An interesting article on the Telegraph site, ‘Advertising is getting personal‘, about how companies are better utilising technology to track customers and offer them an improved service.
Of course, companies have always tried to do this but with more powerful technology at cheaper prices, the amount and type of information they can gather increases.
‘Railroaded’ uses this idea by having corporations track and measure their customers and employees to the minutest of detail with every object having a small microchip emitting data multiple times per second giving a real-time picture of almost everything from actual people and their personal interactions to a sweet wrapper or a pair of glasses.
A step forward, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
An agent came back and asked to see the full manuscript of ‘Railroaded’, but then quickly rejected the whole thing.
I’ll ignore the obvious negative and take some positives; I grabbed the interest of a literary professional and, albeit briefly, viewed the slush pile from the outside.
She gave good feedback, some of it highlighting some points I was already conscious of and keen to avoid/focus on for Novel No.2. So having someone else comment on these aspects too means I must be ever so slightly thinking along the right lines.
I didn’t agree with everything but then that just means I haven’t communicated clearly enough. Also, for sanity’s sake, I can’t agree with everything otherwise I would just give up with ‘Railroaded’ and I’m not ready for that at the moment.
At university, a mate and I went round some London ad agencies with a portfolio of print and billboard ads we’d drawn up. One agency creative pairing was really nice and praised us, the other was OK but bland and the third tore us a new arsehole. I learnt so much and remember more fondly the agency creative that ripped us to shreds than the other two.
That didn’t happen here, she was very nice and friendly (agents DO have hearts!) but while this was the closest I’ve been yet it resulted in failure, I’ve got some valuable expert feedback, had some things confirmed which I thought I already knew and feel more confident going forward with this experience.
Well, Max Barry did a word cloud for his online novel ‘Machine Man’ so I thought I’d try the same with ‘Railroaded’…takes my mind off rejections anyway.
Using the online service at Wordle you can easily create your own, my one above is also live on their public gallery here.
Quite interesting; Isaac, Amy and Poppy are the main characters, Gerard, Estelle and Julius are other characters. I seem to the use word ‘one‘ quite a lot, I can’t remember why though.
I also use the words ‘looked‘ and ‘back‘ quite a lot, which makes more sense as Isaac, Amy and Poppy are on the run most of the time and always ‘looking back’. Maybe I should find other ways to say ‘looked back’ though…’turned behind them?’…no.
I use ‘father‘ more than ‘mother‘. I use ‘Yes‘ and ‘Yeah‘ much more than ‘No‘. I use ‘DNA‘ more than ‘Chair‘, which makes sense as DNA is a theme and the characters don’t have much time to sit down.
Now I’ve looked at it for a bit, I’m not sure what it really tells you. I suppose you only have to worry when words such as ‘Once upon a time‘ or ‘It was all a dream‘ show up larger than most.
In Railroaded I thought of an easy way people could exchange personal information with mobile phones.
The other day I came across the ‘Bump‘ iphone app that now does exactly that. Instead of pressing a button you simply turn the app on and ‘bump’ the phones together.
I admit their execution is better but I still prefer my name for it!
Just downloaded it onto my iPhone, now I just need to find a willing victim to bump with…I mean ‘exstrange’ with.
Mr Salmon Rushdie uses it and say it’s his favourite app, maybe that’s how he pulls all those good-looking, tall women?
Below is the relevant bit from Railroaded, Chapter 1…
“Look I’m getting confused here. Things aren’t adding up. Why don’t we ‘exstrange info’ then we can see where we are.”
‘Exstrange Info’ was a term used to exchange personal information on mobile devices. Each person would hold their mobile device close to each other; press a button at the same time for one second and all relevant information would be stored in each other’s mobile device, therefore rendering each other ‘ex-strangers’.
Isaac apologised and said he didn’t have a mobile device.
I’m a science fiction fan but not a die-hard nerd so I had never heard of the sub-genre of ‘Mundane Science Fiction’.
Probably not a positively eye-catching sub-genre on the face of it but the idea behind it is it only uses science and technology that is either acheivable or extremely, very nearly acheivable.
I like this idea.
Spaceships, aliens, living on other planets, sentient robots, time-travel, etc are all sci-fi mainstays but they’re also way, way, way into the future…and that’s if they’re actually physically possible.
Mundane Sci-Fi deals in facts and near future, Earth based science fiction. The wikipedia page is good, listing a few ‘laws’ of mundane sci-fi.
There’s also a great blog, Mundane-SF that keeps you updated with non-lightspeed based science fiction. On that site I found this speech which is a great intro into mundane science fiction – ‘Take the Third Star on the Left and on til Morning!’ by Geoff Ryman
Railroaded is near future based in 2066 and I consciously stayed away from flamboyant flights of fancy and extrapolated every piece of technology on something existing today. I found it keeps the story more believable, helps shape it more realistically and therefore makes it better alround.
So I think I’d firmly place my sci-fi scribblings into the mudane category…you know, unless I think of a really great way to execute the aliens escaping from robots through wormholes idea.
The pain! The humiliation!
The second rejection for ‘Railroaded’ plus a rejection for a short story just to twist the knife a little more.
I’ve just finished another short story and going to start another one this weekend…because I just can’t get enough rejection in my life.
Just before I left for work I saw a London postmarked envelope that didn’t appear to be a bill, so I opened it.
Only my first rejection! I’m so chuffed!
OK, I’m gutted that they didn’t say yes but you gotta take positives from it.
- The submission found its way to the correct person.
- I got an answer in less than a week! (That could be construed as a bad thing, but I ain’t even going there).
- The submission was deemed worthy enough to actually respond to.
- Even though I guess 70% of the letter was part of a form letter, he did actually say ‘the premise was interesting‘ and that ‘you write very well‘. I’ll take those comments at face value and deposit them in the old ego bank.
- I spotted an error in the letter, it’s missing the word ‘with‘ in the second sentence (if you’re reading this). Spelling Nazis ftw!
I’m not going to put the letter up or say who it is as I haven’t asked permission, but it was a very nice rejection letter. I’m sure this guy’s ex-girlfriends have been dumped very kindly, maybe over dinner whilst he tenderly held their hand and let a tear form in the candlelight.
Of course, after the 57th rejection letter I probably won’t be feeling so forgiving but my first time has been a pleasant one.
Onwards and upwards. I’m going to have 5 submissions on the go at any one time, so that’s one crossed off the list, time to get another one sent out tomorrow.
With all this talk of Railroaded and writing, I haven’t actually put any of my writing on the blog (blog posts don’t count). All talk and no writing makes Ben a…non-writing boy.
So here’s the first chapter of my novel, Railroaded. It’s a little over 4,000 words.
The hand of a lady, aged by time and paled by death, stood up on its own severed wrist, hermetically sealed within the vacuum of a bell jar. Cradled in the grip of an assistant, the outstretched hand rose above the watching audience as though attracting someone’s attention with a wave.
“£18,000!” A bidder’s voice sternly announced from one of the phones situated to one side of the auction hall.
The lifeless hand was succeeding; it was holding everyone’s attention.
I’ve only gone and posted the bloody thing to some right old proper people!
Over the weekend I put together 5 packages and popped them in the post this afternoon so they are winging their way to 5 agents in London as I type…be safe my pretties, don’t be scared of the dark and when the nasty person starts laughing at you and chucks you in the bin, take solace in the fact you’ll be recycled and live again, hopefully finding your way into a successful writers printer this time.
(I don’t why I’m blogging to my letters, lol, what an idiot! They can’t get the internet in a post office sack).
One part of writing Railroaded I really enjoyed was trying to come up with new technologies, or at least butchering emerging new technologies.
It’s set in a UK with higher sea levels so global warming has really affected the country and they combat that by becoming carbon neutral, this means the whole transport infrastructure needs addressing.
Here’s a little taster of what I wrote…
Amy’s car, as all automobiles and trains, are ‘levitated’ via electro-magnetism to greatly reduce drag; the base of the car ‘floats’ upon a bed of opposing magnetic forces from the road, both powered by an electro-magnet plastic, PMP (Photovoltaic Magnetic Polymer), road that generates its own power from the Sun. Once levitated the car is powered laterally by compressed air jets located around the car.
