{"id":1144,"date":"2018-03-04T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2020-08-09T16:23:38","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T16:23:38","slug":"behind-the-story-queen-and-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=1144","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Spider’s World: “Queen and Country”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lesson one on writing a spider story: Never write a spider story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do it. It\u2019s been done. Since mythological times. Spider women. Tangled webs we weave. Innate fears and phobias. The built-in burdens alone will wrap poor writer you in literary silk. See what happens with spider stories? The metaphors have started already.<\/p>\n

Lesson two: If you\u2019re going to write a spider story anyway, have a plan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A better one than I did, when in 2013 I started on something called \u201cOrb Weaving in Wonderland.\u201d There was this professor guy Nick, and he was using a field trip in the French Camargue<\/a> to romance the fetching young Rachel. The story, soon retitled \u201cNephila Rachelis,\u201d had it all, if all means an uncentered blech of sci-fi, Western, morality play, and mixed message. <\/p>\n

Lesson three: If you\u2019ve started a spider story, know when to de-tangle and walk away.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The thing was, now \u201cNephila Cassandris\u201d (Rachel\/arachnid, too on-the-nose, that metaphor problem again) had energy. The beauty of the French Badlands<\/a>. Multinational mega-money after a giant golden orb weaver for a MacGuffin<\/a>\u2014inspired by a real species that eats birds and snakes<\/a>\u2014that spins a teasingly strong silk ideal for modern biotech. Lightweight body armor, parachutes, clothing, sutures, the works. It\u2019s a thing<\/a>. And \u201cCassandris\u201d had a voice. Point-of-view Nick Torthwaite, a sort-of notable arachnologist, brought a comically self-absorbed filter about his certain fame and fortune once he\u2019d captured and bred this rare orb weaver–if only he could stay focused on the job. And Nick wasn\u2019t even the best character on the page. That was his field partner Josie, a female Crocodile Dundee only more kickass. \u201cCassandris\u201d had me spun and wrapped.<\/p>\n

Lesson four: If you\u2019re keeping after your spider story, understand the lit mag rejections are telling you something.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doing you a favor, honestly. You were warned at the get-go that editors aren\u2019t looking for more spider stories. And yet. Through fits of work and writer\u2019s despair, the now-titled \u201cFool\u2019s Harvest\u201d has gotten better. Tighter. In the chase of a mystery spider, Nick showed more expertise, Cassie more inner strength. The metaphorical cloud remained. Continued rejections agreed.<\/p>\n

Lesson five: if you\u2019re giving up forever on your spider story, good.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever you do, don\u2019t try the same damn thing but with cane toads.<\/p>\n

Lesson six: if you\u2019ve managed to escape your spider story, don\u2019t keep thinking up tweaks and improvements. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Look, you’ve even tried changing spiders out with cane toads. That’s low. Let the piece be, reassured on some creative level that lots of writers have a spider story lurking around their hard drives. And yet–again. \u201cNephila Amalinus,\u201d as it came to be titled, broke loose and ate my no-go vow alive. Amalinus, because the name Cassandra has its own metaphorical creature issues. I made her a French local, hence Amalie (\u201chard-working,\u201d but with a friendly air) and rugged like her setting. Her strength forced our hero-ish Nick to think and interact differently and explore his deeper motivations for pursuit. If only the stage wasn\u2019t so crowded. The spider story claimed another victim besides me. Field partner and best-drawn character Josie hit the compost pile so that Nick and Cassie were alone in the wilderness. The demented dream of a spider story scuttled forward. And get rejected.<\/p>\n

Lesson seven: if after years you\u2019re dead-set consumed on a spider story, at least have it make sense.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, the hard way. I sharpened my spider research and made the giant queen more realistic and more vulnerable, a clearer parallel to Amalie. With realism crept into play, Nick had every reason to be skeptical the mystery orb weaver existed and to romance Amalie instead. Now he had an arc, to realize over time both the spider and the danger were more real than he\u2019d believed. And I solved a core problem by avoiding it. With today\u2019s high-tech gear and tracking equipment, and with trillions of dollars apparently on the line, there is simply no way my huge mystery spider could be long chased undetected. Solution: Move the whole thing back to the Cold War, with its serious intrigue but only the early glimmers of high-tech. Now things had a cut-and-thrust, and doubts and ulterior motives could amp the tension. The comedy, ahem, found a bite.<\/p>\n

Lesson eight: It’s the spider’s world, and you’re just living in it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If against all good judgment, you\u2019ve written and re-written and re-written a spider story, and if you\u2019ve gone through titles and species and the blood of darlings is on your hands, you might as well submit the thing one more time.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

\u201cQueen and Country\u201d appears in the March 2018 Mystery Weekly Magazine<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lesson one on writing a spider story: Never write a spider story. Don\u2019t do it. It\u2019s been done. Since mythological times. Spider women. Tangled webs we weave. Innate fears and phobias. The built-in burdens alone will wrap poor writer you in literary silk. See what happens with spider stories? The metaphors have started already. Lesson… Continue reading It’s a Spider’s World: “Queen and Country”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,13,92,6],"tags":[65,142,97,140,141,5],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-mystery-and-suspense","category-france","category-short-stories","category-this-whole-writing-thing","tag-behind-the-story","tag-feral-bulls","tag-france","tag-giant-spider","tag-macguffin","tag-writing","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Northern_golden_orb_weaver_Nephila_pilipes-wikipedia.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3CG0W-is","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2043,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=2043","url_meta":{"origin":1144,"position":0},"title":"2022: 10 Years of Writing Stories","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"January 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"2022 marks ten years since I tried writing short stories. Technically, I wrote my first one--that I acknowledge--in 2010, but that was dabbling and na\u00efve ambition. 2011 was learning, and January 2012 brought my first short story acceptance: \"The Food Acquisition Breakdown,\" in wonderful but fledgling Canadian lit e-journal. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Short Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Short Stories","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=92"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/AHMM-MarApr19-1-700x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=72","url_meta":{"origin":1144,"position":1},"title":"Behind: “The Carcassonne Dream”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"October 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It is winter. Christmas Eve 2011, and Writer Guy rides the train to Arles. Second class. The South of France trundles by outside, salt flats and olive\u00a0trees,\u00a0the mountainside and harbor towns of the Mediterranean coast. I sip my Coca-Cola Lite and return to my laptop. For in France the writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "France"","block_context":{"text":"France","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":1144,"position":2},"title":"Behind the Short Story: “Whorling”","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"February 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Albert Einstein--you know,\u00a0he of\u00a0the supercomputer brain--once dished out this observation on the universe: \"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.\" Well said, but only half said.\u00a0Sure, gravity doesn't make people weak-kneed in love, but some force does, internal or external.\u00a0Einstein didn't\u00a0name the cause\u00a0because he didn't know it. No\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cathcart"","block_context":{"text":"Cathcart","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=99"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=2545","url_meta":{"origin":1144,"position":3},"title":"2023, A Funny Sort of Year","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"December 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"We all beat our drums about what's important to us. Humor is important to me, in life and in writing. Not surprisingly then, a drum I beat when talking writing is the serious business of humor. 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Great or small, a lightning coup or decades in the making, needed change or epic tragedy. Revolution, for better\u00a0or worse,\u00a0is essentially human. The idea of a revolution wriggled into my brain some time back. In my fiction usually a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Humor"","block_context":{"text":"Humor","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1561,"url":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?p=1561","url_meta":{"origin":1144,"position":5},"title":"Title Fight","author":"rtmcontrol","date":"February 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"You can do a lot with fiction. You can remove all narrative or all punctuation. You can go stream of consciousness and remove spelling norms and paragraph breaks. Cormac McCarthy removes the dialogue quotes. Do it right, and you can remove most everything in fiction and still have terrific writing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime, Mystery & Suspense"","block_context":{"text":"Crime, Mystery & Suspense","link":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/COVER_Murder-Under-the-Oaks_x1500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/COVER_Murder-Under-the-Oaks_x1500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/COVER_Murder-Under-the-Oaks_x1500.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/robertmangeot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/COVER_Murder-Under-the-Oaks_x1500.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertmangeot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}