This is a redo of a post that was eaten when my blog went all ‘splody. I had done a little overview of a bunch of reviews I’d seen lately. So let’s try this again: Dear Author: “I would recommend this to those who are intrigued by the shifter myth Read more…
I vacuum-sealed dog biscuits and mailed them to various people, some of whom didn’t get it, and I put up some interesting websites here and there. All of this was in support of an Alternate Reality Game, which in some respects could be considered the bleeding edge of narrative. Sort Read more…
Today at 6:00 PM at the Learned Owl in Hudson, Ohio. I’ll be doing a signing of my new book, Wolfbreed. It’s a new venue for me, outside of my usual stomping grounds, wish me luck.
Got the September issue of Locus and there’s a real nice writeup of Wolfbreed: [Swann] finds his way to an ending that manages to be both eloquent and satisfying, as guilt reaches a form of absolution that rings true despite all the odds against it. Very cool, and on the Read more…
Back in March of 2007 I started writing (and blogging) this thing. Now, finally, after three drafts, a new agent and a new publisher later, it goes into print officially today. You know you want to buy a copy. Booklist: Swann’s exquisite werewolf historical brings the era vividly to life Read more…
Came in the mail yesterday, on the heels of the following praise from Booklist: Swann’s exquisite werewolf historical brings the era vividly to life as the perfect setting for his conflicted, multidimensional characters. This may be the werewolf book of the year, for, filled with action, romance, gore, and political Read more…
Wolfbreed gets a starred review in Publishers Weekly 7/13/09 Religion and political intrigue turn an adolescent werewolf into a killing machine in this compelling novel of 13th-century Northern Europe … Swann turns opposing viewpoints into sympathetic perspectives, clearly painting the complex political and religious dynamics of the time.
This weekend I wrapped up the first draft of Wolfbreed 2. We have it clocking in at about 84K which explains finishing about a week ahead of schedule. This doesn’t mean that the book’ll end up that short. Inevitably my revisions end up long. (Even Raven, where I cut 30K Read more…
Passed 75K on Wolfbreed 2, which means I’m very close to wrapping up the first draft of this novel. Now all I need is a new title. (Haven’t we been here before?)
Io9 had a recent blog post about Story vs. Plot, which was interesting (though I’m not sure I buy the argument it posits, but that’s another post for when I’ve had more sleep) and embedded in it is this little bit of commonly accepted wisdom I decided to take issue with:
When people talk about a “plot-driven” science fiction book or movie, they’re usually implying that the characters are as wafer-thin as the exploding mint in Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life.
Yea, the woeful canard of the Plot/Character duality, that has way more currency than it should. I don’t know where it originated, but it rightfully deserves to be stomped. If your story has paper-thin characters that just move around your authorial pinball machine bouncing from plot bumper to plot bumper, you don’t have a plot-driven story. You have a story with rotten characterization. Plot and character are not opposing poles on some creative spectrum, they are not mutually exclusive, any more than setting and narrative, or dialog and exposition, or any of the other ingredients of a full blown work of fiction. If any one of these ingredients, as written, suck, well the suck will affect the story. This applies to the cardboard action hero as much as the deeply introspective antihero in plotless literary porn.