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(Saturday class – you haven’t had this session yet, don’t worry, we will this weekend!)

Week Three deals with the world of the story: both the setting (the world as the characters know it) and the world of the narrative (the world as the readers, who have the benefit of additional information like title, tone, and style, know it).

We looked at the beginnings of several pieces, including one of my all-time favorite books, Matt Ruff’s SET THIS HOUSE IN ORDER and Sara Genge’s short story, “No Jubjub Birds Tonight” from the anthology DESTINATION FUTURE.

Looking at the punctuation of the beginning of Stephen King’s THE STAND helped talk about how a world gets set up by style and narrative methods. Tone was compared to the emotion conveyed by a human voice and I mentioned that if you have two strong emotions working in a story, the best effect is gained if they are contradictory in some way.

We also talked about some of the things involved in style and the strategies for looking at your own work in order to figure out what’s characteristic of your style. I mentioned that often in writing one returns to the stories that shaped and fascinated us and pointed to “Magnificent Pigs” (CHARLOTTE’S WEB), “The Mermaids Singing Each To Each” (THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA), and “Long Enough and Just So Long” (“The Menace from Earth” and PODKAYNE OF MARS) as places where I’d done that in my own work.

In talking about metafiction as a particular style, we looked at the beginning of Kelly Link’s “Travels With The Snow Queen,” from STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN.

In the area of world-building, we meandered freely, talking about how much detail to include, the advantages of writing in a persistant world, using sensory detail to make a world feel real, the RPG approach and how it can lead to cat-vacuuming.

Next week’s assignment is the expository lump exercise, taken from Ursula K. LeGuin’s excellent book, STEERING THE CRAFT, which will start us off talking about delivering information, using description, and literary devices.

Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

So far I’m cranking along. Part of the impetus is a Thanksgiving trip, which effectively means I’ve got 20 days, not 30, to finish. But I’m well on track so far, with over 6000 words banked so far. Here’s some of them, taken from Hearts of Tabat:

“I need your help,” Sebastiano told Letha, “but oh”¦” His breath caught at the thought of her seeing what he had seen. “It is too much to ask.”

She came down the steps as he spoke, reached out and took his hand.

“Tell me,” she said, looking up into his face and the sound of the love and worry in her voice undid him. He collapsed to his knees, burying his face in her skirts, and sobbed like a child of five whose worst nightmare has come true.

She held him without speaking, let him sob away all the horror and terror of those moments and the coppery stench of the blood and the horrible way its sheen changed as it dried. Finally he drew away and she released him. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, pressing hard on his eyeballs, as though to extract what he had seen.

“A murder,” he said. “No, a slaughter, really. And they think it was a Beast.”

“Beasts do not murder,” she said. “They may kill in the moment, but they do not plan and enact such acts.”

“This one did. I think. I don’t know.” In his head he ran through lists. “Are there any creatures that thrive on death?”

“There are the Mandrakes, which suffocate and then try to put their infants in place of the human child,” she said. “There are the fairies, which sting so many travelers, but they must be provoked or drawn by injury, usually. You mean a creature that is fed by killing. That is not a Beast, Sebastiano. That is sorcery.”

He knew the truth of her words the minute he heard them. How had he not realized that before? Perhaps some clouding spell had overlaid the house? A golem, constructed by sorcery, using Beasts. Was that possible?

He must have spoken his thoughts aloud, because Letha replied to them, her voice tart as a winter apple. “Of course it is. What else does Tabat do with Beasts but use them to fuel magic?”

I’m also finishing up edits for the story that will appear next year in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, “Red in Tooth and Cog.” A recent publication is As the Crow Flies, So Does the Road in GrendelSong.

If you want some NaNoWriMo inspiration, here’s a post about why if you’re writing, you’re doing things right. Here’s a fun but low-pay call for submissions that might spark some ideas.

(Want some more inspiration? Check out one of my writing classes, either on-demand or live.