Aunty Reads : The Night Circus

For the longest time I’ve struggled to finish books, to read something unrelated to Fox Spirit for my own pleasure. I am starting to reclaim that pleasure. Since I started out reviewing, I thought I might share my thoughts on those books I manage to complete here, with you.

I picked up The Night Circus after a number of friends recommended it to me. They were right!

night ciurcus

The Night Circus is beautiful, complex and enchanting. A story of multiple layers, based around a magical contest whose contestant are committed without their consent and not told the rules. The game must be played and they are tied to it until it is complete. Everyone who works for the Circus or falls for its enchantments is also, more subtlety but just as irrevocably bound to it.

The combatants actually show a frustrating lack of curiosity about the game itself, while as a reader I was initially impatient to understand it better. It isn’t long though before the book casts its spell in full and I was lulled into the nightly life of the circus, less concerned with how or when it will end but rather wandering endlessly down the ouroboros like paths, gawping and gasping as each new marvel is revealed, but never quite shaking the unease fully, knowing that something is not quite ok here.

Two magical prodigies battle, using the Circus as their stage and while Marcus and Celia work and spar their respective mentors manipulate and protect the secrets of their ego driven with little regard for who is harmed or at least forever altered by the process.

The writing is beautiful, the story gently compelling, the characters never fully revealed in their complexity, everything is done so beautifully. The Night Circus is a masterclass for aspiring writers in how to create an atmosphere with every aspect of the book that reflects the tale you are telling.

I fell fully under the illusions of this book, absorbing it, watching it unfold slowly like the living statues that adorn its paths. Holding my breath as the illusions unfold ever more intricate and dangerous. What will become of Marcus and Celia as the game inevitably concludes and can the circus survive? Why is Poppet no longer able to read the stars and what is the role of young Bailey in all of this. With workings more delicate than the complications of the Circus’ amazing clock this is a book that draws you in and binds you to it gently, from which you cannot simply walk away before the game is done.

Waxing Lyrical : The First Cut is the Deepest

We know it hurts, you’ve put love and time into this manuscript and now people are going to come along and start picking fault, before it even gets to the reading public! We feel your pain and we recommend a tub of ice cream, a weepy movie and that you suck it up cupcake, you need to put your book through this process before it goes into the cruel cruel world!

Ok let’s start by clearing this up. Beta readers, proof readers and editors are not the same things. Which is not to say the same people can’t be all of those at various points, but when you ask someone to review your manuscript you need to know what you are asking for and who you are asking.

'No, go ahead and critique my mss. I'm always ok ... after the initial reaction.'
‘No, go ahead and critique my mss. I’m always ok … after the initial reaction.’

Beta readers. These are often friends, hopefully ones not afraid to criticise you, or other writers doing a beta swap. The job of a beta reader is to come back with ‘so yeah were you going for a mash up of Noddy and Austen? Coz that’s what this feels like. Also Brad is a massive douche bag oooh and this bit makes no sense, did I miss it or is it a gaping plot hole?’ That’s all really. They are there for the every day reader, looking for things that throw them out of the story, or mess it up totally, the plot holes the inconsistent characters, the overall tone. They are not there to edit your writing, correct your grammar (if they have a good eye and pick up tense slips and typos bonus). They are there to feed back to you what your baby looks like to the rest of the world.

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Editors are there to make you look better. A good editor will not only pick up on mistakes in spelling and grammar, plot holes and inconsistencies but they will guide you. You can expect notes telling you that your whole first chapter is exposition, you don’t need it, bin the lot. An editor will tell you that you’ve used the same phrase 638 times in 400 pages and that’s at least 600 times too many, you’ll get notes to move this paragraph and cut that one, rewrite a section entirely, drop Brad not only is he a douche but he serves no actual purpose, cut him out entirely. A good editor will tell you that the book will be even better if it’s 100 pages shorter and that if you are setting it in medieval England you can’t have people saying ‘whassup brominator’. A good editor won’t rewrite you, put things into their words or make any changes for you, but they will steer and discuss and help you make the book tighter and better before it goes into the world. Beta readers are the mirror held up to your baby, Editors will show you how to photoshop it before you submit it for the local cutest baby contest.

typos

Proof readers on the other hand will just give your baby a thorough scrub and iron its best onesie. The job of a proofer is simple, but requires a sharp eye and patience. They find mistakes. Spelling mistakes, typos, they tell you when your two should be too or your their belongs there.  Proofers are the last line of defence against the fact that spellcheck doesn’t know you meant knackered not naked (seriously my brother wrote he was always nakerd and I was worried till someone pointed out the ‘r’)or that toad is a perfectly acceptable word, although toad works in the highway seem unlikely (I sent a lot of documents out with toad works in my time).

Be clear when you send your MS off. You can expect to pay a decent rate for a good line edit, likewise a decent proofer, it’s normal enough for beta reading to be trading favours or begged from friends. That does mean though that if they don’t work to your timetable or get back to you at all, or they take it upon themselves to rename your characters, I’m afraid that is what comes of trading favours sometimes. Shrug it off and use someone else next time.  If you are paying then you can expect the service you are paying for so be clear on what you want, find out the rates and see if this is someone you feel good about working with, if it’s up to you who edits your book (which it won’t be if you are with a publisher) then it’s a relationship, work out if this is someone you can work well with.

If you are issued with an editor, you may get lucky, you may not, but however frustrating you find them, be respectful, it’s a small industry. If it really isn’t workable talk to whoever is handling your book and see if they can switch you out to someone else, but be a grown up about it, you may hate the process but you need editing, you need proofing and it’s smart to get a beta if you can.

As an aside on beta readers. Don’t have too many, it’s tempting to get everyone you know who reads to go over the book but you’ll get so many opinions it can be overload. Ideally find two or three people who like the sort of fiction you are trying to write to read it and see if it hits the target audience.

So to summarise, you need beta readers when you finish your MS if you can get them. Then for heaven’s sake get it edited and proofed before you send it anywhere, to self pub or to query and agent. Give your baby its best chance. Give it a detached look over, clean it up, then wipe the snot off before you send it into the world. (Wow I’ve really squeezed everything I can from that analogy).

And check out #tentweetsabouteditors for some neat notes by @joannechocolat on the subject.

Waxing Lyrical : A little help from my friends

I didn’t expect to do another of these quite so soon however, I have engaged in a few conversations on Twitter this week that demonstrated a couple of things. The first one is that when everyone is polite and behaves like adults its perfectly possible to discuss emotive subjects without descending into trolling madness. Most importantly though, it highlighted that writers who do not fit the mainstream in their genre in terms of race, colour, geography for example, still feel and almost certainly are disenfranchised. I knew this, of course I don’t technically live under a rock, but sometimes you see several things in a single day and it really drives it home.

You all probably know by now my belief that since the only truly unique thing about a book is the person writing it, the more diversity we have in writers the more richness and variety we have in the writing. Still the market is what it is and many writers are unable to get traction or find suitable markets.

I said on twitter yesterday that as a small indie press in the UK it’s hard to gain traction, we are battling massive amounts of white noise on the internet. There is no shortage of good genre fiction so getting noticed is really hard. Part of how we are tackling that here is through the british league of independent presses. BLIP is an informal facebook group. In our case we chose to focus on small press rather than self pub, because there are certain elements of being a press specifically we wanted to be able to discuss with others in the same boat. It’s a private group so we can speak freely and plan to share launches and tables and information etc. A lot of us go to the same sorts of events and we all have limited budgets, working together just makes sense.

together

Here is the description of BLIP
‘BLIP is a group for small presses in the UK to share information, knowledge, resources and generally help each other out.
We are counting podcasts and ‘zines too. You all get stories out there.’

We don’t allow using it for direct selling or bypassing submissions.

(If you want to join please message with your click so we know the group is the right place for you).

As I said on twitter I would always encourage anyone to start something similar in their area or country or applicable to something specific to them, because while there are loads of writers out there, it’s by its nature an isolating thing and working together can benefit everyone. A group of non UK/US writers might between them actually have a good list of friendly US/UK markets for stories for instance. You can’t do everything alone, it’s too hard and too much and for most people doesn’t work. Find support, as the Prof always says a rising tide floats all boats. Together you can help change the tides in your favour.

Aunty Fox and Friends
Aunty Fox and Friends

There are so many incredible writers out there all over the world, but not everywhere has the level of publishing activity that the UK and US have, not everywhere are writing groups common and local, not everywhere has a massive list of events in different genres for industry and fans. Even here such things are often hard to find until you find the first one (we are bad at promoting the literary I find). Grouping together informally via social media can help you discover more connections, more events, more opportunities and it costs you nothing more than a little time.

Waxing Lyrical : Shark Infested Custard

In this series I want to address in more detail some of the things that I get asked at events and never have time to address as fully as I would wish.

Shark infested custard

Writing/Critiquing Groups

Writing is hard and it’s solitary and people want feedback. Many writers seek out others and form writing groups to provide the essential service of mutual critiquing. There are a lot of benefits to be gained from this but there are a few things that need to be kept in mind to get the most of them.

custard

How experienced are the other writers in your group?
A mix of experience is great, new writers can bring a freshness that is good for everyone, a disregard of protocol that can make you think ‘actually….’ And that is exciting. It’s also useful to have some more seasoned writers, people who have worked on their craft, bought all of the how to books etc. Everyone has something to contribute, no one is 100% right. First and foremost you have to be happy with what you are writing!

Have they successfully sold into any market, be it self pub, traditional or small press?
Again, most writers do lots of writing without actually making a career of it. If you have anyone in your group who has some real experience, especially if they have been through the process of professional editing etc then their view can be really helpful. Remember though, everyone has an individual experience of the process, some good, some bad, some downright ugly. You need to sift the personal from the business side of it, but there is a lot that can be gained. Also keep in mind different types of publishing have different norms. Paid competition to be featured is not at all unusual in poetry, it’s frowned upon in most prose fiction markets. If someone has a heap of experience writing non fic articles they no doubt have useful and applicable experience but there are probably differences to trying to place short stories in a magazine too.

Do they have very obvious preferences and bias in terms of style and content?
As long as they don’t get stuck in ‘I don’t like X genre’ then there is still plenty of useful feedback to be had, but be aware of who is in your group, what their personal writing ticks are. I have a writer friend who used a particular phrase a second time in a book, just to wind me up because I reacted so amusingly the first time.  I as a reader have my own ticks and it’s hard not to bring them to the listening.

lemmings

Are they telling you how they would write the story?
The biggest problem with other writers is that they are writers. It’s very hard for a writer to critique or copy edit without trying to fix. It’s not their story, remember that when you note their comments. ‘I would have x do y thing’ isn’t them telling you how to improve your story, it’s telling you how to write the one they would do. On the other hand, no one knows the difficulty of writing better than another writer and they are likely to have a better eye or ear for things going clunk in your prose than many readers.

Are they hearing your work in small chunks rather than consuming it the way a reader would?
Take feedback in context. If they are hearing the story in chunks they will respond to the chunk, don’t worry overly about feedback on tone etc in terms of the whole story. That’s what beta readers are for and we will cover them another day.

In short, feedback from other writers is fraught with issues and needs to be taken in context. It’s also often invaluable. Get it if you can and work through the murk to find the bits of advice and support worth having.

I would always support joining a writing group, writers spend a lot of time alone with their work and the social element, as well as hearing perspectives from other writers are really valuable assets.

Thinking of the fox

Every Christmas in lieu of sending cards out to the skulk, here at the fox den we sponsor a fox.

With the re emergence of the hunting ban debate we wanted to take the opportunity to suggest that you consider supporting one of the very worthwhile wildlife charities near you.

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All over the world wild things need a little help sometimes and these charities do great work with injured and orphaned animals, getting them healthy and back out into their habitats. We think that’s something everyone can get behind.

We take out our annual fox sponsorship with Wildlife Aid, but I am sure you will find a suitable charity wherever in the world you are if you want to participate.

Foxy thanks you for your support and kindness to wild things.

Aunty Fox Patches

They have finally arrived! The 3″ Aunty Fox sew on patches are available for £3 ea inc UK p&p and they look great!

patches

 

All the information for purchasing is on our facebook page and we hope to set something up in the sidebar shortly.

Aunty Fox guest post on The Asian Writer.

You are probably all familiar with the fuss over the Hugo’s and therefore Worldcon. Well I was fortunate to be invited to comment on diversity in SF and the events scene on The Asian Writer and the article went live today.

You all know that diversity in spec fiction is important to me, I’ve posted on it before, but it would be a real shame if we let the puppy contingent be seen as speaking for our community.

diverse

Aunty Fox on Diversity

The thing in fiction that is unique is the writer. For this reason, if for no other, we need diversity in our writers.

As a publisher I care about stories, the telling of tall tales, the spinning of yarns, the coming together around a fire and sharing urban myths. A good storyteller is the real world Rumpelstiltskin creating gold from straw.Wolf at the Door web

To me the fundamental reason for wanting diversity in genre fiction writers is the uniqueness of every voice. The richness of experience and the alternatives views of the world and events in it that comes from being a different religion, ethnicity or gender.

diverse

I am not saying that, for example, only writers of colour should have protagonists of colour. I think all writers should write the stories and characters they want. Still, as important as it is to have diversity within stories, it is, to me at least, even more important to have diversity behind the story. That is the only way we can truly enjoy the deep, glorious potential of storytelling.

Cover 1 Book 2
Cover 1 Book 2

This is why at Fox Spirit we focus on stories. In our selections we would rather work a little harder with authors for whom English is not a first language and get the great stories. It’s because we love storytelling in all its forms that we organise live reading events for all local writers not just our own (Fox Bites), which in Leicester is a wonderfully multicultural affair.

Fox Spirit is deliberately open when we do submission calls, allowing for interpretations of a theme to encourage people with different voices and ideas to take a chance where they might otherwise be cautious and while we cannot say we are truly diverse we are definitely bucking the trend in gender bias, which is a start.

 

On Clean Reader

Please note these are the personal views of Aunty Fox and I am not speaking on behalf of my authors here, they may disagree and have every right to do so.

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I generally try to keep my ranty pants off this blog (although they are very comfy and not in themselves offensive) but on the subject of Clean Reader I have this to say:

If you are considering using this app on our books, please consider reading other books. We publish the books as we and their authors intend for them to be read.

I suggest if you haven’t already you see what Joanne Harris and Joanne Hall have to say on the subject. They both reflect my views far more eloquently than I can express them.

In the interests of fairness I am also linking to Cory Doctorow on the subject because he totally disagrees and you might too.

World Book Day

It’s world book day today. All over the place kids are going to school dressed as their favourite characters. Aunty Fox has even loaned out her tail for the event. World Book Day makes me think of sitting in the space under my bunk bed (behind the inbuilt cupboards) with a lamp and a book as a kid, or reading a novel inside a science text book when I was supposed to be revising. It makes me think of the table of indie books I had the honour of manning at NineWorlds last year. Most importantly it makes me think of stories and the pleasure they bring.

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There are people who believe that fiction must try to be improving to have value. I disagree. I think we cannot help but be improved and enriched by the sharing of stories, so in fiction writers should be trying to tell the best story they can. What we are trying to do at Fox Spirit is share some of the stories that capture our imagination, that enrich us, with everyone out there.

So this world book day eat cake for breakfast, read something you enjoy and tell someone about a book you love!

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