Tag: writing

Craft Advice, Life, the Universe, and Everything, Publishing Miscellanea, Writing Craft

Four Tips to Break a Reading Slump

Posted on

A standard piece of publishing industry advice is that you need to read voraciously in any genres you plan to work in, or already do work in. If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard this, I wouldn’t be precisely rich, but I’d certainly have enough ready cash to take my family out for a very nice dinner.

This is a maxim that used to make me feel like a failure as both a reader and a writer.

Why? Because for the past eight years, I’ve been in the mother of all reading slumps. It started not when I had kids, but at the time that I started juggling working as an author with having kids. Parenting is a singularly all-consuming endeavor. Writing for publication, likewise. And they both involve a LOT of reading. Reading Goodnight Moon fourteen times in a row (or in our family’s case, an infamous storybook called DW’s Guide to Preschool). Reading your own novels fourteen times in a row, your sense of enthusiasm for them withering into disdain with each successive pass (I always say that the best part of publishing a book is knowing I never have to read it again).

Like I said. Both parenting and publishing require a lot of reading, but not the sort that exactly sparks joy. More the kind that progressively saps your will to live. So for eight years now, I’ve been in a reading slump so vicious that I was lucky to read four or five books in a year, outside of those roles. Mostly I stuck to magazines with glossy pictures of immaculately-maintained English countryside gardens. That was, for a very long time, the only form of print that didn’t make my brain feel like imploding.

And throughout it all, I felt really bad about the fact that I didn’t read more. I wasn’t current on the big, highly-praised break out titles in my category and genre. I wasn’t even current on books my own author friends wrote. At the end of the day, if I had an hour or two to spare, the last thing in the world I wanted was to pick up another book. I gamed instead, or watched Star Trek, or juicy costume dramas.

I’m here to tell you that if this is where you’re at, there is nothing wrong with you. And you don’t need to feel pressured to undertake an activity that feels so off-putting you’d rather sit and stare at a wall. Sometimes, we’re just not in a reading season of life, even as self-proclaimed bookworms. Sometimes, we’re in a season of life where we have to read so much for reasons beyond our own pleasure that choosing books for fun is out of the question. None of the fun is left. It has all been sucked out of the pages.

But it will come back. And there are some gentle ways you can implement to hasten its return. I know, because this year, I set out to break my reading slump. To a degree, I managed. Here are the steps I undertook to do so.

Log Every Book

If you read to your kids, or for professional development, or in some sort of work capacity, log it. Those are valid reads. They don’t suddenly fail to count because you undertook them for a reason outside of personal pleasure. This year, I hit that magical place where my kids are older enough to follow more complex chapter books, and was able to introduce them to a lot of stories I absolutely adored as a kid. Was I technically reading them for myself? No. But I read them, and I logged every last one. My favorite resource for this is Storygraph, though your logging system can be as simple as a pen and post-it note.

Visit Uncharted Territory

If you are required for any reason to read in a particular category or genre, do not, and I repeat, do NOT, try to force yourself to read within it for pleasure as well. My sainted Oma Bergmann was fond of saying that a change is as good as a rest, and as usual, she was right. This year, I managed to maintain interest in books I was reading just for me by staying completely outside of YA as a category, and speculative fiction as a genre. I read a couple of adult novels (women’s fiction). But mostly I read nonfiction. I’ve always loved a well-crafted nonfic, and diving down rabbit holes related to whatever my passion of the moment happens to be is one of my defining traits. Right now, I’m super interested in creating an enriching and rewarding home education experience for my kids, so I read a lot of books on that topic.

Try think outside the box when attempting to find reading material that suits. Foray into nonfiction, poetry, romance, mystery novels–whatever might actually get you excited about a book when that enthusiasm has waned.

Don’t Be Afraid to DNF

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, in book circles, DNF means “Did Not Finish”. I am a huge proponent of DNFing with abandon, and have been since before my current reading slump. Unless you are required to complete a book for some reason, life is just too short to slog through something you don’t enjoy! If the first chapter or first few pages don’t seem like your cup of tea, stop, and move to the next thing. The world is full of books–somewhere out there is one you’ll like better. But pay attention to patterns–if you keep DNFing books within a specific genre or category, maybe it’s just not for you right now. Maybe you should shift gears and implement Tip #2.

Having Fun Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got a Library Card

Acquaint or reacquaint yourself with the local library. If you follow the advice laid in Tip #3, you’ll need to. All that DNFing will get expensive if you buy every last thing you read! The library is a booklover’s buffet–there’s tons to choose from, and you can pick whatever looks good for you. But unlike a buffet, it’s free and you can return whatever you don’t like. If, like me, you’re strapped for time and your attention is fragmented while at the library (I go there with the kids, and library trips are primarily structured around their needs as readers), make liberal use of the holds system. Pick out a variety of titles that you think you might enjoy, reserve them via your library’s online system or over the phone, and then simply pick them up at the front desk at your next visit. This process, more than anything else, has facilitated my return to the domain of the written word over the last year.

Hopefully if you’re in a reading slump of your own, some or all of these tips and tricks will be helpful to you. But the most important thing is to be gentle with yourself–there’s no moral virtue implicit in finishing a certain number of books a year, or even in being a reader at all. While many books contain stories of great value, books are patient–they’ll still be waiting when you’re ready for them.

Craft Advice, Publishing Miscellanea, Writing Craft

How to Vanquish Your Murky Middles (+ a free Four Act Structure Template)

Posted on

I have a problem with murky middles.

It’s a common woe among writers–you hit twenty or thirty thousand words in a first draft and your plot just…fizzles out. The luster of starting a new project fades. The exciting and climactic final act is still just a glimmer on the horizon. And you get stuck, in the bewildering, unexciting doldrums of moving your characters from a good beginning to a better end.

Many a time have I foundered in those very doldrums.

Over the years, I’ve learned to structure my plots not just around a thrilling finale, but also around a high-stakes, explosive midpoint. Previously, I envisioned stories as a steady uphill climb, where characters ended on a peak of revelation. And boy, was that climb a drag sometimes. Now I envision them as an entire mountain instead–there’s the uphill striving, the summit, and then a precipitous descent towards the inevitable arrival in new territory.

My amazing friend Wendy Heard has talked more extensively about midpoints, and her thoughts on the matter have really shaped the way I now approach plotting. Where I used to break things up into three acts (a la the very well known Save the Cat beat sheet) and the second act would lag, I now break plots into four acts instead.

However, I’m a very checklist-oriented person, and love to use templates. In my travels about the internet, I’ve never been able to find an existing template for four act structure that I really love. There are some templates out there, and some comprehensive breakdowns of how four act structure functions, but none of them really worked for me on a fundamental level.

So since I couldn’t find a four act structure template that entirely suited my needs, I cobbled together ideas from a few different sources (this fantastic post by Heather Cashman, this one by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky and this one by The Magic Violinist were all incredibly helpful) and made my own. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe one of the structures I linked to will better serve, or maybe you’ll need to forge your own path like I did. But this is the template I’ve ended up with, and I thought I’d share. I’ve provided some well-known examples for each plot point within an act, though they’re from older books so the division of the four acts is different than you’d find in modern novels.

Without further ado…

A Four Act Structure Template, by Yours Truly

ACT ONE: Setting the Scene

Image by Sir John Tenniel

The Old World
This is where readers get a brief glimpse of the main character’s life and world to date. How does everything around them function before their adventure begins? This stage of the story is important because in order to appreciate changes the plot will bring, readers need to know what is being changed, and what (if anything!) will ultimately remain the same. Think Bilbo sitting on his doorstep blowing smoke rings during the opening of The Hobbit, or Alice dozing on the banks of the stream before her journey to Wonderland.

Inciting Incident
In a Hero’s Quest narrative, this stage is often referred to as the Call to Adventure. It is where something happens that beckons the main character away from their current circumstances and towards something new. It is the first whiff of change, though the protagonist may initially resist it. Again, think Bilbo unexpectedly being drawn into conversation by Gandalf, or Alice seeing the White Rabbit hurry by.

Initial Stakes
This is where the gentler invitation of the inciting incident becomes an insistent push. Something happens to tilt the scales in favor of the protagonist abandoning their old world and heading out into the unknown. There may be some distasteful quality of the old world the character wishes to escape–for Alice, the initial stakes are her current boredom versus satisfying her curiosity about the White Rabbit. Or, there may be something about the shift the inciting incident has provided that draws the protagonist in. For example, in The Hobbit, the dwarven dinner party provides Bilbo with his initial stakes–it piques the inherent adventurousness of his Tookish side coupled with wanting to be thought better of by the dwarves.

The Lock In
The lock in is where the main character goes all in. After the enticement of the inciting incident coupled with the intensification of the initial stakes, they’re fully invested in the events to come; they’ve reached the point of no return and proceeded to barrel past it. Again, this is Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, and Bilbo tearing out of his comfortable hole to chase after the dwarves. The call to adventure has been both heard, and heeded.

ACT TWO: Heading Uphill

Image by J.R.R. Tolkien

Hatching a Plan
This is when the protagonist first takes ownership of their circumstances. Previously, they’ve been responding to external movers. Now, as their adventure really begins they must decide what their role will be in the new realm they’ve entered. This stage will echo throughout the remainder of the story, as it involves the main character committing to a certain vision of themselves and their place in the world. The vision can be wrong or right, or a bit of both. This is Bilbo choosing to become the burglar the dwarves hired him as when faced by the trolls; it is Alice drinking her first potion and fundamentally altering herself in order to navigate the strangeness of Wonderland.

False Calm
The protagonist’s proactive planning and new sense of identity seem to be paying off. They’re coping fairly well with their changing world, and it seems like the vision of self they’ve arrived at is an accurate one. Bilbo is of great use to the dwarves along their journey to the Lonely Mountain, using his self-image as a burglar to rescue them on multiple occasions. Alice uses her shape-altering capacity to move throughout Wonderland, meeting odd and interesting creatures.

Storm Clouds Build
Uncertainty begins to mar the protagonist’s competence and confidence, and signs point towards greater conflict to come. Things are set in motion that cannot be undone, and that the main character will have to reckon with before the end. They have nearly reached the summit of their uphill climb, and conflict is looming. For instance, Bilbo’s less than friendly encounters with the goblins and wood elves foreshadow the eventual Battle of Five Armies even as he arrives at the Lonely Mountain, and Alice’s meetings with the White Rabbit and Duchess serve as a preview of the tempestuous nature of the Queen of Hearts’ court.

THE CATASTROPHIC MIDPOINT: Gains and Losses

Image by J.R.R. Tolkien

All of the first and second act have been leading to this point. The protagonist must, for the first time, face the major conflict their journey and their current vision of self have been moving them towards. This may end in a total loss, or they may both gain and lose something from the encounter, but it will NOT resolve the plot–this is not climax of the story, but rather the thing that tips the protagonist over an edge to hurtle towards the climax. Likely at this point, the protagonist will learn their initial vision of self was flawed in some way, and requires correction. This is Bilbo successfully facing Smaug in his burglar role, only to pridefully raise his ire and indirectly cause the destruction of Lake Town; it is Alice finally getting through the little door to the beautiful garden only to find not the peace she sought, but the pettiness and danger of the Queen of Hearts’ entourage.

ACT THREE: Careening Downhill

Image by Sir John Tenniel

Initial Failures
Just as initial stakes pushed the protagonist towards a fundamental change, initial failures now push them towards a need to expand their understanding of the world and their place in it. They are faced with the consequences of attempting to overcome their major obstacle while harboring a flawed or incomplete sense of self. Bilbo, until now operating primarily as a burglar, sees Lake Town destroyed and the dwarves and others consumed by greed for the treasures he’s made accessible. Alice has a terrible time at the croquet game, is unable to use her skills to succeed at it, and begins to realize that Wonderland is truly a lawless and illogical place.

Dark Night of the Soul
The weight of carrying a flawed understanding of self, and of weathering the catastrophic midpoint followed by further failures, wears the protagonist down. They are defeated not only externally but internally at this point. This is their “all is lost” and “abandon hope” moment. But is just that–only a moment, and it must cause a greater understanding of their role in the new world as they reckon with their failures. This is Bilbo’s increasing unhappiness with the decisions of the dwarves as he realizes they’re making many unnecessary enemies, but that he’s tied his fate to theirs; it is Alice thinking she’s at last found sensible and sympathetic allies in the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon only to fail to understand them at all.

ACT FOUR: Crash-Landing and Reconstruction

Image by Sir John Tenniel

The Bitter Dawn
Armed with a new understanding of self that is informed by their failures as well as their successes and personal agency, the protagonist once again takes their fate into their own hands. The Bitter Dawn is the fulfillment of The Lock In in Act One: where they initially chose adventure and conflict, now they choose to move towards resolution, no matter the cost. This is Bilbo turning his burglary skills against the dwarves and attempting to trade the Arkenstone for what he now knows he truly values: peace and song and friendship. It is Alice returning to the Queen of Hearts’ court for the Knave’s trial, and attempting to bring order to the chaos at hand despite her own confusion.

Victory
The protagonist’s new sense of self is cemented by their sacrifice during the Bitter Dawn, enabling them to finally prevail over the forces arrayed against them. Frustratingly, Bilbo is robbed of active participation in the Battle of the Five Armies, but his overtures in the name of peace and his previous encounters with goblins force a victorious alliance between the humans, dwarves and elves, and his decision to leave the dwarven stronghold to seek peace arguably saves his life. Alice realizes that she does not require external agents to control her destiny in Wonderland, and that she can impose order on the looming chaos. She alters her size without help, and scatters the threatening army of cards.

The New World
With victory obtained, we are given a brief glimpse of the protagonist’s post-adventure life, mirroring our vision of the Old World in Act One. We see what has irrevocably changed, and what has stayed the same. Bilbo returns to Hobbiton, where he still enjoys his creature comforts but keeps very different company and is perceived very differently than before. Alice returns to her dull existence, but we realize that sleepy circumstances will never dampen the fire of her vivid imagination. All is as it was; all is fundamentally different. And so our story draws to a close

*****************

There you have it! A recipe, a template, an outline for Four Act Structure and an end to saggy story middles. I hope this proves helpful to at least some of you–may all your plots be cohesive, all your pacing airtight, and all your character development flawless <3


Craft Advice, From Me to You, Writing Craft

It’s a Process

Posted on

The other day on Twitter I was asked about my writing process, and realized that I’ve never really talked or written about it before. Mostly because it’s always been less scientific than intuitive for me, but I’m going to try to list some of the things that are constants.

The Initial Spark


One of the first and most common questions writers get, both from other writers and non-writers, is “where do your ideas come from?” My ideas come from what I think of as an initial spark–something that sets off a chain reaction of “what ifs” in my brain that all coalesce to form a scene. That’s always how my books start–with a particular scene. It’s not always the opening, or the end. It can be anywhere in the story. But it gives me a glimpse of the world and characters and their dilemma, and serves as the thing I build around.

For instance, with The Light Between Worlds, the initial spark was reading a tweet where someone in publishing wished for a book about Susan Pevensie post-Narnia. I started thinking about what Susan’s life would have been like, and how a story like that could be framed–it couldn’t be about Susan herself, given that Narnia’s copyright hasn’t expired. But it could be about someone like Susan–someone in similar circumstances. At that point, the first scene struck me–of a lovely, put-together girl being approached by a stag in the middle of Trafalgar Square. That scene occurs at around the 75% mark of The Light Between Worlds, but it gave me the basics I needed to build the story–I had Philippa, her longing, her world in London, and the character of Cervus the stag, as well. Everything else grew out from that meeting.

With A Treason of Thorns, the initial spark was, of all things, a Twitter bot (I promise not everything I write starts on Twitter). It’s a fabulism-type bot which generates tweets about a mysterious, somewhat Gothic English garden. On a whim, I wrote a microfiction based on one of the tweets, about a girl in a sentient garden, waiting for suitors with a very odd friend. That scene became the basis for Violet and Burleigh House and Wyn.

Other sparks have been walking my dog and coming up with a scene in which a character is traveling on foot to a distant mountain, inhabited by a fearsome being her community views as a god. Nursing my oldest as an infant and imagining the first meeting between a queen and the wet nurse who would tend her children. Considering how I could reframe the fairytale The Wild Swans and being struck by an image, of a girl with black hair walking into the sea to beg for the lives of her missing kin.

The sparks that can kindle a story are all around us, so long as we view the world with curiosity, an openness to possibility, and consider that all-important question, “what if?”

Building a Framework


Once the concept for a story exists, I build the framework, or structure. This is where the well-known authorial designations of pantser, planner, and plantser come in (a pantser is someone who makes up stories as they go–flying by the seat of their pants. A planner plots everything prior to writing. A plantser does a combination of the two, planning some of the framework of the story, but leaving room for adjustment and embellishment).

I myself started out as a pantser. I’d use the instincts for story we all have, as individuals living in a media-saturated world, and craft a narrative that just felt right. Now that I write under deadlines, I’ve become that combination of a planner and a pantser. It’s easier at this point, to revise the structure of a story before I’ve gone to the trouble of writing the whole thing. I do, however, still write at least a few opening chapters before planning out the entire story. This lets me get a feel for the characters and world and central problem, which gives me a better grasp of the different forms the narrative could take. How much of the story I write before plotting can vary–anywhere from three or four chapters, to the entirety of the first act, though getting the whole first act done is my preference.

While I plot somewhat in advance now, I still do a lot of the creative work organically–I come up with the narrative in my mind, usually on country drives or walks–and then write a synopsis that covers all the key plot points I devised. My favorite resource for plot structure is the Save the Cat beat sheet, which you can find here. Once the framework of the story is complete, I revise the synopsis about eleven billion times with my agent and editor, until we come up with something that feels true to my initial concept of the book, while being sufficiently fast-paced (pacing is my Achilles’ heel, I would write books with no plot to speak of if left to my own devices!) After this, I draft the remainder of the story, staying more or less true to the synopsis. There’s still lots of room for filling in the blanks and finding surprises within and between the planned scenes, which appeals to the former pantser in me.

Research Rabbit Holes


I write primarily historical fantasy, which is absolutely wonderful because I get all the trouble and frustration of ensuring historical accuracy AND crafting a consistent magic system and mythos. I am, if nothing else, a glutton for punishment.

In order to make life somewhat easier, I tend to choose historical settings I have at least a passing familiarity with. This usually allows me to do an initial first draft with minimal research–just some fact-checking along the way to be sure of dates and distances, etc. But sometimes, I run into areas that need deeper study. Thus far, my most research-heavy book by far was The Light Between Worlds, thanks to my decision to set much of the second half in London’s National Gallery. I spent hours upon hours studying the Gallery’s history and learning the nuances and process of art restoration. At one point, I even reached out to a wonderful archivist at the Gallery, who provided me with floor plans for the Gallery in 1951, when The Light Between Worlds is set. When researching, feel free to go deep if that’s your preference–there are always details I know I can fudge because of the unlikeliness of any readers realizing I’ve done so, but for me, the knowledge that I’ve been as accurate as possible is a great feeling. I’m willing to put in the work for that.

The Disaster Draft


Once a story is fully drafted and the research primarily done and incorporated, I get feedback. Depending on what I wrote a piece for, this can be from critique partners or my agent or an editor. I always hope not to have to make massive structural changes–that is, after all, why I now write a synopsis to be critiqued and revised in advance. But even without overwhelming changes to structure, there’s always a lot of work to be done in the Disaster Draft.

The Disaster Draft feels like ruining your book.

There’s really no way around it. You take your first draft, which felt good and exciting and new and relatively cohesive, and tear bits of it out and Frankenstein other bits in, and it gets clunky and stops flowing nicely and you lose all perspective and spend a lot of time lying on the floor in despair, convinced you’ve wrecked everything and are a failure and will never meet your deadline.

……………………………Or at least I do.

However, the Disaster Draft is not ruining your book. I like to think of it this way–when the Old Masters painted, they created beautiful sketches to work from. The sketches were lovely and works of art in their own right. And then the Old Masters ruined them. They put blobs of paint on. They blocked in color. Everything began to look messy and unfinished and like a disaster, as they filled in the framework they’d created. But once the color was blocked in and they began to add detail, the painting took shape and became Art again. It never would have got there without that messy in-between stage.

So persevere–this too shall pass, even if you need to spend a lot of time on the floor to get through it.

The Magic Draft


For me, the Magic Draft is where everything finally comes together. All the Frankensteined bits and pieces are ready to be smoothed together, the stitches hidden, the details added. The Magic Draft is when I start to think, again, “Hey, I did pretty good! This is actually a great story!”

Depending on where you are in your growth as an artist and especially depending on the book, you may need multiple Disaster Drafts before you get to the magic. That’s okay, and normal. If you still believe in the story at hand, keep pressing on. Eventually, it will all come together. I have one concept which is incredibly dear to me that I’ve been trying to shepherd through the initial framework-building stage for *checks calendar* seven years. Obviously if you have a hard deadline to work through, you can’t let things breathe forever, but if that’s an option, take the time you need.

Eyes on the Horizon


One thing that will help maintain your forward momentum is to always have ideas on the backburner. I keep a file of story concepts, which I write out as three paragraph pitches built out around that initial spark and scene, and save for when I need them. At any given time, my preference is to have a minimum of one story being drafted, one being revised, and one for which I’m doing the cognitive work of planning–developing the story framework in my head. If the publishing fates smile, this allows for a seamless transition from one project to another, as you just move things up the list/to the next stage of development as progress is made. This is a practical application of the old adage about eggs and baskets–don’t pin your hopes to a single story idea. It’s not one story you’re building, it’s yourself a writer. There are always more concepts, even if you have to lay a dear one to rest.

And I think that’s all! Hopefully some of this was enlightening or helpful! If anything stood out to you in particular, or you have questions, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Short Fiction

Nothing Noteworthy

Posted on

So I’ve been wanting to do something for all of you. Something above and beyond just goofing around on Twitter, or recommending my books as quarantine reading. I don’t have a whole lot of mental energy at this point, though–between homeschooling the girls and just keeping abreast of the state of the world, I’m pretty tapped out by the end of the day.

But the one thing I always have, and can always dredge up energy and enthusiasm for, even when I’m running on fumes, is writing. It’s my refuge and my solace and a light for me in dark places. I thought about serializing one of the novellas I have underway in my folders, but I’m not sure what my follow through would be like on that. I thought about posting an old manuscript, chapter by chapter, but frankly, that would just be embarrassing.

Instead, I decided I’d share some free short fiction here on lauraeweymouth.com, as I have time and am able to come up with new things or polish old ones. I’ve got a bit of a backlog of short fic at this point–I love to write it, and occasionally submit it, but it never really gets anywhere. Which is alright–I think in a lot of ways, both in long form and short form, the market and I have dissimilar tastes.

But maybe some of what I’m going to post will be to your taste.

The following story is one that’s been with me for a lot of years. I’ve written it over from scratch probably four times now, but the characters and concept and setting remain the same. It’s about the moments of brief connection that change us; about the fundamental importance of reaching out to others; about how we can be our best selves and do good even in the midst of despair, even when the right actions we’re undertaking seem too small to be important. It felt appropriate for this present moment.

I hope you enjoy it, and that it offers you a little glimmer of hope.

I love you all, and wish you health and happiness today and every day after.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall Nothing Noteworthy. As always, it comes with a content warning for readers who’d like one, which you can view by highlighting the following:

(Nothing Noteworthy comes with a content warning for potential suicide, but I promise you everything turns out alright)

Monochrome Photography of Bridge

Nothing Noteworthy

By Yours Truly

It was like breaking through the surface of clear water and hauling yourself up onto dry land after spending hours of weightlessness. Everything felt muddled and heavy, all at once too loud and too indistinct, too sharp and too soft. As if the world had become a vapor, and you were the only solid thing in it.

Or so Traveler had always thought. He thought it now, breaking through the surface of yet another time and place and waiting for everything around him to learn the trick of being. To grow substance, and meaning, and heft.

Was that right, though? Perhaps it wasn’t the world that needed to become more, each time he Traveled. Perhaps he was the one who needed to become less. His Temporal Therapist would undoubtedly have numerous pithy things to say on that score, but she was elsewhere, or elsewhen, or both, and Traveler wasn’t meant to be thinking of her now. She was the one, after all, who’d told him he needed a holiday. In retrospect, she might have meant a trip to somewhere warm and sunny, but this was all Traveler knew. This constant shifting through space and time.

Everything rippled in front of him, and he began to make out an astonished face. Whoever it was, they were much too close for comfort, and that was no good, he wasn’t meant to materialize in front of people like this. The proximity scans must have glitched, or the technician had overlooked a life sign.

Traveler attempted to say something reassuring, aware that he must appear quite alarming as he wavered in and out of focus. But the words came out all wrong, sounding like nothing so much as whale song. That was the problem with the newer subcutaneous translators—they worked marvels once you got somewhere (somewhen), but they malfunctioned in the in between.

An unbearable weight settled over Traveler, and he let out a sigh, of both relief and resignation. There. Everything would solidify now, and he could stop feeling the seasick elation Travel always brought with it.

The relief lasted only a moment, though, before being replaced by acute embarrassment. Because in front of him, and somewhat above him, stood a young woman. Bewilderment was etched across her face, but notably, none of the shock or horror Traveler had found in Bystanders on the few occasions he’d been involved in a Temporal Incident before.

“Please remain calm,” Traveler said, as he was supposed to. He glanced briefly down at his shoes before resolutely forcing himself to maintain eye contact. Doctor Eileen, she of the Temporal Therapy, had told him he spent too much time looking down and away. Well, he was certainly looking up now. Perhaps too far up, he realized with a dull shock as his surroundings grew less muddled, cohering into a sense of vast space.

They were standing on a bridge, he and his inconvenient Bystander. It was the sort of soaring steel construct favored in the mid-twentieth century. Beneath them was a moody grey harbor and above them, a moody grey sky, and the Bystander wore a moody grey, calf-length dress, the sort that could only be a uniform and that was, in and of itself, rather a timeless thing. The bridge gave him more of the sense of groundedness he looked for than this wide-eyed, unexceptional woman.

“Hello,” Traveler tried again, deviating slightly from the approved script as he grew painfully aware of how this Bystander stood, bare-footed, toeing blank space on the safety rail of the bridge, one hand resting gently on a steel girder for support. Without that broken bird’s wing of a hand, a single gust of the salt breeze might topple her, sending her over into the foaming breakers and cut-tooth rocks below.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Traveler went on. “You’re not supposed to see me, usually. At least you’re not supposed to see me if I’ve done my job well.”

He was rambling. He had a hard time with Bystanders. Well, not just Bystanders, but unexpected circumstances and potential conflict in general. Which was an unfortunate trait in a Traveler. A liability, the Bureau had called his anxiousness; hence the Temporal Therapy.

The woman looked down at him and at his words, recognition sparked in her, replacing the bewilderment.

“No, I know,” she said with a gentle nod. “If I do my job well, you’re not supposed to see me either. I’m meant to be invisible.”

A strong eddy of wind surged over the bridge, and she swayed. Traveler caught his breath.

Carefully, he cautioned himself. Carefully.

“I know it’s upsetting, what you just saw,” he told the Bystander, trying to sound as reassuring as possible as he returned to the script. “It’s the sort of thing that could cause no end of trouble for you. But I can make it so you don’t remember. I’m…I’m supposed to make it so you don’t remember. So if you come down, I’ll sort things out and you’ll be much happier having forgotten all this.”

It was Temporal Protocol, and normally, Traveler believed fiercely in it. But now, for the first time, the words tasted like a lie. And the woman above him, her bare feet gone blue with cold, obviously did not believe him.

“I don’t know what happy is anymore,” she confessed, the words like a waterlogged thing dredged up from the depths of the harbor below.

Traveler faltered. Every Bystander he’d met before jumped at the chance to forget. No one ever wanted the complications remembering an Incident would cause.

“Maybe not happier then?” Traveler offered. “But you’ll go back to the way things were, just a moment ago, before I turned up.”

The woman, standing on the rail of the bridge, suspended above that breakneck drop to the harbor, only looked at him.

Guilt uncurled in Traveler’s stomach. The sort of guilt he wasn’t supposed to feel, because he wasn’t meant to identify with Bystanders—they were only set pieces, after all. Just little chips to move across the vast gameboard of time, to be born and reborn, snuffed out or brought into existence with the wave of a Technician’s hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Traveler whispered, his words nearly eaten up by the wind. He spoke the apology in earnest, not as a matter of habit. He was sick with guilt, and that was more than half his problem. You’ve got to find a way to distance yourself, Doctor Eileen always said. Put up some walls, Traveler, or the stress will kill you. “It’s just, those were the things I’m meant to say. I don’t…I don’t know what else to tell you.”

The Bystander was still looking at him, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes.

“Tell me something honest,” she said. “Tell me something true.”

And then,

“Please,” she added.

There was a world of longing in the single word. A fathomless yearning for real connection, and Traveler knew it at once because it was the thing that lay at his own center.

“I’m tired,” Traveler told her.

And he was. Tired to exhaustion, tired to despair, tired of the endless succession of wheres and whens, the distance and the separation and the need to never identify, because to do so would be to shatter, and what good was a broken Traveler? It was his job to stay the course, to do what he was told, to rearrange the building blocks of history until they came out as something better, and maybe, possibly, someday, as something perfect.

“I’m tired, too,” the Bystander said softly.

And she was. Tired to exhaustion, tired to despair, tired of the endless succession of days filled with worry and hardly getting by, with working till her head spun and her body cried out but never letting herself really feel any of it, because to stop moving might mean never getting up again. It was her job to say nothing, to do as she was told, to rearrange the inadequacies of her life until somehow the eternal conflict between rent and the need to eat and the desire for even a hint of joy resolved themselves into a happier whole, into the sort of dream worth striving for.

But they never did. They never did, and so here she stood with blank space above her and blank space below, and nothing but this moment between her and an ending.

The Traveler swallowed. Inside him, all the many conflicting voices of Technicians and fellow Travelers and Temporal Therapists were chattering away. For once, he shut them off, and out.

“Come with me,” Traveler said, and held out a hand to the woman above him, with the bruises beneath her eyes and the emptiness beneath her feet.

A siren shrilled somewhere in the city beyond them, its sound a high, wild whine. Far across the water, the rhythmic thrum of a helicopter became audible, and grew closer bit by bit.

“Where will we go?” the woman asked. Traveler shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Will we be alright?” she pressed.

Traveler put his free hand into one of the pockets of his long, Temporally-Benign coat. “I don’t know that either. I’m not…I’m not supposed to be speaking to you. Not really. You’re supposed to agree to forget, and then it’s like I’ve never been.”

“I want to remember you,” the woman said, her chin jutting out stubbornly, and Traveler couldn’t breathe. No one had ever wanted to remember him before.

“Come with me,” he offered again.

And then,

“Please,” he added.

There was a world of longing in the single word. A fathomless yearning for real connection, and the Bystander knew it at once because it was the thing that lay at her own center.

Without a word, she reached out, and before the wind could take her, Traveler caught her hand in his own and held it tight. He could not remember the last time he’d felt another person’s touch. She could not remember, either.

“There,” the woman said a little breathlessly as she stepped down onto the firmer ground of the bridge’s walkway. Her socks and shoes were nearby and she bent to pull them back on, a small prosaic detail that the Traveler locked up inside himself, for safekeeping and for further reflection.

When she straightened and looked at him, there was still a lostness in her. Still a sense of groundlessness and despair. But she’d reached out, and that was something.

“What’s next?” she asked Traveler.

He held out a hand again because he wanted that touch, that wordless and indefinable connection, and half-eagerly, she stepped forward, twining her fingers through his own.

“I’m not sure,” Traveler told her honestly. “I’m meant to be on holiday. Do you want to come?”

The woman wrinkled her nose, taking in their less than beautiful surroundings. “On holiday? Here?”

“Mm,” the Traveler said, as they stepped off the bridge and onto solid earth, still hand in hand. “They told me nothing noteworthy happened this year.”