I was stopped this month by “The Hardened Shell” and its quiet sense of process: the rhythm of sanding, measuring, paint.  It’s rare that we see stories about the people our usual stories leave at home—Shire stories—and I’ve always had a personal soft spot for them: for looking at the heroic act of survival in the difficult times SFF fiction often writes about.  So this month, I’d like to talk about the intense power and range of the character-focused story: What absolutely powerful work we can do in a piece light on plot and light on action.

Former workshopper Hannah Wolf Bowen pointed out, many years ago, that building conflict into a story doesn’t necessarily mean chronicling the moment something changes itself; that there’s just as much power in the moment a character realizes, finally, that something has changed: those small-yet-monumental moments when someone turns a corner, reaches out, or discovers they’re more than they thought they were all along.

“The Hardened Shell” absolutely embodies that emotional power: Slight and to-the-point, it leads delicately to the point where Shelby and Buzz realizes there’s no magic bullet solution to their lives–and that Buzz needs to–and can–step up to work alongside Shelby to create that solution themselves.

“The Hardened Shell” does an admirable amount of work in just 1.400 words.  The world and stakes are sketched out in quick, concrete, evocative details; “The Hardened Shell” does good work with small things.  Shelby’s world is largely implied, and to great effect: the temperature readings and sunscreen juxtaposed with falling leaves evoke a whole world baked by global warming, and her simple, active choice to not check the news implies a whole set of horrors that are probably more effective for not being spelled out.  The mix of futuristic technology being used in an everyday, casual way and the way Shelby and Buzz scrounge for the basics of living, repurposing materials from dumps and ruins and relying on solar panels, beautifully sets out a future that is not at all evenly distributed.

Those details do double their weight in work when read on the symbolic and thematic level.  The central symbol—a new door, repurposed from an old one, which will be good “with a little effort”—is a nice summation of the core of the story itself, and sets up a fantastic visual resonance.  The constant attention to water tank leaks and solar panels, sunscreen against the hostile outdoor environment, sets up a fantastic resonance with the crew of the Adiona’s situation in space: metred resources, a dangerous solar flare, an empty void outside.  Earth becomes Shelby and Buzz’s spaceship, one facing equal and sympathetic pressures to the Adiona, in just a few details and sentences.

We’ve talked before about archetypes and tropes as shorthands, and how tapping into them can do a great deal of work in a short space. “The Hardened Shell” does great work here, too: Buzz being “not great with the manual stuff” and Shelby being the technical one is a great undermining of a gendered trope–one that makes readers see this isn’t just archetypes–while simultaneously touching the archetype of the slightly dissolute little brother, and thus still feeling familiar and stable to readers.

There’s also work being done on the archetype of what kind of story this is, overall. As a rebuttal to the school of science fiction convinced that space travel will solve Earth’s problems, “The Hardened Shell” is elegant and yet quite kind.  “Everything, their home included, had once been abandoned as battered and hopelessly imperfect,” it says, and yet there they are, and they are fixing what they can.  What could be an intensely sad story is quietly transfigured into a beautiful sliver of practical, realistic hope.

I’ve mentioned that “The Hardened Shell” is a great example of a character-focused story, and it’s the character work that makes the story effective and not just flat. There’s a consistent arc to Shelby’s emotional life through these 1,400 words–enterprise, frustration, resignation, despair, and then a lift–that feels organic and natural: the cycle of a human person’s feelings.  There’s also a deep understanding of emotional labour–of the very difference that showing up and trying and supporting each other makes–that makes that cycle feel meaningful.  “The Hardened Shell” matters, in terms of arc, because it’s showing it understands how support matters to people.  It’s only because Shelby’s moment of despair is so vivid—set up well by how diligently she’s committed up ’til then to carry on, and how abruptly that desire to make do fails—that the moment when Buzz shows up for her can feel overwhelming with relief, and gratitude, and hope.

The piece is still occasionally a touch too on the nose, and I suspect that’s less a problem of didacticism than one of wanting to use all of one’s worldbuilding work in a story that’s come down to only 1,400 words.  Buzz’s comment about towing groceries on his bicycle stood out a touch; on the other hand, the reason Chang’s illness is so catastrophic could perhaps use a touch more fleshing out.  It’s a fact dropped in immediately before its effect is supposed to hit readers, and especially in acronym diagnosis, it’s robbed of appropriate impact by that suddenness.  A little more build to the what–and why–of Adiona’s catastrophe could really expand that moment to its full potential.

This is a simple piece, plot-wise: Brother shows up for his sister in a time of need.  And yet, it’s an immensely powerful reminder that whatever the circumstances, one can pick up, make do, and do our best for each other, facing down uncertain futures, with no hope of a magic-bullet solution.

I very much look forward to seeing it find a home.

“Purity, Redux” caught my eye this month because of its stark setting, its unusual protagonist–a wounded caregiver–and its muted, unflinching view of disease and wellness.  It’s a piece with a great deal of potential, and one with, unfortunately, perhaps a little way yet to go.  So this month I’d like to look at the tool of implication in fiction–how “Purity, Redux” uses it well, where that same tool falters, and the structural background work it requires from us to make it effective.

“Purity, Redux” makes a strong first impression.  The Leak is well-named: It brings up all sorts of body horror images–and lets readers fill in their own worst thing from their imagination.  But that horrifying potential is reinforced thoroughly by Ada’s reactions to The Leak, and how she expects other doctors and staff to react.  Characters’ reactions within a story are often a reader’s most useful subtextual guide to how they’re supposed to react, and the unified–and overwhelming–horror with which Ada treats The Leak is our strongest signal to take it seriously, and that Cybele’s reaction truly is exceptional.

That lurking menace pairs well with evocative language like “took the wind out of your lungs,” which resonates with the snowy, remote mountain setting, or the vividness of Ada’s memories of land mines and fire.  The amount that’s unsaid in “Purity, Redux” is most effective there: it hints at pain, topics Ada would do anything to avoid, and depth in character-building.  It also cues readers to pay attention to those silences, and underlines that what’s important in this piece is in what’s not being said.

However, it’s peeking into those silences that opens up questions–not all of which are being answered or even satisfactorily implied.  Why is the Withering a secret?  What percentage is there in keeping it under wraps, and what are they afraid will happen if people know about mortality?  By the time the idea of the Pures comes in, I’m already not sure why they’re necessary, or what they’re for; what deeper conflict is happening in this society that’s spurring a conflict between people who are pro-death and people against it?  Since the conflict only appears when it’s plot-necessary, it’s hard to be invested in revelations about something I didn’t know, until then, existed.

Most importantly, though: Why don’t Ada and her colleagues die?  The question of their immortality is lurking under the entirety of “Purity, Redux”, and it’s the biggest missing piece there is in the story.  While immortality would be normal to Ada, to readers it’s not, and there’s an obvious question, whenever we introduce a speculative element on which a story hinges, of how, what, and why–not to request a technical document on the worldbuilding in this piece, but to have a logical, coherent sense of causality: Why this world is not our own, and how it got from ours to this.

There’s a sense that “Purity, Redux” is structured to avoid those questions.  The episodic nature of the piece makes it harder to connect with Ada, Cybele, and the Director than it potentially could be, and means that the most impactful and conflict-laden scenes in “Purity, Redux”–Cybele’s escape, the interrogation by the guards, the Director actually tightening security, what Cybele stole and why those records are left in the church, not taken with her–are left off the page, and only referred to later.  In a sense, most of “Purity, Redux” takes place in flashback or avoidance, off the page–and that somewhat weakens the impact of those events, and the piece as a whole.

I’ve mentioned before that fiction worldbuilding is a bit like an iceberg: It’s the 90% you don’t see that makes the 10% you do see work at all.  For “Purity, Redux” I’d suggest that some more attention could be paid to that structural 90% of the iceberg.  Even if it’s not told on the page, a knowledge of the whys and whats of this world, implied and left like bread crumbs, could make the entirety of the story more credible, fleshed out, and impactful.  Even if Ada is not aware of her immortality being abnormal, it’s very plausible to have her report accurate details, accurate contradictions that the readers can put together, knowing what we know, without her making those connections in her own POV.

Attention to this point might help solve the greatest weakness in “Purity, Redux”: its reliance on a twist ending. The Withering being nothing more than natural death is hard to feel anything about for me as a reader, with all those questions unanswered: instead of shock or satisfaction, I’m just left wondering about those whats and whys.

To suggest a general direction, I’d point out that for readers like us, for whom natural death as a concept is not a shock or horror but a fact of life which we’ll all face, it’s particularly tricky to make that an impactful revelation. It’s important, as writers, to remember that while we work within the world of our stories–and work with the perspectives and values of the characters we create–we also have to work to bridge those values with the context of our readers, as close as we can. Revelations, in fiction, are meaningful because the author’s guided us into why they’re meaningful, provided through that same tool of implication mixed with outright textual statements.

So all that being said, I suspect a draft that pays some real attention to the undercarriage of this story, and this world, to sort out the fundamental questions which drive “Purity, Redux” might go a long way to making its revelation of what Ada’s facing meaningful, impactful, and satisfying–and extending the skill with which its worldbuilding around The Withering and the Leaks is constructed into the rest of the piece.

Best of luck!

–Leah Bobet, author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (2015)

“Not a Mule, But Working Like One” caught my attention this month because of its spare prose, subdued sense of menace, and cool, unglamorous take on a modern-day fantasy setting.  I’ve rarely seen this Max Gladstone-style economic fantasy on the workshop: One that uses the addition of magic to delve into the financial end of social systems.  This month, I’d like to spotlight how the use of cumulative details brings both this world—and its argument about work—into full colour, and how showing and telling aren’t diametrically opposed strategies for building a world, but techniques we can pair up to make a story even more effective.

The major strength of “Not a Mule, But Working Like One” is very much the degree of attention being paid to its worldbuilding.  While the central conflict—that before one’s magic comes in, one can get stuck, and that many of the company’s systems are designed to get people stuck—doesn’t make it to the page until the end of the first long scene, readers have already been shown, in the details, exactly what’s going on here.  When Alice notes Caro’s frizz and a slightly off shade of lipstick, it sets up a strong cue as to what kind of perfection is demanded in this particular working life, and what it costs the people who don’t already have the resources to manage that.  Inside a few paragraphs it’s made clear, mostly through details—Caro’s appearance, Mark’s, Alice’s reaction to the receptionist, and the worn-in, comfortable way that Caro and Alice cover for each other—that this is an environment built for the comfort of people with unlimited magic.

The result?  When the straight-out statement arrives near the end of the first scene, that magic can be overstrained early on and stuck in one skill rut, that piece of telling—that information just handed to the reader—doesn’t create so much the filing of a new worldbuilding fact, but the shock of sudden recognition; the feeling of a key in a lock.  Readers get a confirmation of something already figured out, and the boost from that solved puzzle helps enmesh them in the story.

When we tell readers a fact about our worldbuilding, frequently what we’re giving them is a piece of abstract information; it doesn’t necessarily connect to something real, emotional, or experienced in the story.  But by delaying the tell until this point of the piece—still early, but late enough that there’s already a connection built with the character and situation—that told fact can connect to all the ways readers have already seen this fact working itself out in action.  Instead of “that’s new,” the reaction can move to: “so that’s what that means”—and move to the real heart of “Not a Mule, But Working Like One”: establishing the implications of why Alice’s company is actively perpetuating the tiny, very real inconveniences she’s encountered just in her fifteen minutes on-site.

It’s a strategy that connects well with this piece’s narrative style: understated, subtextual, with occasional vivid sensory moments of opulence that pops against a sea of procedure and greyness.  The moments of clear explanation in “Not a Mule, But Working Like One” bring all the subtle tells front and centre for readers, allowing the story to stay natural-feeling and yet build this increasing atmosphere of unfairness and dread.  Likewise, the constant tiny reminders of privilege, tiny pieces of gatekeeping—even as small as the faster Wifi networks being locked or the lab coat fast-track system—grate at readers in the same way they constantly grate at Alice, and make the temptation to use that magic and get stuck she’s told us about multidimensional and real.

Most importantly of all, it helps connect readers to Alice, whose displacement and confusion and desperate, controlled need to not give in to those microaggressions become the centre of the story’s struggle—one that I simultaneously wanted her to win while wincing the whole time at all the joy she’s not having, all the dry toast she’s eating at the metaphorical buffet.  The push-pull between Petra’s burnout, Caro’s desperation, and how Alice’s restraint is killing her in a different way is almost unbearable, and it’s a highly effective piece of tension in a quiet story.

The one suggestion I would have for “Not a Mule, Just Working Like One” is that its obliqueness almost overwhelms in the last few scenes.  It’s clear Caro is terrified of some kind of smuggling inflating the dollar values on the shipments, and it’s clear that by hiding the label on Alice, she’s trying to pass the blame and implicate Alice to save her own job.  But that threat never quite comes clear—which means the stakes never quite come clear—and that blunts the story’s effectiveness emotionally.  As a reader, I’m not entirely sure what fate Alice just avoided (firing, criminal charges, or a different kind of getting stuck).

I’d suggest that bringing more to the surface, plot-wise, in the last few scenes of the piece would help crystallize what exactly is at stake, and help guide readers to a stronger emotional reaction when Alice and Petra eventually escape—would help the piece stick its landing.

Best of luck!

–Leah Bobet, author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (2015)