Cautionary Tales (17 page)

And that is what you hate: trying to turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. You would rather slog through the six-inch-deep muck in an over-endowed pigpen in your bare feet. How can anyone in his right mind, or any mind at all, actually enjoy this feculent process? (Editorial note: “feculent” means full of feces; it stinks.)

Uh, I suspect you are giving yourself too little credit. What you really have is a diamond in the rough. Have you seen one of those, physically? It looks like a pocked fragment of rock from the bottom of a polluted stream. But when it is faceted and polished, its inherent glory shines forth. Face it: If you can Write it, you can Edit it. You just happen to need a different approach.

There are two types of personality involved in writing. Remember the famous story “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert L Stevenson? Where one was nice and the other nasty, but both used the same body? These two entities exist in you, too. There's the divine Creative Spirit that generates the original text. That's what governed while you were writing. Then there's the mean spirited Critic who gets his jollies from tearing down the work of others. There's hardly any piece of writing he can't disparage in some manner. That's the one you need now. Yes you do; it's time to drink that potion and loose this monster on your text.

The Critic will search out every Sentence that is less than utterly perfect—that is, practically all of them—and hack it into suffering parts. He will pounce on any Word that is not exact by his warped definition. He will screw with your Paragraphs. He will disparage your Theme. He will deride the motives of your Characters. It seems as if nothing will ever completely satisfy him except a pile of literary rubble where your aspiring novel used to be. He comes across as a Destroyer, and he loves his work.

But you are not helpless. You can fight back by making spot changes that nullify his taunts. You can be like Winston Churchill, who, when chided for ending a sentence with a preposition, said “This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.” He sure made a fool of the purists! It's an ongoing battle, but you can chain the Critic, especially if you like a good dirty fight. Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. Battle him in the trenches, fight him in the high turrets, balk him in the open plain. Let him rage, because the ugly job has to be done, but do not let him win the day.

So he doesn't like this Word: go to the thesaurus if you have to, to find another. It's no shame to use the aids available. Many computer programs have them, and I do find them useful. Also, do use the speller, but don't trust it completely. There's a significant distinction between meet, meat, and mete that the speller won't catch. You have to be in charge; the machine won't do it all.

The Critic doesn't like your sentence? Churchill could have fixed his by phrasing it “I will not put up with this sort of nonsense.” So can you. He doesn't like your punctuation? Well, break up those run-on sentences and abolish half those exclamation points!!

Your paragraph is challenged? Well, if it's three pages long, break it into five smaller ones. I see paragraphs as dynamic entities, gathering together particular aspects of your thought; a new slant should have a new paragraph. My original paragraph here began with “But you are not helpless,” and finished with “it wasn't worth it.” Now it's five smaller paragraphs. See how I did it, when my Critic got cracking. Yes, this pep talk got the same treatment I'm recommending, throughout.

Sure there will be metaphorical bodies strewn in the aisles, but your text will slowly, painfully, improve. And when you have stifled the Critic's last foul blast, you will have a text that will silence your mother in law for a delicious moment. She may be incapable of saying anything good about it, because she is permanently locked in Critic mode, but she won't be able to condemn it either. That will be your subtle victory. You will have made your piece as good as it can be. How can you say it wasn't worth it?

Note:
I have mentioned NaNoWriMo, encouraging writers to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November, for which I did a Pep Talk. After they ran that I received a solicitation from Dream Writers, who planned to have a similar contest every month, buttressed by support for the manuscripts after they were written. They asked me to do a pep talk on Editing. So I did, and sent it in, but it was never acknowledged, and before long the organization went out of business. Amateurs will waste your time if you let them. So I ran it in my HiPiers site, and a fan site reprinted it. I feel it's a good discussion, so I'm sharing it with you here. There is more to writing than just pouring out the words.

Caution: sex with an alien creature.

12. Medusa

Feeding time. Erik brought the food for the captive alien creature. She was an elusive marauder, caught mainly by chance; more than one man had died before a sample specimen had been caught. Confined, she had been quiet, knowing she could not get at him, but he remained careful. He set the severed haunch in the apertures compartment, closed the outer gate, then drew the inner gate open.

Medusa pounced on it, catching the projecting bone with her head tentacles that gave her her name and hauling it onto the floor of her cage. She lay with her four legs tucked under her body, out of play, their devastating claws not showing. Her tentacles held the haunch firmly and fed the bony end into the circular mouth orifice that irised just wide enough to take it in. There was a sound vaguely like that of a meat-cutting saw as her circular teeth sliced into it.

Slowly the bone disappeared into her mouth, guided by the tentacles. Erik knew that the interior teeth were cutting off thin slices, so fine that the result was virtually powder or liquid. She did not chew in the human manner, she shredded, so that she could then swallow and digest the resulting mash. The process took time, but what else did she have to do here?

The rest of her food processing was different too. She had no bladder, no anus; her wastes were processed by her feet. One for solids, another for liquid, a third for gas, the last for heat. They could be used defensively, too, flinging out turds, spraying corrosive liquid, blowing a choking stench, or applying a burning paw. Medusa's captors had discovered such features the hard way. But these weapons were not used indiscriminately; Erik himself had never been threatened. Evidently she was aware that he was harmless.

She finished the haunch and walked on the sand pit, doing her business. She could eat and assimilate just about anything, whether meat, plant, or mineral, being an omnivore. One reason they fed her well was so she wouldn't start chewing on the walls or bars, as it were; she might discover a way to break out. That would not be good, because she was a deadly predator, silent and swift. He was learning increasing respect for her; she was a fine creature.

Then he became aware that Medusa was paying as much attention to him as he was to her. Her three eyes were fixed on him, triangulating in three dimensions. She could see and hear precisely; he had noted the signs. What was on her alien mind?

Erik had been in nominal charge of her for the past month. He was what was colloquially called a BEM aide: the person who fed and observed the specimens here on the human outpost on Phew 114. The name was for Potentially Habitable Earthstyle World, because of its gravity, temperature, atmosphere, and background life. Soon it would be terraformed, which meant seeding by Earth viruses, bacteria, fungus, lichen, and primitive plant and animal forms. They would marginalize or eliminate existing life forms, making the planet suitable for colonization by advanced life: human.

Mainly, his job was dull. He had made most of his notes on the captive animal in the first few days; after that he was just a kind of baby sitter, making sure she was healthy and secure. He spent his time reading, playing computer games, corresponding with friends back on Earth, and snoozing. Lonely, he had taken to talking to Medusa as if she could understand, and reading aloud to her. She seemed less restless when he did that. She was especially attentive when he read erotic fiction; maybe he put more feeling into that.

“Medusa, I wish you were a lovely willing human woman, instead of a vicious alien beast,” Erik said rhetorically.

In her barred cage, Medusa rolled onto her back and spread her limbs, like a dog wanting a belly rub. But she was no dog. In fact she looked startlingly like a nude human woman, with breasts and a furry genital region.

Erik blinked, fearing he was hallucinating. He had been too long without a woman. How could a tiger-like animal suddenly seem like a girl? She had not had such body parts before. In fact she was considered female only because she lacked a penis. Her kind evidently did not need such a member for urination, and probably not for anything else.

Then he stared. Not only did she have breasts, they were visibly expanding, while her thick midsection was thinning into a girl-like waist. Her short limbs were lengthening into humanly-proportioned arms and legs. Her feet were shaping into hand-like extremities, with fingers and toes sporting delicate nails rather than rending claws.

“Medusa,” he said, awed. “You are shape-changing!”

“Mmmm,” she agreed. It was more like a purr than a growl, the only vocal sound she made.

His jaw dropped. “You understand me!”

“Mmmm.”

“Medusa, stop! If the authorities knew you could do either, they would destroy you immediately.”

She rolled back onto her feet, faced him, and nodded her head.

“You
do
understand me,” he said. “At least well enough to respond. You never gave a hint before. Are you sapient?”

“Mmmm?” She could do inflections, and he had learned to pick up on them.

“Sapient: having human intelligence and judgment. Smart. Savvy. Knowing what's what.”

She shook her head.

“Not as smart as I am, but smarter than an animal?”

She nodded.

“Why are you letting me know, after concealing it until now?”

She was silent. He realized that the question was too complicated for her to answer, since she couldn't talk.

He tried again. “You have a reason to tell me?”

She nodded.

“Your welfare is affected?”

She was silent. Too complicated again. But he was able to simplify it by breaking it down into more specific concepts. He had to clarify words and rephrase often, but they were making progress on a dialogue.

“Is someone treating you badly?”

Head shake.

He got an idea. “You can hear things, not just in this room?”

Nod.

“You learned our language by listening?” He had given her a lot to listen to.

Nod.

“You heard something that made you decide?”

Nod.

“Is there danger?”

No reaction.

“Is there danger for us—for human beings?”

No.

“For you?”

Yes.

Now he was getting there. “There is a threat to you?”

Yes.

“And I can help?”

Yes.

“Do you want me to make a complaint on your behalf?”

No.

“Medusa, I am really just an observer. I have no authority. I represent HETA, Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens. The military folk let me work here because they want to show that they are not mistreating alien captives. I am trying to understand you and the other specimens. If I make a ruckus, they will simply ship me out. I do want to help you, but I have to be careful. I need to be very sure of my facts. What exactly is the threat?”

Medusa did not respond. But further dialogue zeroed in on it. The base was going to be closed in a few days. Because of the coming terraforming. He had not realized that it would be so soon.

“And that means they will probably destroy the study specimens,” he concluded. “Because they won't have the time or money or inclination to return them to their places of origin. That dooms you.”

Yes.

“Medusa, I can't just let you out. This planet is doomed. It has air and gravity compatible with Earth life; that's why the base is here, and why you are here for observation. But outside this base it is going to be burned off and reseeded. You would soon die.”

Yes.

“Then what?”

And in due course he came to it: she wanted him to help her return to her own kind. Because otherwise she and they would die. She was trusting him with the secret of her intelligence and her ability to shift her form, and asking for his help.

“Medusa, this is impossible! They will not let me simply lead you out of here, let alone let you board a spaceship, assuming there were a refuge for you on some other planet. I can't just buy tickets for two and escort you there the way I could for a woman. You're an alien creature!”

She lay on her back and spread her legs. Her torso was now startlingly humanoid, with full breasts and thighs. He realized that she was emulating the nude figure on the girlie calendar he had put on the wall, and doing it remarkably well.

Medusa was trying to seduce him into helping her. The thought repelled him. Yet as he looked at her, he also felt a certain guilty temptation. She was trying to be human-sexy, and he had not seen an available young human woman in months, let alone had sex with one. There were only the matronly officer's wives, and prostitutes he couldn't afford.

It was of course impossible. Yet he appreciated her need to try to save herself. Were she a human woman captive, sex with a guard would be an obvious idea. Men would do just about anything for sex. How well he knew it! She was thoroughly alien, but perhaps her mind worked similarly in this respect. Had her captors been male monsters of her species, it would have been a fair ploy.

He spoke at length, knowing she would not understand every word but should get the essence. “Medusa, I think I understand you. You want to survive, and you are prepared to do what it takes to make it possible. Even if it means prostituting yourself to a horrible alien male, which is what I surely seem to you. You have made your point. I will try to help you. Not for sex, but because you are nearly sapient, and it would be wrong to let you die. But there are things you need to understand. This must be secret. If the human authorities knew you were sapient, they would not only destroy you, they would send a warship to this planet to extirpate your entire species. The relatively gentle terraforming process would be put on hold, in favor of habitat annihilation. Because humans are essentially xenophobic. We don't want to tolerate any competitive species who might theoretically make war against us and possibly eliminate us. We assume others are like us, so we expect mindless violence from them. I'm personally different, because I'm with HETA. We value aliens, and would love to discover alien sapience and safeguard it from harm. Maybe some day this will be standard for everyone. But right now, no one else must know. You do understand?”