A Story: Neverking

I've decided to put up one of my early stories. I'll serialize it so I don't take up huge amounts of space for a single post.

This is the story that earned me a spot in Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp--at least the first page of it did. As far as stories go it's not bad. As far as historically accurate, well, you'll see...


Neverking

by Suzanne Vincent

My Grandfather had two obsessions: World War II and King Arthur. The War because he served in it.

Arthur because he met him.

The day he told me, I had a half-day leave and wanted to see Gramps once more before shipping out to Afghanistan for eighteen months.

“Morning, Gramps,” I said, like I did every time I visited him at the care center. I didn’t expect an answer. He hadn’t recognized me in more than a year. But that day he looked right at me--not through me--and smiled.

He smiled!

His eyes were amazingly focused, the expression behind them lucid. Some circuit in his brain must have connected, because he reached out a frail hand and spoke to me.

“Ain't that a hoot?” he said with a quavering laugh, carrying on in the middle of a conversation that could have begun thirty minutes or thirty years ago. “All them stories and legends got it wrong!”

I must have looked like I’d been hit in the head, gaping at him like an idiot, so astonished to hear his voice and his laugh again that my mind malfunctioned just at the moment his reconnected.

“Didn’t you hear me, Josh? They’re all wrong! Malory, Geoffrey, Nennius…”

I knew those names. Hearing them brought me around. But hearing him utter mine--that was pure gold.

I smiled at him.

“Arthur," I said, pulling my chair up to sit close to him.

“That’s the one. The fabled High King of Britain. He wasn’t ever even a King! And all those centuries later old William the Norman bastard claimed right to the English throne by Arthur’s birthright.” He laughed again, loud and long. “It’s like the President of the United States begging for votes because he’s the great-great-grandson of Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill!”

Gramps' must have read me everything published on King Arthur, from the time I was old enough to sit on his lap with enough restraint to keep from grabbing at the pages. I know Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave. I know White, Pyle, Bulla, Bradley, Sutcliff. He read me the originals that spawned them all, too—--the fable-laden histories, the tales of the Mabinogion, ancient poems with nothing more than a mere mention of Arthur’s name. As I grew, we studied maps and histories and archaeology. We sifted through them looking for treasures of truth.

He uncovered for me an Arthur most never understood.

An Arthur of discarded Roman helmets and wooden shields instead of shining armor; one of longbows and short swords and iron-tipped spears instead of lances and maces; one of shaggy highland ponies instead of heavy chargers.

He taught me of the devastating incursions of Angles, Jutes, and Saxons; of the culture-swallowing sweep of Christianity across Britain.

The more Gramps and I learned, the more we yearned for truth. I even remember him saying he looked forward to dying. He had a few questions he wanted to ask Arthur when he saw him.
Together we'd decided that Lancelot and Merlin were figments of the imagination, the Round Table too, that the famed knights were most likely literary incarnations of Celtic demi-gods. The Arthur we came to know was an extraordinary man living in extraordinary times who became such by doing what any ordinary man would have done--he defended his home and his family.

I joined the Army inspired by this notion.

But in all those years of sharing the wonder of history's most famous king, Gramps never once asserted that Arthur wasn't one. But then he always called him 'Arthur'. Just 'Arthur'. And I'd always felt like he was leading me to something I couldn’t quite grasp.

“What do you mean, ‘never a king?’” I said. “How do you know?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this. He made me promise. But, damn! I have to tell someone.” He took me by the elbow, his frail fingers closing tightly, pinching me harder than I thought him capable, his eyes wide with excitement. “You have to swear--swear on your life you won’t tell. Not anyone. Ever!”

“Swear I won’t tell what?”

“Don’t you pull none of your bullshit on me. You think I’m stupid enough to tell you without you giving me your word first?”

“Now wait a minute, Gramps,” I said. “You expect me to keep a promise you couldn’t?”
I don’t know why I said it. It was one of those moments of epiphany when I realized the irony of what he was asking. Gramps . . . he would never break a promise. Never. But my outburst broke the spell.

He went quiet, let go of my arm, looked at the floor. He was suddenly old again, his gaze drifting away. He was leaving me.

“Gramps? Don?” I said a little too loud, calling him by name, desperate to bring him back. “I swear. I won’t tell anyone.”

His eyes turned to me again. But the excitement was gone and in its place, a solemn frown. “God forgive me for breaking my word,” he said. “But I can’t keep it inside me. I gotta tell someone. Say it again, Marty. Swear it again.”

Marty? I didn’t know a Marty.

"Swear, Marty."

Gramps wasn't with me anymore. That much was clear. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. He was speaking again, and he was telling me another story.

I took his hand. “I swear,” I said.

He settled some, letting out a deep breath, a reluctant smile deepening the wrinkles in his face. He leaned in close, looked around to be sure no one was listening and whispered in my ear.

“You’re gonna think I’m loopy. And if you tell anyone they’re gonna think the same of you.”

“Tell them what?”

“Marty, I saw King Arthur. He was standing over me, right over there.” He jabbed with his thumb over his shoulder. “It was when you and Ikers went for rations. Marty, he saved my life. He told me to get the hell out of that foxhole. If he hadn’t come . . .”

He lapsed into silence for a few moments, studying his thumbs and trembling with more than the usual aging palsy. I searched my memory for a scrap of the story he was telling me. There had been dozens of stories of the war told to me over ice cream cones or garden gloves. He wanted me to know, to never forget the value of liberty. But this one was unfamiliar. It must have been one of the many he had begged off, telling me there were some things he would carry to his grave, things that shouldn’t be told.

“What happened, Don?”

“He told me to get out. I told him to go to hell. He said if I didn’t I was gonna die, and then I looked at his feet and he held out his hand and I didn’t know what else to do. I mean, when someone like that tells you to get out of a foxhole, you just do it.”

“Like what? Someone like what?”

He shrugged and twisted his hands together. “He was standing there on the edge of the hole, but he wasn’t standing there. It was like he was floating just a little, you know?”

“Like a ghost?”

“I suppose he’d have to be, wouldn’t he?” he said with a frown. “But he wasn’t like any ghost I ever heard of. If he was a ghost they got it all wrong in the movies and books. I could touch him, Marty. He helped me up outta that hole. But . . . I don’t know. It’s like...like he ain’t part of the world and the world won’t let him on it.”

“And you’re sure it was Arthur?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. He was dressed funny--soft shoes and a cloak and all that. And he told me who he was. He said, plain as you like in an accent something like them Scottish soldiers, ‘My name is Arthur.’ And I said, ‘You mean King Arthur?’ And he starts laughing, all the time leading me away from that foxhole like I'm a stray pup following a kid home from school. And he says, ‘I am he. But I was never a king.’ Well, you’ve seen me reading that book I picked up in London . . .”

“Which one?”

“The Once and Future King. It’s by an English fellow named White. It's all about King Arthur and his knights and such. Well, that book don't say nothing about him not being king. So I asks him, ‘What do you mean?’ And he says, ‘I was a prince, a warrior. Nothing more.’ He says all that about him was made up by men who were more interested in making a name for themselves than for finding the truth. Well, of course I wanted to know what he was doing here. Why wasn’t he on Avalon? What did he need to come save a scared American kid for? And he says it’s cause I’m a son of Medraut . . .”

“Mordred?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? Me, a son of Mordred! ‘I never knew,’ I told him. And he says, ‘It doesn’t matter. I know.’ Only I always thought him and Mordred hated each other, and I told him so. He got mad. Real mad. He said them guys that wrote about him really got it twisted up. He said Mordred was his best friend, as close as a brother. He said Mordred died saving his life. He said he made a promise to him that he’d keep watch over his family forever. Only Arthur died that same day and he never thought God’d hold him to it. Not like this anyway. Not bringing him back every time one of Mordred’s children is in danger. But he said he keeps coming back. He says he made an oath and he’ll keep it till the Christ comes again--that’s what he said.”

A creep-up-the-neck feeling crawled into the hairs of my head. I think it struck me just then that Gramps was reliving a memory rather than weaving a tale. But a real memory? I couldn’t bring myself to go that far. Not yet.

“What did he look like?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Gramps clucked his tongue. “Nothing like I would’ve imagined. He wasn’t quite as tall as you might think--but then people were shorter back then, weren’t they? And his hair was real thin on top. That’s something you never see in pictures,” he said with a tense chuckle. “King Arthur with a bald head? But I never seen real eyes like that. They were kinda gold and fierce. Like an eagle’s, like the guys in them war bond posters back home. And his hands were strong. He kept one on my shoulder the whole time and it was so strong I never even thought of trying to pry myself away, but it was gentle too, and he just led me on and then . . .” He paused, looking into my eyes, seeing Marty’s face. And I saw a tear trembling at the corner of his eye.

“Then all hell broke loose. I tell you, Marty. The second I heard them shells coming I hit the ground. And when I looked up after the dirt stopped hitting me in the head our foxhole was twice as deep as we dug it and he was gone and . . .” He broke down in sobs, his palms pressed over his eyes.

I did what I thought Marty might have. I rubbed his back, offered him a handkerchief, told him those consoling words every combat soldier learns to say when a buddy gets shot up, or finds the bloody remains of a little kid that reminds him of a kid who lives around the corner back home, or when he finds a gash in his helmet where a slug should have taken off half his head.

“He saved my life,” he whispered. “He saved my life.”

My Body of Work

I did some organizing today and surprised myself.

I have two published stories.

I have two stories I want to develop into novels.

I found I have 21 completed stories that have yet to find homes. Three of those are currently in slush piles. Several of them are early work or very specific work that I'm not sure I'll ever try to find homes for. For now they're fodder for future revisions or there just for my own enjoyment. Maybe I'll self publish a couple of them here. But not today.

I have 9 stories that are started and in various stages of completion.

I have another 12 or 14 story ideas waiting for some level of excitement on my part in order to get moving on them.

Remember me saying that my brain tends to compartmentalize information? It's in my first post, here: http://nightingalescage.blogspot.com/2008/02/where-do-i-begin.html

Well, I had forgotten about many of those story ideas until I started organizing my files. A couple of them had an "I wrote that?" moment to go with them. Funny how the mind works.

I think I'll try selling some of my less 'great' stories to some of the more entry-level markets. Get some sales! Even if they're not "paid."

Chocolate for Writers--a Book Recommendation

Three stories in slush piles--Hummingbird received a rejection today.

But on to better things:

As promised, Chocolate for writers.

The book is The Writer's Mentor by Cathleen Rountree.

This was one of the first books on writing that I picked up when I started into this writing business. That and a new Thesaurus. We were desperately poor at the time. If I remember correctly, I used some birthday money given to me by my mother-in-law to buy it.

The thing that makes it chocolate for writers is that it is filled with good advice, excellent author quotes, and writing exercises in a very gentle and encouraging format. Read a chapter--any chapter--and you'll get to the end feeling empowered and ready to face the writing demons that beset you. And all with no calories! How cool is THAT!?!

Ms. Rountree is comforting while realistic. Instead of just writing a book about writing, she takes time to let you get to know her, so it feels like you're sitting at the kitchen table with a friend, a huge tub of (insert favorit flavor) ice cream, laughing and talking and learning from each other. I very much enjoyed this book the first time through, and refer back to it often--especially when I need a writerly pick-me-up--like right after receiving another rejection.

;-)

The Waiting Game

Correction, FOUR stories in slush piles:

"Jack of Stones" at Weird Tales,
"Lover's Knot" at Aberrant Dreams,
"Strange Love" at The Town Drunk,
"Hummingbird" at FlashFictionOnline.

I think that's the most stories I've had out in the cold cruel world, EVER! That's pretty good for me. It's been a long, slow struggle back from a seemingly bottomless pit. I feel in some ways as if I'm starting over again, and in other ways that I'm a stronger person and writer because of the experiences I've had over the past five years.

It feels good to be writing again, and I'm finding I'm not nearly as sensitive to the rejections. I've grown a thicker skin, maybe. Or perhaps I've grown a deeper understanding of the editorial world together with a deeper confidence in my work.

The hardest part is the waiting, checking email every day with that little heart-flutter of hope.

Where to Submit!

So Nightingale is searching for a new market, but won't tell me which one it wants.

I'm looking at three potential markets:

Andromeda Spaceways
Abyss & Apex
Interzone

All three are good markets with good reputations. None of them are pro-rate, SFWA qualifying. I've pretty much exhausted those markets, except Strange Horizons. But I'm highly doubtful Nightingale is something Strange Horizons might want. I have several stories that might do all right at SH. Nightingale isn't one of them.

Currently only Adromeda Spaceways is open to submissions. Both Abyss & Apex and Interzone have 'reading periods'--May is the next one for both of them. If I send Nightingale to Andromeda, it's unlikely I'll receive a reply before the reading period for A&A and IZ are closed. IZ has only two open reading periods per year for fiction. So, I guess what I'll do is wait until May, submit at Interzone, then if they reject, I'll try A&A during their next reading period--which is in August. If it still doesn't sell, I'll try Andromeda.

Until then, I have a couple of stories in the works (one a twist of Red Riding Hood, the other a story based on a strange sight my daughter and I saw at the grocery store a while ago--a little old man and woman getting into a vehicle with the license plate DEVL666), and still plenty of work to do schooling and reading slush.

I still have two stories in slush piles--"Jack of Stones" at Weird Tales, and "Hummingbird" at Flashfictiononline.

Wish me luck!

Teaching Someone to Write

[Addendum--1/17/09] Since this particular post receives quite a few hits, I'll direct those who are searching for information on writing fiction to the bottom of my blog where I list a few excellent books on writing. Beyond that, most of the Writer's Digest series of books are pretty good, and there are a number of excellent online workshop sites listed in 'links for writers' on the left side of the blog. Good Writing![end]

I teach my kids at home.

With a few exceptions, my older kids are free to study what they want.

My son has decided he wants to learn how to write fiction.

I can teach him that because I've studied it.

I can't teach him trignonometry, or chemistry, or advanced physics. But I can teach him the principles of fiction writing.

We started with a few basic elements of the story--character, setting, basic plot--which all quickly progressed into a thousand-ideas session, a free association session in which we batted story ideas back and forth. By the end of it he had a pretty good story idea going, then went off to start writing it.

But we hadn't discussed how to start a story yet.

He brought me what he had done and I read it. It was OK, but he knew I would have 'buts.' He knows me well enough and knows very well that picking apart stories for the purpose of making them better is what I do--and do well. So we then had a discussion on conflict and resolution and where to start a story based upon what the story's main conflict is and what he might want to do to resolve it.

He took it all in nobly--but I didn't get much done teaching anyone else that day.

That is both the beauty and the challenge of homeschooling--to be flexible enough to concentrate on an area of keen interest while still accomplishing what needs to be accomplished. I tell you, I wouldn't give it up for the world. It has been an amazing experience for us all. But in order to do it, sacrifices must be made. The greatest sacrifice for me is that my progress as a writer is tremendously slower than it might be. But that's OK. I can wait because my kids are worth it.

Well Written? and Bad News

As a writer, I read. It's part of the job, really.

It used to be that I would read anything--good or bad. These days, I'm considerably more discriminating because I simply don't have the time to waste on reading tripe. I just don't. There are too many excellent stories and books out there that can teach me, by example, how to write well, and not NEARLY enough time to read them all.

So when someone recommends a book to me as "well written," I don't necessarily believe them. And I NEVER buy a book based solely on a recommendation. Never. And just because a book is a monetary success does NOT mean it is "well written."

These days I know of a few reader friends whose book recommendations I would accept and act upon without batting an eye, and there are a few writer friends whose book recommendations would garner the same reaction. And there are a whole lot of other friends whose recommendations would require a test on my part.

That test is usually as simple as reading the first chapter of said book. You can tell a lot about a writer and his ability to tell a good story by reading the first few pages or even paragraphs.

And in the publishing world, that's what counts. Most book publishers--at least those few who still accept unagented work--want to see the first three chapters. Most short story publishers give the writer the first few paragraphs to prove themselves worthy of publication. An editor will only read the entire story if it's good--very good. And he'll only publish it if it's better than the other thirty stories he's received that month that are also very good.

Sad day.

I received a rejection letter from Realms of Fantasy on "Nightingale." Ah, well. I'm off to shop for another market. Submit, submit, submit.