you will hopefully begin a career that will give you a louder voice. 

Thank you for letting me read your work. 

Good luck to you. 

MJS

 

And, honestly, that is where I thought this interaction would end. 

Only it didn’t. 

 

Stay tuned: Click here for the next part of the story.

NOTE: The sections in italics in this and the following installments are directly copied from actual emails. They've been edited only to fix typos or to eliminate references to names of others.