Journal Entry #52
November 3, 2009
For several years now, the National Endowment for the Arts has been sponsoring a program called The Big Read. The plan is to encourage an entire community to read a selected book, and to stage a series of events highlighting the effort. During the last two years, our home town, Brunswick, GA, under the energetic leadership of Heather Heath, has held discussions, watched films, and encouraged art connected with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. This year we focused on Edgar Allan Poe, reading a collection of his short stories and poetry. The program drew a substantial response, but unfortunately did not resonate with younger people. It never does. I’m not sure why, but it reminds me of a trend that‘s all too visible at science fiction conventions.
Heather invited me to participate as a presenter. But what would I like to do? I couldn’t resist --in the spirit of Time Travelers Never Die-- handing my audience a converter and taking them back to 1848 Richmond, where they could talk with Mr. Poe, and ask questions. Such as: ‘What was your contribution to the short story?’ (Ans: I made it internal. The action was no longer limited to the external world.‘) And: ’Mr. Poe, why do so many writers of your era hate you?‘ (Ans: Because I write so much better than they do.‘)
I played Poe after doing a substantial amount of research, and discovering how little I really knew about the guy. When it was over, I regretted not including a sequence in Time Travelers, in which Shel and Dave go back to Poe’s Richmond and show him the two Library of America volumes bearing his name. He could have used the encouragement.
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Dan Heisman is a chess master and author. He has won some major awards in the field, he writes Novice Nook at the popular Chess Café website (http://www.chesscafe.com). He’s written several books on the subject, including Elements of Positional Chess Evaluation and Looking for Trouble. I acquired a passion for chess when I was about eight or nine, and I’ve never gotten away from it. Dan’s work is an excellent fit for people like me, who play chess well enough to do okay, but who, left to themselves, will never really win anything. I wish his books, especially Looking for Trouble, had been around when I was playing in tournaments.
By the way, Dan is also a science fiction enthusiast.
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In the last journal entry, I mentioned rewriting large sections of Echo, and, specifically, spotting missed opportunities. There were a substantial number of them. And the truth is, it happens all the time. Third and fourth drafts are more than simply a matter of straightening out the writing, and making sure the internal consistency is there. They also provide an opportunity to add some comedy. Or drama.
For example: There’s a moment in which Alex is dumped into a river and is being swept downstream toward a waterfall. In the original version, Chase is able to get airborne and to do a fairly straightforward rescue. But in going over the section, a question occurred to me: What if there‘s another person in the water, in this case an innocent young woman who was simply a bystander swept away in the attempt to kill Alex? And of course there isn‘t time to rescue both--?