JJ Litke

the neural pathways less traveled

Newly published story: When the Planets Left

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My flash story—When the Planets Left—is live at Cast of Wonders!

It’s one of their Little Wonders episodes that combine flash stories together. My story is second, starting at about 9:15. The first story is The There-It-Is Store by Adam Gaylord.

The episode theme is Embracing Change. I knew my story involved a concept of change (I know because I wrote it), but it was eerie to listen to the entire episode and see what an amazing job they did of blending my little story into a deeply meaningful theme.

Enjoy!

Harbinie of Death!

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Farstrider2CoverArtA circling raven is never a good sign, even when it’s riding a bicycle.

At last, Harbinie of Death is live at Farstrider Magazine!

I really love this story, and I’ve gotten really great, encouraging feedback on it from other writers (thank you, Slugtribe!). In fact I’d have to give this story credit as one of the main pieces that helped me feel like I’m really part of a writing community instead of an outsider peeking in the windows.

The amazing Damoclian wrote a review for it on his blog. I’m not sure the story does his review justice, but it’s a little thrilling to let myself imagine that it does.

I’m currently working on a novel based in this same world that I hope to start querying soon. Yay, querying, right? Nothing’s more fun than that!

Creating races in fiction: primate skulls

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So you’re creating a fantastic world for your story. Naturally, you want to populate it with fantastic beings. To pull this off, those beings still have to follow certain rules of anatomy and physics (unless you’re making up your own physics, in which case, good luck). Even if readers don’t fully understand the anatomy of real-world creatures similar to yours, they very well might realize something is amiss without knowing precisely why–people can be pretty damn smart, and you want smart readers, right? Okay then.

This is an extremely broad subject, so I’m going to tackle a small detail to make my point: primate skull shapes. This came up while at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History with my daughter. Being the full-time badass she is, she threw out details and facts throughout. When we got to a display of small primate skeletons, she noted how some are smoothly rounded, like a human’s, and some had bony ridges across the top.

You know what a human skull looks like, so let’s look at something cute, like a spider monkey.

spider monkey, spider monkey, doing the things a spider monkey can
By Klaus Rassinger und Gerhard Cammerer, Museum Wiesbaden (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Aw, kind of. Okay, a skull isn’t as cute as a live monkey.

The skull is rounded, with wide open eye sockets. No bony ridges on top. Spider monkeys–and humans–have smooth skulls because we have weak little flappy jaw muscles that don’t need much room to anchor to the skull.

By contrast, here is a mandrill skull. The stronger the jaw muscles, the more room they need to attach to the skull (or else they’d tear off of the skull under their own power). The bony ridges (which you can just see on the back of the skull) allow more surface area for the jaw muscles to attach.

mandrill skull: death awaits you with nasty big pointy teeth
By Didier Descouens (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
That guy? Can bite your arm off.

Wait, it gets better. Have you ever noticed how pointed a gorilla’s head is? It’s because they have FREAKING HUGE bony ridges. Which means REALLY POWERFUL JAWS. They need all that extra skull square footage for those massive muscles.

I'll bite yer legs off
By Panellet (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Side note, if you’d like to become the proud owner of a gorilla skull replica, click here to go to a fun site that sells real and replica bones. (Be sure to check out the Gift Finder link! Seriously, they have a Gift Finder link in the left nav bar.)

You might also notice that the skulls of primates with the large bony ridges associated with jaw muscles also have larger brow ridges. This has to do with the muscular structure of the head, and it’s going to affect the overall appearance of the animal.

The physiological appearance of animals is dependent on their underlying structure. Primates with powerful jaws have a distinctive appearance. So if you wanted to make up a race of aliens that are humanoid, but have super strong jaws, they should look more like the basic gorilla structure than human. Same for any other unique cranial elements; you need to consider how that would really work and adjust their appearance accordingly. The same would also hold for other musculature, like if arms or legs were particularly strong, or if they had more than the usual number of limbs.

It’s subtle detail that’s important for a realistic touch. And you’re kidding yourself if you think readers wouldn’t notice if you didn’t do it right. People may not consciously know all of these details, but they know when something feels off. And they don’t like it.

Maybe I’ll tackle the physiology of snake skulls next. Don’t anyone hold their breath for that to happen quickly, though.

Seven tips to make proofreading easier

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dig bog, dittle log
Typoglycemia. It’s a thing.

Your brain is a little too clever. It will read what should be on the page instead of what’s actually there. That’s just one of the reasons why proofreading is so very tricky.

Many people think all they have to do is read a piece over, and they’ll spot any mistakes. Simple, right? Except it doesn’t really work that way. In fact, you are less likely to catch errors in your own writing than someone else’s, because you know what you meant to say.

Here are a few tips on mastering the skill of proofing.

1. SPELLCHECK.
That’s so obvious, you don’t even need to be told. Oh yes you do. People skip this all the time, or simply forget to do it. The worst part is that everyone knows about spellcheck and how it works. So when you don’t use it and leave misspelled words in your writing, it looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. Many applications have dynamic spelling built in (including MS Word), so make use of it. Be careful with autocorrect features—we all know how wrong that can go.

2. Slow. Down.
Don’t read at your usual speed. Slow it down to a word at a time. A technique to help with this is to use a piece of paper to cover the lines below the one you’re reading; that discourages you from scanning rather than reading.

3. Proof in a different format.
Print it out, save it as a pdf, even send it to your tablet or smartphone. Reading the text in a different format frames it just differently enough that it helps you notice details in a new way.

4. Read out loud.
This is particularly good for flow problems, but the act of speaking each word gets you to look more closely at them.

5. Have someone else proof it.
This really works better if it’s someone who has also developed their proofing skills. But even someone who hasn’t can spot a few errors. Note: you can’t trust clients to proof the text that they gave you. Seriously. They will read the text the way they meant it every single time. Then they’ll blame you if typos end up in the final result.

6. Proof for one issue at a time.
Strictly speaking, this is more of an editing thing than a proofing thing (and there is a difference). Once you have the content set, make separate passes through looking for things like misplaced punctuation, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, adjective and adverb overuse, unnecessary instances of that or could, and any other problems you know yourself to be guilty of.

7. Take a break.
Coming back to something with fresh eyes a few days later makes it much easier to spot errors. And for creative work, it makes it easier to see flow problems, and even a little easier to figure out how to fix issues like that.

Even with all of that, problems will sneak through. Typos happen, even to the best of us. Look at this excerpt from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Typo in Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Check out the big brain on Brian!

You may not be able to hope to prevent them entirely. You just want to minimize the embarrassment of getting caught at them, and try to head them off as much as you can.

Now I’m wondering where the typos are in this post. It seems impossible to write a post about typos and not have any pop up.

Public speaking: still not as scary as writing

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Public speaking doesn’t scare me (much). I teach college classes, so I get plenty of practice being ignored while speaking to a group. When a friend asked me to be on her writing panel at WordCamp, I didn’t quail. Sure! I’ll only be one of five people, so I won’t even have to carry the entire thing myself, like I do when lecturing.

Then I walked into the small auditorium for our panel, and a sudden thought shot through my head. Oh shit.

But I’m a professional, right? I can handle this. It was definitely the biggest group I’ve ever confronted, but the minute we started, I didn’t feel nervous at all. It really helped that I was on stage with several awesomely talented people. I figured if I panicked at any point, I could flee and my cohorts would cover for me (I don’t have that option in class, unfortunately).

The whole discussion went well (so I thought, anyway). But I was struck by the anxiety, even outright fear, that all of us–audience and speakers alike–have about our writing. When you’re new at something, you might look up to an expert and think they don’t seem nervous about their work. Not true. That anxiety never leaves you. After 20+ years of graphics, I get nervous every time I start a new job. The difference is that now I have the experience to know how to get through the problem points. And I’ve learned the same with writing. Much of our talk was about getting through those parts.

  • Great writing doesn’t happen in the first draft, it comes with editing (and editing, rewriting, then editing some more).
  • Don’t give in to writer’s block. Write something, anything, to get past it.
  • Find someone who’s feedback you can trust to tell you if your content is working (but remember it’s still your writing).
  • Get a colleague to trade proofreading with you (proofing is a learned skill, you will miss your own typos).
  • Reading out loud makes it clear if the text is flowing well or not.
  • Take time between editing rounds; when you see it with fresh eyes, the needed changes are more obvious.
  • Edit again. Every single word counts.
  • No, really, edit. Years of copy editing have taught me you don’t need near as many words as you think.

The best thing that I got out of it was deeper realization that I’m not alone. I’ve got a few more like-minded connections added to my network. And for me, that’s huge.

Now I should take my own advice and start actually writing the notes for my next book. It’s just been scary getting started, ya know?

Peter S. Beagle and the art of listening

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I met Peter S. Beagle yesterday. He was doing a book signing at Sherwood Forest Faire outside of Austin. The setting was perfect for getting a chance to really talk to him, since it went on through the day, as opposed to the signings that funnel you through a fast-paced line and give you all of thirty seconds to talk to the author. Not only did I get to meet him, I talked to him at length. Or rather, I listened to him at length, which is even better.

I saw a number of other people interact with him as well. Some of them really wanted to tell him things, like about how much they loved his books, or the movie The Last Unicorn. And he seemed just as happy to hear their stories as they were to tell them.

When we arrived, my husband and I did something that’s usually taboo at book signings: we brought a book we already owned with us, hoping to get it signed. It wasn’t even a book Beagle had written. It was a first edition of The Tolkien Reader, for which Beagle wrote the foreword. I was fully prepared for him refuse to sign it, but as soon as he saw it, he launched into a story about Ian Ballentine staying at his house and how the foreword came to be a part of the book. He then asked if we wanted him to sign it. And all this before we even picked up any of the books for sale. If you’ve ever been to a big signing, you know how unusual all that is.

We couldn't have it signed by Tolkien, after all.

But it gets better. As we started going through other books, he kept on talking, telling more bits of stories. Eventually, people started queuing up, and we thanked him for his time and left. Through the day, I noticed that at times that the line at his table was substantial.

Late in the afternoon, we walked past again, and at that moment, there was no one by the table. We walked back up, thinking to thank him again before leaving. But he didn’t let us go that easily. He started telling us more stories. One was about the love of his life who passed away two years ago (part of the story was so romantic I had to struggle back tears, but it’s not my story to tell, so I won’t repeat it here). At some point, I had a dizzying thought about how amazing this moment was. We were standing with the legendary Peter S. Beagle, and he was telling us stories about his life as if there was nothing on earth he’d rather be doing.

By the end, after some discussion about his coming appearances (in Canada, which for logistical reasons I won’t be able to attend), he told us, “We’ll see each other again.” And he said it with such certainly that I absolutely believe we will.

Authors are natural storytellers, and that often means that they enjoy talking. Being a good listener, in some fashion at least, is also a requirement. Naturally, there were things I wanted to tell Peter S. Beagle, just as others there did. After all, I’m about to start querying my first book, and making connections in the publishing industry is very important to me right now. But sometimes, you need to recognize the point at which you should shut the hell up and listen. Especially in a case like this. The more we listened, the more he talked. And I got far more out of the entire experience for that than if I had tried to turn it into something else.

If you get the chance to meet Peter S. Beagle, I highly recommend it. And if you demonstrate a willingness to listen, you might get a lot out of the encounter. Try to listen at least as much, if not more, than you talk. And then try carrying that forward into other parts of your life. You learn more that way.