Probably because I wasn't there to be seen! I'm not much of a con-goer.

Get where, Mary? To the website or to the idea for it? For the saga, I mean?

It began as a short story idea.  What if American Indians rode dinosaurs?  It bloomed easily into enough information for a novel and that turned into a five-book series.

No, I never developed it as a short story.  The research too quickly expanded the original idea

Actually, I was dared into it...A friend of mine, who knew I liked to imagine stories and such, challenged me to write a short story for his writers group.They were all writing a short story based on the same first line.So I took him up on it, wrote it, and sold it.

After that, I was hooked.

I got plenty of rejections between Sale #1 and Sale #2. No, I gave myself 5 years to sell to a "major" market, in short stories. I did that, and then went on to the novel form. I still write short stories now, but mostly as a way to develop an idea for a novel.

Yes, and they treat it as exactly that: a subgenre of Sci-Fi. You'll find it interspersed with all the other sf/f on the shelves.

Some writers make it over to mainstream or to historical fiction, but not many.

I never actually read any of it before I wrote the Fallen Cloud books. And lots of hardcore alt-history fans think I went too far off the beam to be called "alternate history". But the idea of an alternate America took me there, Big Time.

Primarily, yes. Their complaint was that I "changed too much" and yet kept much of history the same. It comes from a difference in philosophies about the nature of time, and the differences one change might create.

LOL...Yes! I was told that what I had proposed was impossible, and I always countered with "Hey, it's FICTION"

Good question...Most AH books deal with a specific change to an event in human history.  Nazis won WWII.  The South won the Civil War.  Most of them deal with a change in some war or battle or some such and they extrapolate from there.  My changing the fauna of the Americas dating back to the Cretaceous period was a bit too much for some.

That's a hard one to even begin to answer.  I don't know that anyone has the data for it.  Looking at the shelf-space, though, I think you'd have to say that sf/f/h accounts for about 10-15% of all Fiction sales.  Wild guess, though.

Thank you! It's my favorite published book, so far.

For DREAMS, I drew heavily on my experiences in the Middle East.  It's a place filled with amazing images.

Well, I always assume that my readers aren't stupid and that they're aware of current events and a bit of history, too.  So I don't spoon-feed them with big red letters saying; "Oh, by the way, the Palestinian state doesn't exist yet!!"  But there are places where you have to make sure it's known that Things Are Different.

Not for the purpose of laying out what's different, no, though I find "sidekicks" a very useful tool for getting exposition into the prose without being ham-handed about it.  Mostly, I'll merely mention the difference a couple of times, when it comes up.  But only when it's pertinent to the plot.

Yes, otherwise they wouldn't have been drawn to it in the first place.  That's the assumption, anyway.  And it's not so much the differences that are important but what the characters DO about the difference.

Yes, and for example, those who read the Fallen Cloud books will (I hope) enjoy the story on a basic level while those who know something about George A Custer will enjoy seeing the changes in him.  And those who enjoy political intrigue will enjoy that part.

That's the hope, anyway! Custer is an interesting character whether you know the history of the real Custer or not.

Yes, info, I do. I want it to be interesting to anyone who picks it up, and not just students of history or of a period.  But I also want those history students to be pleased!

There are some that are more into minute changes but those are more scholarly in nature, almost "thought experiments" about what might have been.  The more popular works are about things You Should Know About.

LOL! I NEVER HAVE ENOUGH!!!  But about 3-6 months of reading goes into the background material for my books.  That's per setting, not per book.  I was able to leverage research on Fallen Cloud Book 1 into Book 2 (and 3 and 4).  Each one requires more research, but only about another month or two.  But I'm never satisfied with the detail though my editors shriek at it all.

Research is seductive and addictive so at a certain point, I've just learned to stop.  Mostly, though, it's at the point where all my "big" questions about the characters and plot have been answered.  The other research comes later, to fact-check and fill in details.  For every fact/detail in the books, there are 5-10 I left out.

I've been accused of putting "too much history" in my books.  And to a certain extent, it's true.  I've had to reread and rewrite with a more critical eye and look for those facts and details that clog up the prose or have no strong purpose for a scene.

In writing a book...any book...I hit a wall at every 30,000 words and I have my wife, who is my First Reader, read through what I have so far.  Then she says "No, it's NOT stupid," and I go on.  But no one else reads it until it's done and then it goes to my circle (small circle) of First Readers for critique.

My rewrites are not extensive, primarily because I'm an outliner.  I outline the plot to a fairly detailed level before I begin so my rewrites are line-level or in rare cases, moving/removing chapters or scenes.

Good question. Answer: both a little and a lot.  I always end up in basically the same place but sometimes I take a different route getting there. Characters can and do assert their will and bring in new twists.  But because my plots are fairly intricate I can't just let it freewheel...I need to know where I'm going to end up.  The outline is a "serving suggestion" not a recipe.

It saves a LOT of grief from going down blind alleys...for me at least.  Yes, publishers care...a LOT.  But an AH writer would avoid the "Been there Done that" problem the same way any other writer does, by knowing what's been done.  Or if you ARE doing something that's been done, do it differently with a twist or spin that's good enough to get it noticed.

No.  In fact, I think that Dan Brown's made a new sub-genre of thriller that many will emulate.  I bet there are a hundred knock-off titles on editors’ desks, waiting to be read.

There's a big difference between similar and derivative.

Absolutely...and to the detriment of the medium, IMO...

It's the "Do that again!" mentality that makes it harder for innovation.

I haven't read Neville's book, so I don't know. I'd guess that they were merely similar, though, unless Neville's book came out on the heels of Brown's.

Well, if you're not (as I was not familiar with AH) you run the risk of writing a book that is too similar to what someone else has done.  I'm sure many of us (myself included) have written a short story only to have someone in your critique group say "Hey, that's just like Roger Zelazny's BLAHDIBLAH book!"  You have to be aware or you might repeat.  Similar ideas will crop up in writers' heads.

Right.  How many versions of ROMEO AND JULIET are out there?  Or HAMLET...?  The plays themselves were reworks.  A retelling can be as powerful as the original.

In the end, yes.  Though some retellings might change setting more than characters.  The characters have also changed.

Every reader brings him/herself to a book and will read different things into a work.  I've had readers tell me they got things out of my stories that I never put in there.  But they're not wrong...It just came from the reader, not me.

That writing is hard work!  And there were many rejects.  A long time between sale 1 and 2.  But I knew that Sale 1 was a fluke.  All the other writers I knew told me so!  Rejections taught me to toughen my skin and to work some discipline into my writing habits, if I wanted to succeed.

When I'm working on a project, I have a weekly goal, not a daily goal.  I have a schedule for writing...some evenings, some weekend writing.  But with a full-time job and wanting to see my wife now and again, it takes some scheduling.  I'm also not a fast writer.  A book a year is about my best, with research and all.  But as the old saw goes "a page a day is a book a year."  So I work to a weekly word count goal.

hommemonk, I don't think any writer is that tough...to start out.  So it hurts...sometimes a lot.  But as they came in, and as I learned about the craft I saw that I was getting better.  One also has to realize that there are just some idiots out there in editors' chairs.  And a rejection slip doesn't mean that the story is bad, only that it didn't do what you wanted it to do.  The fault is in the words, not in the writer.  And so you learn.  And you get tougher.

It was complicated.  I wrote Book 1, not thinking of it as the first in a series.  My agent sold book 1, and they wanted a sequel.  So I rewrote it so that it had a loose end at the finale and at that point, I wrote the outline for all five books.  But we sold Books 1 & 2 together and then sold Books 3 & 4 before they were written.  Book 5 has not been sold, yet.

I decided early on that I would try for an agent before I marketed my book.  My thinking was that an agent would help me sell it and I didn't want to waste any opportunities by marketing it myself.  But you can go either way.  Agent first or market while agent searching.

True.  I found my agent by sending out a bazillion query letters and sending them chapters/synopses when they asked for them.  It took me a year (!) to find my agent.  And now I'm actually looking for a new agent.

My writing has been moving and changing and my old agent doesn't think she can do an adequate job of representing it.  Primarily, I'm drifting away from genre work and towards mainstream.  My old agent was strictly genre.

Eleanor Wood, of Spectrum Literary Agency

We've always had a very straightforward relationship.

Good question, wardg.  For me, it means that my books are less interested in the "tropes" of sf/f and more character-driven, more internal.  Basically, my characters and their relationships are either the drivers of the action or are the entire point of the tale.  So there's less external action.

No, it's not. But I'm glad that Patrick took a chance on it. The characters are the main reason the story exists.

Writeaway, I'd say that there CAN be that much difference.  There definitely are character-driven sf/f books, but they're not the norm.  While if you read anything by...oh, Alice Hoffman or Louise Erdrich you'll see the sf/f elements, but they're not the heart of the story.  The characters are.

Not in my opinion.  Mainstream is a genre, just like sf/f.  And mainstream is really the one genre that's becoming LESS restrictive while the others are becoming MORE restrictive.  Mainstream might pay more, though!

Yes!

I laugh...I cry...Yes, it means I get rejections at a quicker rate!  I hope that it means I'm getting to the top of the line, and getting a good look from a rep.  But there's no guarantee.

Thanks for the compliment, ashton...I work hard to make those stories seem real.  Whether they're sf/f, AH, or mainstream I've compiled lists of websites and reference works.  I have a library full of books on subjects like the Cheyenne and Alexandria and such places and peoples that I've used in my books.  And I have CDs full of maps and details from the Library of Congress and such places. You acquire a lot of reference material, and it all leads to more.

Often, yes, though with the Cloud books, I started with a book about dinosaur extinction.  That led to another book and finally I went out to the 'net.

When I have all the questions about the plot answered, I have enough to start.  But as long as I'm not sure if chapter X makes sense, for whatever reason I'll dig further.  Research of the details comes later, and during the writing.  But STARTING is the important thing, I've learned.  Otherwise, I'd do nothing but research, and never get the book written!

Yes, especially because...as we mentioned earlier...I sometimes deviate from the outline.  When I do that, I need to know that I'm heading down a viable path and there's always the odd question, like "When were plows invented?" that must be answered.  A trick I've learned, though -- when I'm writing, and I come across a detail I'm not sure of.  I type  <?>  It's a little phrase or item I can easily search on.

Exactly.  And it doesn't slow me down in writing.

For me, yes...but I know others who simply can't, and who do well enough as writers.  But they're usually fast writers..."Swoopers" I call them.  They breeze in on a weekend and pound out 30,000 words and if they have to rewrite 10,000 of them, so be it.  I write slowly...maybe ten pages on a very good day.  So outlining saves me from making 10,000 word mistakes.  Oh...  And you'll have to outline it anyway when you write up a synopsis to show the publisher/agent.

There are different places to find joy in writing.  There's plotting, characterizing, detail, prose.  Lots of places.  But perhaps you could start with what I call "The Hardy Boy Outline."  It's very brief -- One line per chapter.  Perhaps a little more for the complicated parts.  But it leaves you LOTS of room for expansion and sub-plots and there's tons of fun in that.  Especially for stories.  You don't have to outline much.  Remember that I'm writing novels, at 120-140,000 words.  I NEED that outline!

I have a two-book historical fantasy set in 9th century Brittany.  Those are my Ploughman Chronicles.  And I just finished a time-travel romance that I hope to sell.  I'm very excited about that one.

I got to do lots of research for that.  Will do!  And now I'm working on a more mainstream novel.  So, lots of possibilities.

Thanks!

Yes. The story was "Ploughman's Son," and it bloomed into a novel, and then into a second novel.

I use an outline for many things, those among them. Also, it helps me keep "on theme," so I remember what I want to say with the book. And if I know that we're going to have a big battle scene in three chapters I can start building the tension now.  That sort of thing.

The most important lesson I have learned is "determine your goals."  Decide on what you want to get out of writing.  Do you want fulfillment?  Fame?  Money?  Because you have to orchestrate your career differently for those different goals.  Writing is an art, but Publishing is a business and Publishing doesn't give a whit about your artistic soul.  They want to make money.  It's harsh but it's part of that toughening up process we spoke of earlier.

I agree completely, Mary.

paja, I generally know that during the outlining process.  It becomes very clear when the story has farther to go than one book will be able to tell.  Another vote for outlining!

My pleasure!

I'm glad that you all enjoyed the chat!

I had a great time.