"Partners in the Dance," a Malêverse Great War novel (planning/discussion)

[Jonathan Edelstein]

From time to time, I've been asked about a Malêverse ebook. In general, I don't think that timelines are easily convertible into novels - the goals of storytelling and historical plausibility are often in conflict, and the usual mix of "academic articles" and narrative vignettes doesn't really fit the novel format. Sobel probably came closest to pulling it off, but "For Want of a Nail" took the form of a single history book rather than a scrapbook of articles and vignettes, and it told a coherent, linear story of two countries rather than trying to be a history of the world.

As Malê Rising drew to a close, though, it occurred to me that parts of it might lend themselves to the ebook format. These were the founding of the First Sokoto Republic (i.e., the timeline from 1840 to 1854), the American Civil War, the Great War, and the Indian War of Independence. Of those, I'm most partial to the Great War, which is (a) already novel-length, (b) told primarily through narratives, and (c) broad enough in scope to be of interest to general audiences while still keeping Africa center-stage and including extensive Asian and Latin American content. On the other hand, there are enough characters to make Harry Turtledove cry, and there's a lot of backstory that would have to be introduced somehow in order for the narrative to make sense.

After some thought, I believe I've figured out a solution. My editing process for the novel - which would be called "Partners in the Dance," a title which I'm grateful to azander12 for suggesting - would be as follows:

1. Introduce the backstory through four chapters that lay out the prewar lives of main viewpoint characters. The first would include all of Paulo and Usman Abacar's narrative updates through 1892, edited to weave in a bit more of Abacar's political theology and background events. The second would be an expanded Souleymane/Omar arc starting with the former's enlistment in the tirailleurs at age 15 (or maybe even enlistment as a drummer boy at age 11). The third would involve Kipling or Stanley (I'm leaning heavily toward the former); the fourth Weisz or another officer on the FAR side.

2. There's some missing space in the first year of the war, because I hadn't yet got into the rhythm of one narrative per month. I can use this space to introduce Ibrahim, add a couple of narratives featuring Kipling in the Southeast Asian theater (among other things, he'll meet Ibrahim and Sarah), and show Weisz in the early days of the war before he's captured. I might also be able to get more political background in this way.

3. I'll consolidate characters, taking away as many of the one-offs as possible and giving those scenes to continuing characters. The big four will still appear in only a minority of scenes, and I'll keep secondary recurring characters like Merjema in Sarajevo, but as many characters as possible will appear more than once.

4. I'll include and possibly expand the postwar updates through 1899, finishing with Omar going away sailing, Usman being elected to Parliament, Weisz finding a home in Buganda and Kipling going into temporary retirement while he thinks things over.

5. The academic updates can survive as endpapers for each year of the war - they're short enough in relation to the story that they shouldn't be too jarring. Well, hopefully they shouldn't.
​

What I'm still ambivalent about is that, while the 1893-97 vignettes span the period of the Great War and take place against its backdrop, many of them aren't actually about the war - they're more about the social changes and political events going on behind the scenes. Many of the big battles and campaigns take place offstage and are discussed only in the academic updates. I'm not sure that a "Great War novel" that omits so many details of the war would be attractive to general audiences. Should I include more grunt's-eye-view and/or general's-eye-view vignettes (which honestly aren't what I'm interested in writing), or is there already enough for a Great War theme not to be misleading?

I'd be very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts and suggestions. Fair warning, though: it's by no means guaranteed that I'll do this, and if I do, the finished product is probably months or a year away. I've got a Mutanda story that I'd like to finish before the end of this year, and other projects that I'd like to work on in the near future, so this will be something I do catch-as-catch-can. But if there's interest in this, I'd like to open it for discussion.

 

[Revolutionary Avocado]

Jonathan, as we've discussed already, I think this is an awesome idea, and the framework seems solid. I'm happy to help out in any way that I can, including editing.

My one critique would be that there isn't a female "primary" character. I'd love to see Sarah bumped up to a lead in place of Kipling. Unlike a lot of male authors, you write female characters really well. Then again, it's your story.

 

[TFSmith121]

Easy for me to say, but ...

Easy for me to say, but ...
Time to take a shot!

Significant other got me the soundtrack for Christmas... damn, that's catchy stuff.

Wonder if he'll do "Douglass" next...

JE, seriously, you are a very capable writer, and you background plots better than half the bilge that gets sold. Go for it...

And it appears you have a volunteer editor in the next borough.

Best,

 

[Shevek23]

Since you used a LeGuin quote to address a possible criticism of MR itself, I suppose you are familiar with Always Coming Home?

One of the reasons I love LeGuin is how she's shattered my mindsets; I read The Dispossessed when I was in junior high school and it really challenged a lot of things I thought were important to believe in then; so along around the time I'd been in college a few years (and flunked out) and thought I'd evolved enough to take all that in stride, I read ACH and she did it to me again!

The relevant thing here is that she was screwing around with what a "novel" is and should be, among other things, in that story. And I suppose she wasn't as sweepingly successful as she might, in some more ambitious moments, have desired to be, but still I think it was a successful work. The story is a sort of holographic jumble that works; one could hardly omit all the variety of "backstory" stuff she throws in there in dozens of formats to "focus" just on the linear narrative of Stone Telling's biography and adventures with the Condor people. She set out to challenge a lot of conventions taught in literature classes, had some fun I trust doing so, and offered up something new.

The point being--your concerns about not having enough gritty grunt stuff about the Great War itself which you'd frankly rather not write need not weigh you down too much. Compared to Always Coming Home your proposed revision of already published material about that period would be downright linear and conventional.

I don't know how much comfort it is to you to be compared to one benchmark that is God help us all thirty years ago published and not had a lot of imitators since that I've noticed--not a lot emanating from a single author anyway; a lot of fanfic franchises have in their collectively written wholes a similar sort of eclectic, multi-lensed character (you know, Star Wars Expanded Universe, Trek fanfic, the Grantville corpus, etc). Single authors rarely pull it off, the best example being Tolkien's works--with the Kesh and all that LeGuin sort of created a miniature version of what Tolkien dedicated his life to.

But anyway, I think it would be true to your preferred style and themes of writing to leave the bloody vortex of the front lines and "the lines on the map moving from side to side" in background as you do. Rather than gritty novellas set in the trenches (which you did give some instances of also) you give us a poem by Ibrahim Abacar instead. And in the installment before that, his death. I think we all were pretty invested in the fellow and wondering what greatness would come after the war; the fact that all of his legacy is what he did and managed to write before and during pretty well summarizes the heavy cost of the war for any reader better than ten novels worth of frontline narrative.

Literature and history give us a surfeit of that; we don't reject it because it is the source of why we don't want it. (Except for those numerous people who actually have had to live it... and were fortunate enough, if that is exactly fortune, to come out the other side). It is perfectly legitimate I think to say what you say without plunging deeper into it.

Or anyway going on length just out of a sense of duty to give it sufficient weight. If some narrative that does plunge in yet deeper occurs to you I suppose it would be a suitable one to add. But don't feel obliged to put it in more just because someone might say you don't weigh it down with enough. I think you have enough.

I'm not much of a battle buff of course; I get lost in war porn. (I lust after parts of it--airplanes and stuff like that are a weakness of mine. But I don't understand battlefield narratives very well, at least not from a general's eye point of view). So maybe you shouldn't listen just to me.

I think that your different view on a Great War is probably more needed than repetitions of conventional ones.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

My one critique would be that there isn't a female "primary" character. I'd love to see Sarah bumped up to a lead in place of Kipling. Unlike a lot of male authors, you write female characters really well. Then again, it's your story.

A historical character might make the story more accessible to general-audience readers, but there's certainly no rule that says I can have only four primary characters. A broad-spectrum story about a global war practically requires multiple viewpoints, so maybe I should embrace my inner Turtledove.

One good thing about the focus on the homefront and social change is that there are many more female roles available than in a more orthodox late-19th-century war story. I might be able to give more screen time to Seye as well as Sarah, and Harriet Tubman already has a significant speaking part as a Peace Party candidate.

Since you used a LeGuin quote to address a possible criticism of MR itself, I suppose you are familiar with Always Coming Home? [...] The point being--your concerns about not having enough gritty grunt stuff about the Great War itself which you'd frankly rather not write need not weigh you down too much. Compared to Always Coming Home your proposed revision of already published material about that period would be downright linear and conventional.

I don't know how much comfort it is to you to be compared to one benchmark that is God help us all thirty years ago published and not had a lot of imitators since that I've noticed--not a lot emanating from a single author anyway; a lot of fanfic franchises have in their collectively written wholes a similar sort of eclectic, multi-lensed character (you know, Star Wars Expanded Universe, Trek fanfic, the Grantville corpus, etc). Single authors rarely pull it off, the best example being Tolkien's works--with the Kesh and all that LeGuin sort of created a miniature version of what Tolkien dedicated his life to.

I've read parts of Always Coming Home but not the whole thing, but it's always a compliment to be compared to UKL, and I take your point. I'd actually argue that there's another format where non-linear fiction with multiple storytelling approaches works well: message boards like this one. The Malêverse, and other timelines like it, have done well here because the form fits the forum. The flip side of that, though, is that something is inevitably lost when translating such stories into other forms, just as epic poems don't always make good novels or short stories good movies. Always Coming Home does give me more of a sense that a genre translation of at least part of the Malêverse can be done, but I do still need to treat it as a genre translation and edit accordingly.

But anyway, I think it would be true to your preferred style and themes of writing to leave the bloody vortex of the front lines and "the lines on the map moving from side to side" in background as you do. Rather than gritty novellas set in the trenches (which you did give some instances of also) you give us a poem by Ibrahim Abacar instead. And in the installment before that, his death. I think we all were pretty invested in the fellow and wondering what greatness would come after the war; the fact that all of his legacy is what he did and managed to write before and during pretty well summarizes the heavy cost of the war for any reader better than ten novels worth of frontline narrative.

Yes. As I've said before, thirty million deaths are perilously close to a statistic - you need to show one of them to bring home the tragedy.

In any event, I think you've convinced me: I'll keep the focus of the story pretty much as-is, and will act accordingly if and when I write new scenes.

 

[Ed Costello]

I second what others have said above; this is a lovely idea, and I have no doubt the end product will be a sympathetic treatment and expansion of the story we already know. The idea of a 'war story' that focuses more on the effects and impacts of that war on the bits offstage than the nuts and bolts of battles is also quite appealing - after all, we still see a fair bit of the front line action.

One thing I'll add is that I'd like to see the literary update that covers Ibrahim Abacar's novel, The Silent Ones, included somehow - perhaps as an epilogue or appendix. The literary updates have been such a huge part of Malê Rising that it'd be a shame to exclude them entirely, and that one in particular adds a level of richness to the wider story that is one of the many reasons this work has proven so beloved.

I don't intend to be too demanding of the content of someone else's work; the choice is yours, not to mention any issues that might arise from its use (I know you've mentioned the literary updates in previous discussions as notable roadblocks to publishing the entire timeline), and I will gladly pay for any Malêverse work you might choose to publish, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to add my two cents.

 

[fasquardon]

What I'm still ambivalent about is that, while the 1893-97 vignettes span the period of the Great War and take place against its backdrop, many of them aren't actually about the war - they're more about the social changes and political events going on behind the scenes. Many of the big battles and campaigns take place offstage and are discussed only in the academic updates. I'm not sure that a "Great War novel" that omits so many details of the war would be attractive to general audiences. Should I include more grunt's-eye-view and/or general's-eye-view vignettes (which honestly aren't what I'm interested in writing), or is there already enough for a Great War theme not to be misleading?

I think novels and films about war that focus on the lives that happen around combat, while leaving out the battles themselves, can be very powerful.

I also think that if an author is not interested in some part of the story, he or she isn't likely to interest the reader in it either. As such, I think there is merit in writing what you find interesting.

And this sounds like a very interesting project. I'd certainly count myself as being one of your potential customers.

fasquardon

 

[yboxman]

The comparison of the Maleverse and works that can be spun off from it to Always Coming Home is apt- but one I think you should avoid in a novel. I tried reading it as a teen and couldn't work my way through it. Tried again in my twenties and ended up cherry picking Stone teller's linear story, and various background and myth chapters.

Now English is not my native language and that may have had somewhat to do with my difficulties but I think that ACH is simply too tough a read for most SF/history readers, especially the younger ones, precisely because of it's ambition.

I tackled it again two months ago and it blew my mind away. But I'm older, have much more perspective and some writing experience and have evolved my tastes past straight linear novels.

If you want to publish and become known to a wide audience you probably want to start with something somewhat less ambitious.

Your basic framework sounds exactly right- pick a critical, action and intrigue rich period, and telescope in on it.

I agree with fasquadron about the proper focus being on the social changes and the home front. that fits the Maleverse better and is the AH reading public really looking for another "Great war:Walk in hell" clone with different assumptions? I think not. War is hell, WWI equivalents with static warfare and machineguns are particularly hellish, message received.

You shone when exploring the unanticipated conflicts of the war, and that, I think is what you should stick to. One way to reach a compromise between the two is to expose a POV homefront chracter (One of the Abascar women?) to returning veterans. Make the actual battles, as opposed to the political and social manuveerings around them, a second hand rather than a POV experience insofar as possible and you will have a much more unique novel.

Also, I agree with Ed costello: an in-novel vigennete, perhaps as an S.M.Stirling "under the yoke" type introduction for each chapter showing the progression of the Silent ones novel (perhaps, if this is not too ambitious, tying into the theme of each chapter?)

I would make less of an expose of the assumptions and POD underlying the TL. Male rising is, well, alien. alien to our expectations, alien to the "right" historical focus etc. unveiling the historical background of the TL and the Great war very, very gradually and casually will keep the readers hooked and looking for clues. Maybe an appendix at the end outlining it for those who want everything spelled out?

One more thing. The Maleverse great war is too broad and rich to be covered with only 4 POV characters. I realize that you don't want to go all Turtledove on your readers and want to develop character depth rather than breadth but I think half a dozen POV characters would be better with one or two covering the more obscure portions of the Great war (Stanely in Amazonia sounds just right)

 

[fanthemadman]

I hear news of your *potential* project with GREAT enthusiasm. I really lack the writing ability to critique your suggested plan but my ignorance is quite ok cause you have shown sick sick writing skills time and again.

May your writing bring you joy as it brings us joy!