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A Review: The Hadrian Enigma, a Forbidden History by George Gardiner

In many ways, Hadrian Enigma is simply a historical “murder mystery” seen through the eyes of a most unusual PI, the historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. This novel, by the way, is rather a lengthy tome.

In 130 AD, while accompanying the Emperor Hadrian on a tour up the Nile, the beautiful youth Antinous plunges into the Nile and drowns. Hadrian, near maddened with grief, declares Antinous a god. However, Suetonius just happens to be along on this imperial tour. Already the author of juicy books on contemporary Roman life, he is perfectly placed to investigate this mysterious death, so Emperor Hadrian commands him to investigate and find the murderer within 48 hours or suffer the consequences.

In the imperial compound on the Nile, Suetonius searches for clues. Here, semi-isolated, the bubbling cauldron of the Roman court has been transplanted to a fabulous tent city. Yet, the mystery of Egypt is an ever present backdrop to this baffling death.

Perhaps the murderer is one of the other ephebes with whom Antinous shared quarters. They have reason enough for jealousy of the emperor's beloved eromenos. But there are plenty of other possible suspects and witnesses in the royal court: the Empress Sabina, Hadrian's flamboyant heir-apparent Lucius, and a whole coterie of scheming courtiers, not to mention the creepy Egyptian high priest.

Why was Antinous clad in heavy ceremonial parade armor and weapons when he died? How did he come by a slit on his left wrist and strange marks on his throat? And how can Suetonius unravel all this when the Emperor refuses to let Suetonius even touch the body to examine it?

The characterization is vivid and the historicity meticulous in this novel. I enjoyed savoring the characters and setting as Suetonius unraveled the imperial goings on. Some might find themselves impatient with the sprinkling of Greek and Latin throughout the novel. I thought it added to the impact and feeling of being there, but I suspect not everyone would enjoy the necessity to look some of it up. There were also moments when the author slipped into modern jargon which was jarring.

All in all, it was an enjoyable read, but not necessarily a light or fast one in spite of being rather a page turner. The ending, which I won't go into, is satisfying and well worth the journey.

Definitely a four-star read. I recommend it to any historical fiction fan, especially any fan of the redoubtable Mary Renault. You will find The Hadrian Enigma on Amazon at $9.99 for Kindle.

Ever wondered?

Ok, I stole this like I do a lot of my advise. But in this case it's a question and one you might want to consider:

Have You Ever Wonder Why They Call It Submission?

Rules of Writing

Some say that there are no rules for writing. Someone recently told me that. It happened that Mark Twain disagreed and he gave an interesting list. On my "if you're going to steal, steal from someone great" theory, I'm stealing the good Mr. Clement's rules, which are:

Twain's Rules of Writing

(from Mark Twain's essay The Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper)

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

An author should

12. _Say_ what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.

(I've always been particularly fond of Rule #3)

Historical accuracy in novels?

How much does it matter to you as a reader? How much as a writer?

I have to admit it matters immensely to me, but I'm never quite sure where to bend when writing my own historical works.

Examples of what annoyed me: a spinning wheel in 14th century England. They didn't have them. They used spindles to spin at that time. Spinning wheels came much later.

Men riding destriers as though they were every day horses makes me cringe. It would be about the equivalent of driving a tank down the road to work. In fact, even for warhorses constantly referring to them as destriers annoys me. Destriers were the heaviest of warhorses and not necessarily the most desirable. A rouncey or habelar was often used for their greater speed and agility and chargers were by far the most common warhorses.

Kilts in 14th century Scotland. NO!

I had someone do a first read on a novel I'm writing and he was baffled that I referred to a Scottish nobleman as a baron. But they're lairds, he protested. No. He was a baron. And I suppose I could refer to the Scottish earls as Mormaers but I suspect that would only confuse things further.

Oh, I won't even go into the introduction of feminism into medieval thought. I'm a feminist--a pretty avid one, and there were strong, capable women in the middle ages. They were not feminists, and few women got choices, such as who they would marry. Widows sometimes did, but the fact that when Edward I's daughter married a man of her own choice it caused the new husband to be thrown into a dungeon kind of shows how uncommon this was. Pretending women usually had these choices annoys me, but maybe not some readers. I can't bring myself to do it.

I think we can all agree that you should be accurate on the big details such as who was king when or who controlled which country. But what about those smaller details? They probably take some painstaking research and may conflict with people's expectation, such as the kilt thing that so annoys me. *grin*

I suppose where I falter is what are the important factors and what are not. It jerks me out of a story to read anything that is an anachronism, but I am SO likely to spot them. Would it bother most readers to read about that spinning wheel Catherine Coulter put in her 14th century novel? It sure did me. She got the politics wrong, too. Her medieval novels still did very well.

Even referring to rooms can be confusing. Should I call what was in fact referred to as a wardrobe as an office? It is the closest comparison. I cringe a bit, but the meaning of the word wardrobe has changed.

It's a fine line to try to not confuse people, not jerk them out of the story when introducing historical concepts that they may not be acquainted with, and yet maintain some degree of historical accuracy.

Anyone else struggle with this? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Back with a book recommendation

First, I need to apologize for a lengthy lack of posts. I've been finishing a novel (now completed and hopefully about 90% edited) and I've also had a lot of chaos in my personal life. However, things are now at least somewhat back to normal--whatever normal may be for me. I sometimes suspect my normal is nowhere near everyone else's normal.

And while hopping back into blogging I want to recommend a book on writing that I came across and am very impressed with.

I don't often recommend books on writing but I recently read one by Ray Rhamey of the Flogging the Quill blog that very much impressed me.

The title is Flogging the Quill: Crafting a Novel that Sells and it is available on Amazon.

Ray divided his book into seven sections--Storytelling, Description, Dialogue, Technique, Words, Workouts, and Computer Tips--and each is full of invaluable information for the fiction writer. He does a great job of putting together insights and advice that are both effective and entertaining. It has many concrete examples so you're never in doubt about exactly what Ray is getting at.

Unlike many books on writing, I felt that this had almost as much in it for the experienced writer as for the beginner. I really do recommend it.

ARCs!

On a more personal topic:

I got an email from my publisher, Swimming Kangaroo Books, last night letting me know that the Advance Reader Copies of Warrior's Duty are off to Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal. They also sent one to my local daily, The Oregonian.

I'm both thrilled and nervous. There's no guarantee of getting reviews in any of those, of course, but SK has done well with getting reviews for their releases which is one of the reasons when I decided to look at small presses that I was impressed by them.

So now I'm holding my breath -- or not since it would be a long breath-holding. And you can imagine the: "Please let them review my novel -- but only if they like it" that's going through my mind.

Back to the previous subject with a new post tomorrow.

Getting Out of the Slush Pile

I to discuss an article in Baen's Universe by writer/editor Mike Resnick about Slush Piles. He, after all, probably knows as much as there is to know about them. He got out of them; he used to read them; and he now has minions who read them on his behalf. So when he talks about the slush pile, a wise writer listens--although perhaps reluctantly.


http://baens-universe.com/articles/Editorial__Vol_2__Number_2__Slush


Respecting his copyright, I'm not going to quote what he says beyond a reference sentence or two, but I do want to discuss some of the tips he gives.

After spending some time emphasizing the difficulty, if not improbability, of getting out of the slush pile faced with competition for a limited number of slots from very big names, he addresses the question that faces most of us.


How do we do it?

And he gives a list of tips. The first one is pretty simple. Mr. Resnick says:

"The first is: learn how to format a story, whether on paper or in phosphors. You wouldn’t believe how many stories are left at the starting gate just over that."

Now you wouldn't believe the number of arguments I've seen on forums and blogs on the subject of formatting. You'd think we'd get emotional over plot or characterization, but, no. It's formatting that makes the fur fly. I've seen writers insist that there is no standard on how to format and that you should do it however you please. Really. I have. And the war of words between the Times New Roman people and the Courier people is never-ending. One day blood will flow on this subject.

Huh. Well. So I'm going to take Mr. Resnick's word that formatting matters.

But is there a standard? SFWA seems to think so. It's pretty simple really. Courier (yeah, I'm a courier girl) unless the editor says otherwise. 12 pt. Double spaced. Indented paragraphs. 1 inch margins. If it's printed, one side of the page. Header with your name, title and page number in the upper right. But Vonda McIntyre (nominated for a Nebula this year and congrats to her) has a PDF on the SFWA website illustrating how to do it.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/vonda/vonda.htm

The only complication really is what to do with those publications that say to paste it into an email. In that case, because I have never found an absolute standard for that, I always hope the publication has given a hint what they want. Because I don't care what the "standard" is, if the publisher wants something different, I give it to them.

That's pretty much it. If you do that, it gets you past the first obstacle. In a couple of days, I'll discuss Mr. Resnick's next point.

PS. By the way, Baen's Universe where Mike Resnick and Eric Flint are Senior Editors is one heck of a good publication. If you like science fiction/fantasy, you might want to take a look.

What writing advice has helped most?

I ran into a blog with comments from a lot of famous writers on this subject the other day. I'd point you toward it IF I could remember where I saw it!

But I thought it was an interesting topic and thought I'd throw in my own experience--not that I'm a famous writer, but I can hope. I've received some great advice from some very experienced authors, but truthfully the best advice I ever got was published and is available to every writer out there. It was Heinlein's famous "Five Rules," originally published in his essay that appeared in "Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing."

They are pretty simple:

Rule One: You Must Write

Pretty simple -- but, amazingly, many people who claim to be authors don't write.

Rule Two: Finish What Your Start

Here it really gets tough. Maybe you think the first pages are weak or the characterization isn't that good. It's easy to give up, but if you don't finish then you don't grow. Half finished stories don't do a thing for you.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

Now this one gives people fits. Almost everyone modifies it since none of my first drafts come out ready for an editor to read and I doubt that yours do either. But the fact is, beyond a limited point, editing and re-writing is a lost cause.

Let me ask you this: Do you really know what will improve your work? Do your first readers or your critique group really know? Sure. Fix plot holes and obvious errors. But once you have that piece finished, the plot holes filled in, and reading reasonably smoothly -- STOP! Don't work on it for years. (Sadly, I know writers who do.) You're as likely to make it worse as you are to make it better, unless you deliberately wrote it poorly, and I don't believe that.

Instead of working and sweating over that piece, try to make your NEXT one better than the last.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market

Obvious, but most of us fall down on the job here. I admit it. I have a couple of stories I need to get out. Sometimes rejections or even the fear that you will get a reject makes you stop. So reward yourself -- have a piece of candy or whatever works, but get that work in front of editors who can buy it.

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Tough! Tough! Five rejections. Ten rejections. You start thinking that the piece must be crap and you should trunk it. But keep putting it out there. I don't think Heinlein's remark that there is a publisher somewhere who is "so desperate that he'll buy the worst old dog you or I or anyone put out" is true any more. But I do know authors who have sold stories on the 70th submission. So just keep trying.

So that's the best advice I ever received and to be honest just about the only writing advice (besides Stephen King's in On Writing and a couple of other books I mention on my website) that I ever bother to follow.

The Writer as Cash Cow

RANT WARNING!

I get really tired of all of the people who treat aspiring writers like cash cows. Whether it's people who write books and articles about how self-publishing is taking over the industry (Ha!), to the self-publishing companies that pretend they'll actually help market or that it's so easy (Ha!!), and even a few -- successful doesn't mean not greedy and this is why I say AAR membership is no guarantee of a good agent -- agents who have recently been "caught" sending writers they are rejecting to self-publishers, pretending this will lead to their being considered (see some recent blogs from Victoria Strauss), by far most people who self-publish are taken advantage of.

The number of self-published books, especially novels, that ever sell more than a handful of copies is miniscule. Pretending otherwise is dishonest. It is possible to do. However, it is also TIME CONSUMING, DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE!

Doing it successfully involves all kinds of things such as gathering cover quotes and inserted them, copyrighting the book, getting your ISBN number, and of course purchased a unique bar-code so that you can sell it. It probably includes, because you don't get decent sales of no-name writer on Amazon alone, sending out at least dozens, maybe hundreds, of review copies, sending press releases and media kits to newspapers, NPR, TV stations, talking to indies and chains to TRY to get carried (good luck!), setting up book signings, setting up blog interviews, etc., etc. etc.

Most writers don't want to do all that and wouldn't do well at it if they tried. How many writers really want to do what Christopher Paolini did and show up at high schools in costume? But do you see the people who make a profit from this stuff telling them that???!!! No, instead they're acting like it's as easy as getting your pocket picked. And in a way, I suppose it is since that's what happens.

It makes me really angry.

End of Rant

How Does a Writer Get Started?

A friend asked me this the other day. He's always been an avid fantasy reader but now he's starting on a novel. He loves it but he's not quite sure that he's doing it "right."

Should he start on page one and write to the end? Should he worry about picking up ideas from fantasies he's read in the past? Should he edit the first chapter until he's sure he has it perfect? And these are all things that new writers think about.

The thing is that when it comes to writing there aren't any hard and fast rules. What works is what you should do, but, of course, an inexperienced writer isn't sure what works. I've always started at the front and kept going until the end, but not everyone does that. If you're getting started, give that a try. But don't be afraid to write scenes out of order if that isn't working for you. Just be aware that if you write a scene in the last chapter, by the time you get there you'll almost certainly have to re-write it. That's ok too as long as it gets you there.

I can't tell you how strongly I advise against editing and re-writing until you've finished your first draft. I have known so many aspiring writers who got stuck writing the same chapter over and over for years. Think about the fact that by the time you've finished, something you decided on later may still mean going back to change what you spent so much time polishing. When you think of something to change, make a note. MS Word has a great function called Comment that allows you to put notes into a Word document. If you write on paper, just put a sticky note on it. But then keep going.

And don't worry if you find some elements of something you've read in your work. In your work, you'll put your own spin on it, make it your own. There are no new ideas, so that will happen. But there are new ways of using the old ideas.

One last thing, read some good books about writing -- ones written by good writers, agents or editors. Most of us start out writing because we love to read, and that's a good thing. But reading really doesn't make someone a good writer. After all, you're busy reading not watching the technique the author used, so there's a lot to learn.

I'll recommend a couple that I consider essential:

"Character & Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card
"Beginnings, Middles & Ends" by Nancy Kress
"Self-Editing for the Fiction Writer" by Browne & King
"On Writing" by Stephen King