The strange thing about my work on The Crab is that it began when I started to write The Scorpion. Well, I didn't actually get to the first novel in the Legend of the Five Rings™ (L5R) Clan Wars series, but that’s when I first encountered the Crab's Hida family. They seemed like a pretty uncouth bunch, and I much preferred the sly and manipulative Bayushi Shoju (head of the treacherous Scorpion clan).
I knew precious little about the world of L5R. In fact, though I’d played the card game a few times, and I knew the setting had a nominally Japanese flavor, I would have been hard pressed to speak knowledgeably about the world of Rokugan. I did, however, have a good deal of experience with real-world Japanese culture and literature. And I very much wanted to break into novel writing. I loved game design (and I still do), in my heart I’ve always wanted to be a novelist. So I dove into L5R research and began crafting a proposal.
For those of you who don’t know, a proposal for a novel (at least for Wizards of the Coast) contains:
1. A 5-10 page detailed
outline of the novel, broken down chapter-by-chapter.
2. 5-10 pages of character
summaries (about half a page for main characters, and about a quarter page
for
supporting characters).
3. A 5,000 word sample
chapter (or chapters)
That’s roughly fifteen or twenty thousand words … in other words, about the same amount of writing that a full-time game designer in WotC’s RPG R&D is supposed to generate in a month. And that’s just so you can be considered for the gig. (I’m not complaining … I’m just trying to help you understand how much work a writer has to do before he gets to do any work.)
Sometimes you write a pitch for an idea you have created yourself … in other cases you do a treatment for a story that the publisher wants to see written. In this case, the WotC book department asked about a dozen people to write proposals for a book about L5R’s Scorpion Clan (the first in a new series) and gave us VERY strict instructions about what the story had to include. So all twelve of us would be pitching pretty much the same thing ... the only difference was our understanding of the characters and our skills as storytellers.
I considered myself lucky to be on such a short list … then I looked at the other invitees, and I felt honored. There were people who had been writing, designing, and managing for L5R since its inception. Only a few of them had written novels before, but I was clearly the greenest of the bunch. Still, this was about as good an opportunity as I could hope for … so I rolled up my sleeves and gave it my best shot.
When the dust settled, Stephen D. Sullivan got the nod for The Scorpion, and it’s probably a good thing (he had a much better head for the Scorpion mindset than I did). It was more than a little disappointing for me ... even more disappointing was the fact that this proposal was being used to decide which authors would get to write books 2 and 3 in the series as well, and I didn't get either of those assignments either. But such is life in the wacky world of freelance writing ... there certainly would be other opportunities … eventually.
Rob King, the editor for the Clan Wars series and an amazingly talented writer in his own right, sat down with me afterward and helped me debrief my proposal. He said that he liked what I'd turned over very much, and that I was one of the last people eliminated. My biggest mistake, it seemed, was in turning over a sample chapter that was too focussed on character development ... and not for one of the feature L5R characters. I'd thought it showed my understanding of the culture, and it might well have. But Rob told me that it was a little too cerebral. The L5R books would be filled with battles, duels, battles, assassinations, and more battles. There was no proof in my submission that I'd be able to handle that at all. (An important note to anyone preparing a proposal, or any other manuscript, for a publisher: Be sure you include what they want to see ... not just what you want to show them.)
"Your work was good, Stan!" Rob said right before he left. "You'll get another shot. I mean, you were really in it right up until the end. I'd love to see more proposals from you in the future."
As it turned out, that opportunity arose just a few months later ... when the book department asked if I wanted to write The Crab novel. As I said before, I didn’t really feel very attached to the Hida clan … but I was not going to let that stand in my way.
The trick, the Managing Editor then told me, was that the book had to be written on an accelerated schedule. Most new authors get between 4 and 6 months to write their initial first draft for WotC ... and they wanted me to get mine done in less than 3 months. (To this day, I'm not certain why ... and to tell the truth, I'm a little afraid to ask.) It showed, I thought, a great deal of confidence in my abilities (or a great deal of confidence that someone on staff could act as a safety net should I prove not up to the task). So I accepted.
Next time: You'd think that having an existing
story to work from would make things easier, right? Well, not all continuity
is created equal. Join me when I talk about the ups and downs of writing
my outline.
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