That Was Quick

I don't know what happened, really.

In January, after I got done with my NaNoWriMo project, I re-edited a couple of older manuscripts I had. Boy oh boy did they need editing; for one of them, I basically stripped it down the the bare skeleton, rearranged the skeleton, and put new stuff back on. A time-intensive process, but hot d*** was it worth it! Those books are a million times better (not to mention a little bit longer) than they were when I cracked them open.

With those major projects behind me, I re-opened my NaNo project after its half-year of stagnation, allowing all the speed-written madness to boil over and become apparent in all its hideousness.

...and I'm done with that round of edits already. Didn't even take me a month. Heck, I shotgunned the last few chapters, it was going so smoothly.

What?

It's kind of nice to have a manuscript go past my critical eye so fast, but that doesn't mean I don't find it weird. Maybe that's the way it is on all my second drafts; I remember going through my earlier manuscripts with a similar speed. Maybe I have (believe it or not) grown as a writer, and my speedwritten stuff has more thought behind it than my earlier works.

However, I think the most likely reason of all is I was editing the NaNo manuscript after I'd gotten done reading my new least favorite YA book in history. In my mind, my first draft was friggin' glowing in comparison. That might have been because I didn't have rape-victim-shaming in my work, and I am more than happy to leave it out.

So, there we go. Now I need to find willing reviewers for my manuscript while I go review something else.

One more thing: with all this editing, coupled to my job of newswriting and the fact I keep writing these posts at the last minute, I'm going to be withdrawing my bi-monthly deadline for this blog. I'll keep posting with book reviews and other interesting writing-related stuff, but at the moment, I'm going to give this particular platform a break. Maybe I'll haunt Twitter more often--until the 2020 elections, when I'm not touching that forum with a 100-foot ethernet cable.

Have a great summer!

Just Rambling

It’s mid-May. Where to begin…

I’m still editing like my life depends on it—which it might, really—but I’ve also picked up another YA dystopian novel I plan to read at some point. I’d never heard of this book before I saw it on the library shelf and it’s not in front of me right now, so I can’t remember the title. It was one of those titles that was meant to easily turn up in a Google search: “The E______”, and that’s all that comes to mind. The Enclave? The Excess? The Extravagance? I’m not sure, but I’ve never had the best memory for names in the first place.

There is a review-blurb for the book that caught my eye, though: “Fans of the Hunger Games will love this.” Heaven help us if authors are mandated to provide the whole, contextualized review with their books, because that blurb smelled a little weird. Plus, after reading the synopsis on the inside cover, I think I already know what the book’s twist is (the mutant creatures to be avoided are impoverished humans, right?).

“But Ben,” I hear you saying because that’s how my superpowers work, “why are you picking up a book you’re all but certain you won’t like?” Answer: because I’m still editing. I need to feel a little better about my own haphazard ramblings, much like the ones you’re reading right here.

OK, the reason is a little less shallow than that. The last time I read a book with too many filler words and adverbs, it inspired me to take a look back at my own work—and rediscover all the filler words and adverbs I was using. Now, though, I need to pray my revisions aren’t being clouded by the Associated Press style I have to use for work.

I do also get pleasantly surprised when I find a dystopian YA novel I like—which makes me want to edit my books more. In conclusion, reading makes me want to edit. I’m going to get right back to that.

Happy May!

An Open Letter to Subnautica: Below Zero" Developers

Dear team-behind-Subnautica-Below-Zero,

Ben Sonnek here, longtime Subnautica fan, currently hooked by the in-development Subnautica Below Zero. Here’s a quick summary of this letter: gushing praise, a couple concerns, and an idea.

Let’s start with the praise.

I’ve enjoyed UnknownWorlds’ survival games since the first Subnautica was still in its beta version. There were no alien bases implemented yet, the Seamoth submarine was a recent invention, and my old laptop could hardly keep up with the graphics so the water looked like a wavy blue quilt. However, my love of sci-fi and aquariums convinced me to buy the game soon after I saw the first ad on Steam, and I haven’t regretted it since, especially after I upgraded laptops and can see the water properly (and the framerate doesn’t plummet when a leviathan is around, an occasion that has led to many Seamoth maulings).

Then the beta for Subnautica Below Zero got released.

Needless to say, I have not regretted that purchase either. Now I have the unique privilege of being with this project from more-or-less the beginning, and I like the game’s look and what I’ve seen of the story so far.

FYI, I’m writing this letter between the Seatruck update and whatever update is slated to come next. Here are some cues as to how far I’ve gotten in the story so far:

Now, Part 2: the concerns.

First, I might ask you to pay all gamers’ PTSD therapy bills once you apply the leviathan-class predators to the game. I’ve seen the concept art.

Second (and last), I wonder about your choice to make Robin speak. (To any other readers not familiar with Subnautica Below Zero, Robin is the character whom you play in the game.)

See, I can’t remember the name of the main character in the first Subnautica game unless I look it up—and I consider that a good thing. That poor unfortunate diver never said anything except for grunts of pain, usually because of those friggin’ Crashfish. I liked that a lot as a player; you could project onto the guy more easily if he said nothing and we supplied the voice lines. You felt like you were him, wincing when the edges of the screen went red from an injury. It was like playing an underwater version of Chell from Portal 2, another of my all-time favorite games.

Robin, while an enjoyable character, has conversations with her sister in an overhead space station. Part of the thrill of the first Subnautica was that the character, a crash survivor, was on his own and with minimal backup. You don’t get that when Robin is making cutesy remarks to her unseen sister. Plus, about those remarks—while the first Subnautica protagonist was project-able with his silence, Robin’s dialogue could rub some players a little weird. I know this is very much an early-development concern; hey, I remember a lot of voice logs changing before the final release of Subnautica 1.0. Still, I’d like to address the issue. A lot of games give the first-person character dialogue, I know, but after using a silent protagonist in the first game…is it a wise choice now?

Maybe. I can’t always oppose a fresh take on something. Subnautica itself was a fresh take on survival games.

However, before Below Zero goes deeper into development—minor pun not intended—I wanted to slide this concept past you first, a concept that mostly maintains everything Below Zero has set up so far:

What if we players were Alan, the alien AI?

(Again, for those of you not familiar with Below Zero and didn’t read that PDA screenshot up there, Robin accidentally downloads an alien AI into her head in the game. The AI’s seed code is Al-An, so Robin calls it Alan.)

Anyway, here’s the picture: the game starts with the black screen and the “Unknown Worlds presents” text, like the first Subnautica. Unlike the first Subnautica, though, the sound you hear with the black screen is not the sound of an exploding spaceship. It’s the sound of an alien computer booting up.

The screen fades in, revealing the inside of an alien facility. The player can’t move, but instead watches Robin enter and activate the console. BAM—and the player can see from Robin’s perspective. We can move around as her. We can also hear her dialogue, freaking out over how she can control her mind and mouth…but not her muscles.

The player, playing as the downloaded alien AI, has taken those over. We become an AI that has control of a human host.

Think about it: the AI could have no memory of itself or its functions, like the player. It would also know nothing of Robin, again like the player. The AI and Robin would have to work together to solve the mystery of this section of Planet 4546B, learning more about each other while not alerting Alterra that one of their own is being controlled by alien tech. This way, Robin can keep her dialogue while not contradicting whatever the players are thinking. As the silent AI, we’re free to roll our eyes, laugh, and/or give the thumbs-up, not jolt out of character because Robin said something quippy when her controlling gamer would rather hide in a snowbank. If the AI has no lines, we players will naturally add our own, like we do in the first Subnautica.

The aliens couldn’t communicate in human language in the first game, and I was a little wary about their technology’s voice lines in Below Zero’s early release. Don’t get me wrong, they sound awesome, but I felt a little of the alien mystique was lost with their first words to humans. If the player were a silent AI, the mystique remains, and part of the story could be Robin figuring out how to converse with the alien being possessing the majority of her motor functions.

As a final point, I think the player-as-Alan angle would add a unique tension to the game. As the AI, players cannot explain themselves to the host and will sympathize with her unique plight. When diving into harm’s way, it will be like driving your best friend’s car through a demolition derby; you don’t want to hurt yourself or your friend. You have to pray that, as the story goes, Robin trusts your actions more, maybe moving into the relationship of grudging friendship—although that won’t stop her from strongly questioning your sanity when you have to dive into deeper, darker regions of the sea. Maybe the gameplay can give the AI-player and Robin a chance to communicate through, I don’t know, computer prompts or something. The twists write themselves: the player learns about Robin through voice lines and data logs—while also learning about the AI host’s history. Maybe the possessing alien program was decommissioned and memory-wiped for mismanaging the disease from the first Subnautica story, or something like that.

Then, the ending! As a semi-reversal of the first Subnautica, in which the player left via rocket, the player-AI in Below Zero could leave Robin and allow her to escape in a rocket on her own, watching the smoke trail leave the planet’s atmosphere.

Anyway, that’s my idea, and I think it has plenty of room for an Unknown Worlds spin that will blow everyone’s mind. Take it or leave it; I won’t be heartbroken if Below Zero’s plans are set in stone already. Looking at Subnautica 1.0, I have no cause to worry about 2.0’s trajectory. To wrap it up here, keep up the good work. To inspire you, here’s one of my most encouraging Subnautica screenshots of all time:

No! Wait! I meant this one. My bad.

Whether or not you read this…thanks for everything!

(Note from a few days later: Forget the thanks. The Snowfox update just came out, and...how many nightmares did you guys have to harvest to make the Chelicerate leviathan? Really???)

A Question of Editing

Happy almost Easter, readers! No book review today; lately, I've been waist-deep in stories with both newswriting and manuscript editing. I'm also trying to invent a sort-of board game with Legos, because why not.

However, I'm not leaving today blank. See, before I go back and edit my NaNoWriMo project, I am determined to work over a completely different manuscript, and boy-oh-boy-oh-yikes-oh-run-for-cover does it need a rework. I already have plans slated for scene reworking, segment rearranging, character working, and other stuff that will probably increase my word count. At least I'm getting rid of those words like "finally", "slowly", "suddenly", and "began" which annoy me like you wouldn't believe.

The manuscript is going through such a rework, though, that I am reminded of the classic writer's advice for first drafts: throw them away and start over. I've never followed this advice; I'm more of a recycling kind of guy because I never throw out something I'm going to use again. I'm too concerned to pitch the million errors along with the one good point in the narrative. Besides, is it really necessary in the age of word processors to start over? Unlike ink on paper, words and paragraphs are modular on the screen. Writing is more like building with Legos than sculpting from marble.

But what do I know? That's why I'm asking you. What's your preferred mode of major draft editing? If you want to share your wisdom, feel free to comment on this post or on its links on my Facebook or Twitter pages. By the way, before you tag your editing style as "Wailing and grinding of teeth", remember that's something ALL writers do when perusing their catalog of errors.

Twilight: A Surprisingly Good Book!

It's April 1st.

Do I really need to spell out what's going on here?

READ THIS BOOK

See this book? It's The Initiation by Chris Babu. Now go read it.

Yes, that's right; for once in my book-reviewing life, I am strongly recommending a book. One testimony in favor of the book is the fact that this review is going to be short; I'm writing it at night after shotgunning the last chapters. Those of you who know my stalwart support of Trenton Lee Stewart know, then, how high a compliment I'm giving when I say the The Initiation is like a dark, dystopian The Mysterious Benedict Society. It's that good.

What can I say? It's well-paced and has a recognizable story arc. The main characters--even the less savory ones--are distinguishable and even sympathetic. There's natural tears and natural humor. There's a love triangle (can this really be Benjamin Sonnek saying this?) that sorta makes sense and doesn't bog down the plot. The writer doesn't fall into the rich-people-bad-everyone-else-good trap of other YA dystopia; there is nuance and reasoning behind the world that is built up. The adverbs and filler words I've lamented in recent reviews are hardly a presence, and therefore the writing sucks you in. The descriptions are vivid without being too lengthy. It's complex and doesn't pander. The brainteasers in the story are legit puzzles, which was one factor that brought me back to The Mysterious Benedict Society.

Basically, this is the YA dystopia I've been trying to find for a while now. It's one of the few books I know about that I, in all probability, will buy when I see it in the bookstore. The sequel to The Initiation--namely, The Expedition--is already out, but before I read it, I might wait a little longer for the next book in the series to come out too. After all, if this is going to be a trilogy, I don't want to be left hanging while I wonder whatever's going to happen next. Well done, Chris.

YA Hopes "Surfacing" Once Again

As spring emerges, so also do I emerge with warm feelings. After some mild disappointment with Erin Bowman's book Contagion, I temporarily swore off the hardcover YA novels, searching for stories in the lesser-known paperbacks in the same general vicinity. My goal was to find a hidden gem in these neglected and often less-lauded works.

I think I've hit something.

Without further ado, I give you Surfacing by Mark Magro, published 2015 by Jolly Fish Press. When it comes to unknown paperbacks, this one fit the bill; it seems to only have eight reviews on Goodreads (which I refuse to read until I'm done here), Surfacing is Magro's only book so far, and Jolly Fish Press doesn't exactly look like Penguin Random House, although it does have a nice website by my standards.

Here's my one-sentence synopsis of Surfacing: In a dystopian future, a teenage boy (Balt) and girl (Zoe) decide to escape an underground laboratory where they are test subjects, using an AI head named Smith to navigate an abandoned complex full of dangers and secrets. It was an interesting plot, and I don't say that just because this book and one of my manuscripts are close enough in setting to shake hands. I think it has merit to make a wave in the YA ocean...

...but let's start with the niggles.

Ultimately, my biggest issue was the way it was written, as in the prose and syntax. Having emerged from Contagion brushing filler words and adverbs off my clothing, it hurt a little bit to dive right back in. Surfacing has a tendency to rely too heavily on "suddenly", "slowly", "began", verb-adverb links (as in "said softly", "ran quickly", etc.), and other details that tripped me up. The book inspired me to do a word search through a couple of my manuscripts--where I ended up declaring a purge of the 100-ish "began"-s I found there. I might not have room to throw stones, but the fact that I deleted about 90 percent of those pesky words from my manuscripts and am bent on cold-blooded mayhem in the others should testify to how unnecessary that word can be.

Surfacing also has a tendency to, um, Coda itself--which is to say, it sometimes goes light on the descriptive side. It left me enough where my imagination could fill in the blanks, but I was never sure if I was doing so correctly. There's a chance that whatever is in my mind and whatever is in Magro's mind are worlds apart, and that unsettled me a little. Downplaying description also undermined some of the intended alarm; I know I was supposed to be surprised when a ginormous praying mantis burst onto the scene, but the way it was introduced felt...a little normal. No pace changes or paragraph breaks--just bam, mantis, and stuff happened. I wanted to get to know the mantis, and heaven knows I did so afterward, but first impressions count. Other things also get yadda-yadda-ed past as well, such as Zoe's involuntary past-seeing ability. She gives the mechanics of this expository talent only a passing, unchallenged thought before moving on.

However, I place Surfacing on a higher tier than Contagion, if only for one reason: multiple times, I caught myself thinking, "Just one more chapter."

What tension the story has is enough to keep you flipping pages. Most characters, even the less-explored ones, were interesting enough for the reader to make an investment in them. Balt and Zoe had enough emotion and personality to be intriguing, and while Smith the AI sounded a little un-AI-ish at times, I cared about him too. Balt starts as a Vulcan-like logic and science machine and Zoe starts as a loner against everything she's known, but they both have their arcs toward more rounded people. The arcs weren't today's popular "girl gets stronger" and "boy learns his lesson" cookie-cutter printouts; if anything, they both learned their lessons and gained their own strengths. Genuine balance there.

The bit that sold the book, though, was the fact that Magro put one past me. There are two major plot twists that drop in the book's final act (and, as another point in the book's favor, I like a discernable beginning-middle-end in my stories, and Surfacing had that). One plot twist, I must admit, pertains to Zoe, and it was pretty obvious; I called it the "Well, duh!" reveal. But then, hot on its heels came another, more comprehensive reveal of such grand scope that...well, I'm not revealing it here. When it was revealed, though, I had another "Well, duh!" moment--only this time it was directed at myself. Thinking back on the whole book, I really should have seen it coming. But I didn't. Kudos, Magro.

Looking back on my Contagion review, it might appear that I am a hypocritical hipster in favoring Surfacing, saying that I like both stories but think they need an adverb-and-filler-word cleansing. Here is my defense against such an accusation: Surfacing has legit interesting characters and moments of grand, overarching surprise, something that Contagion didn't manifest in my eyes. Plus, Surfacing is a debut work by a new author; some syntactical errors are forgivable, whereas Contagion's architect has no such excuse. That's why I'm not searching for Contagion's sequel, but if I get wind of a Surfacing: Part 2, I'll probably hunt it down.

Oh, but that's another thing Surfacing has over Contagion: its ending is less cliffhanger-y. It's a solid stand-alone; Contagion also stands, but it's sort of one-legged in its posture. That's why I conclude this review with a recommendation: if you're not a word-picky reader who wants a medium-sized read with a nice surprise and solid ending to reward your reading dedication, give a thought to Surfacing.

If you'll excuse me, I need to enter my works-in-progress to delete 3,400,848 cases of the word "suddenly".