Today, I had the privilege of meeting with author Robert J. Sawyer, as a service of the Alexandra Writer’s Centre Society, where Mr. Sawyer is our current writer-in-residence.
And that means I got to ask him to review one of my works in progress. That’s not the only thing he’s doing during his tenure with us (one year, I gather), though it’s definitely one of the ones I’m most interested in. Because Mr. Sawyer writes science fiction. Which makes him eminently skilled to review a budding writer’s work.
Like, say, mine.
This particular project, currently known as The Shepherd Wonders, has haunted me for over 15 years. Way back in 2009, I’d started writing the book – then just “Wonder” – after being inspired by reading stories (or more specifically, the same story, over and over again) to Monkey.
So I wrote 160,000 words. Which is lengthy, especially for a first-time novelist. And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure what to do with it. The haunting, as it were, truly began when my friend Katrina Archer looked at it and swiftly responded with “trim 60,000 words and call me back” (I might be paraphrasing). I’m haunted by the deleted chapters and what to do with the remainders. The story is there, but … is it right?
Enter Mr. Sawyer. Twenty-five novels. Multiple Hugo winner, with Nebula, Heinlein, and number other accolades, not to mention the most Aurora awards of any one writer. The guy knows what he’s doing.
(And, frankly, he’s really nice and very kind. Which doofus writers like me sometimes need.)
I went one chapter, just one. A bit of a preamble. All I really wanted to know is: is this any good? I’ve managed to fill myself with so much bloody self-doubt that I can’t tell, anymore.
The multiple award-winning verdict? Yeah, I got something. And I need to finish it. (Well, finish re-arranging and editing. The story is “done”, but it needs restructuring.)
One thing he did mention, though: I need to trim a little over 400 words. It’s … unnecessary. It doesn’t have action, it doesn’t drive plot, it’s not even an insight to character, world building, and it’s definitely not a Pratchett-esque footnote.
But I loathe to delete it entirely. So I offer you an insight of humanity’s future in space, and why a single word doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone.
“What is that?” Shepherd asked in a whisper so low she wasn’t initially sure anyone had heard it.
“Her.”
“Her” had a few connotations within the long-distance flight crew community.
First, there was “her”, the spouse. The term was usually said with a kind of reverence, usually a comfortable longing. Marriages weren’t rare, but they rarely lasted unless the couple were on the same crew. The realities of long-distance travel — which necessarily equated to long-duration travel — meant that marriages endured significant challenges, which humanity had yet to entirely overcome.
More frequently heard than “her”, the spouse, was “her”, the ex-spouse. The spouse was usually ex’ed as a result of the aforementioned time apart. There were two commonly-heard tones in this case, one of spite, and the other a distantly-accepted acquaintanceship.
Girlfriends were the most common “her”, though the status of said girlfriend was often highly debatable. The long times between visits often meant tenuous relationships were short-lived, so traditional committed non-marital relationships with long-distance crew were a hard find. Adding to that, the moniker “girlfriend” had a tendency to be applied as easily to a potential future ex-spouse as it would be to any welcoming arms amongst a transport’s ports of call.
Co-crew members were periodically referred to as “her”, almost exclusively behind backs, and venom-filled. The length of use varied, though rarely for more than a single voyage. Most transport commanders were quick to rotate out such people, preferring to keep a unified morale on their ships.
Similarly, though notably different, was when “her” referred to a superior officer. Although this did happen on ships (“her” being the referred superior), these were hushed affairs, kept in close confidence to avoid being rotated out at the end of a journey. More often, one would hear “her” uttered much more taciturnly, directed at a Flight Group Commander, or other high-ranking officer who’d issued an unpopular order.
Of course, “her” was still the objective pronoun used for ships. (“He” simply refused to catch on in any way, even with all-female crews, except for when things were malfunctioning. Even then, the term was usually not “he”, but “the bastard”.) Such cases were no different than someone asking for a ham sandwich.
“Her” was never used for referring to someone’s mother, though no-one knew why.
Dodge’s “her” was quiet, not for fear of being heard, rather due to the fear he felt. It was an unsteady voice that completely undermined his age and experience. It was a metonymic use, allowing the speaker to avoid uttering any other name, side-stepping whatever supernatural connection that existed between the thing and its name.
This “her” was only ever uttered in one of three ways: as a threat, in abject terror, or a survivor’s tale.
I didn’t want to remove this because I was rather proud of the different variations. But being proud of one’s own writing has its limits – this is why we sometimes get 900-page monsters that take forever to read. “Kill your darlings”, as I learned today, doesn’t apply solely to treasured characters … it also means slashing unimportant text.
“Put it your blog”, Mr. Sawyer told me. So here it is.
Now to go kill a few more…