Like a Red Rag to a Bull

Today I thought I would talk about clichés.

From early on in my writing career (if I can call it that), and in most people's writing careers, I'd imagine, it was drummed in that clichés are to be avoided at all costs. Like the plague, if you will.

As I have progressed, I have found that this is not the case.

Case in Point. This morning while writing I conveyed my main character's anxiety by describing how he was taking his water in very small sips as it felt as though his stomach had 'shrunk to the size of a walnut'. Now, you might agree that the walnut analogy is a cliché. I think it is. But, you see, the thing is it gets the point across. Quickly and succinctly the reader will know what I mean. Walnuts: small, wrinkled, wouldn't fit much water. Anxious stomach, possibly small, possibly wrinkled, doesn't fit much water. Quick. To the point.

I could have tried to avoid the cliché. I could have sat and strained my brain for another way to say it, found another thing that it could have been as small as, but why, when there's perfectly good walnut phrases standing idle? Why strain over this small sentence when I have anxiety-ridden events to be describing? Clichés have their place, they've become so well known because they work, because everyone who has read them know instantly what it means, it conveys something everyone relates to.

There are books that avoid clichés at all costs. Though I haven't read many, the Star Wars books are good for this. "Cut through a ferrocrete bunker like a neutrino through plasma." Pardon me? 'Hot knife through butter' works just as well, better in fact. The reader will go 'yup, know what that means, what happens next?' instead of stopping midway through the action to think 'ferrocrete? neutrino? plasma? Oh! You mean like a hot knife through butter!'

There are of course better writers that will think of something better than a stomach the size of a walnut to describe my character's situation. I can't right now, and I'm too busy making sure the story works than putting in a clever little, original line that might jar the reader's attention from what's happening. Rather a good story that lasts in the mind than a good line, read, admired and discarded in the space of a half-second.

Ahem. Anyway.

No real news this week. F&SF rejected Promises, Promises with a standard rejection. Grrrr. I'm going to wait until Weird Tales rejects No Longer Living before I send it again. The novel is going fine, just put chapter 28 to bed and working on chapter 29.

Oh, and I came up with a title for my third novel. It's going to be called White Rose. I came up with it on the way to the shops and it works on a lot of levels for what the story will be about. Hurrah!

Anyway.

Thanks for reading.

Life on the Fast Lane

I can only apologise for missing last week's post.

Luckily, there is little to report these past two weeks. Things have been progressing very nicely with the novel with chapters 21 - 25 now complete (until draft three, that is). I still have niggling feeling about them. There's still a lot of stuff I want to put in on the theme but I think any more might be too much, these things need a delicate touch, I fancy.

All stories are still with magazines, especially hopeful about RevolutionSF and F&SF, either one of those on my credits will be a godsend.

Should check my logs and see when I sent Of The Father to Something Wicked. They did say they have a long response time but maybe I should just double check. Hmmmm.

Anyway, back to work.

Thanks for reading.

Rejection with Comments

A slightly late blog this week.

Well, the twenty-fifth birthday celebrations are over and what fun they were.

Amanda Palmer was utterly amazing and who was on stage with her for a bit? Neil freaking Gaiman!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! How's that for a birthday treat?

As predicted, twenty-five is feeling pretty good and has been off to a good start.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, after two years of blogging I can't remember and can't be arsed to look, but for each story I write I put it in a file of its own along with a small excel document to track where I've sent it. Each has a status. There's 'pending', 'rejected', 'accepted' (this, of course, appears only once) and the much loved 'rejected with comments'. In the past few days I've received two of these bad boys.

RevolutionSF (who have published the likes of Gene Wolfe and Ray Bradbury) rejected Earworm Turns saying:
"I like your writing style, and the story kept me engaged to the end."

Which was nice.

And I received my first non-standard rejection from F&SF (Stephen King, Daniel Keyes, Ray Bradbury again) who rejected No Longer Living while saying:
"There's nice writing here."

So there we go. I seem to be impressing the right people, now if only they'll bloody accept something I've written.

Oh, well, Promises, Promises is off the production line. Let's see what they make of that.

Rejections and Promises

A fairly productive week this week.

I finished working through the second draft of the first half of Act Two. The last two chapters aren't great and may need to be redone but that's because I'm setting up things for the second half. As soon as I get a new printer I'll print out chapters 21-30 and do a third draft read-through and see how it stands.

I was rejected by F&SF and Weird Tales this week, which was nice. Those stories are going elsewhere now and this weekend I'm doing a final draft of Promises, Promises which is looking to be a very strong story if I can just get the ending right.

Joe Abercrombie has a great entry on his blog about his second drafts. In a word, Intimidating.