AGENCY

by Beth Cato

"Agency" is one of those terms that gets bandied about by writers and editors. But what IS agency?

This is something I've been delving into recently as I've been working on novel edits. I thought I understood agency. I have a main character with profound magical powers. If a building is on fire, she's the one who will dash inside to save people. She will go hungry if her coins will buy food for a beggar child. She's brave and resourceful when needed, and known to sling about a witty comment or two.

I had the big aspects of agency down, but what I forgot were the everyday details. Yes, my protagonist may be the one to dash into the burning building--but was it her suggestion to go to that street in the first place, or did a minor character coax her that way?

Minor characters are called minor for a reason. When I scrutinized my text word by word, I found that all too many times, the minor characters were the ones making the choice in those little directional shifts in the plot. Being the amiable sort, my protagonist nodded and went along.

Note: Agency shouldn't be confused with making a protagonist brash or bitchy, though some stories (urban fantasy in particular) do this well (or not well, depending on how you like the genre). It's about having the protagonist speak up first, even if it's in a whisper. They need to be the one to say, 'No. Let's go this way.'

Your character can be a god incarnate, but if someone is always telling them where to go, how much power do they really possess?

Beth Cato was the featured author in the Penumbra EMag May 2013 ocean-themed issue with her story "Clementine, Who Swims with Mermaids." In conjunction with Musa Publishing's birthday celebration this issue, and several others, can be purchased here at a 30% discount. Her poems also appeared in our Zombie and Space Opera volumes.

Her debut steampunk novel will be published by HarperCollins Voyager in late 2014.

Learn more about Beth’s stories, poems, and tasty cookie recipes on her website.

A Moment with Beth Cato

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

Find your tribe.

Writing is a lonely art, and one that's often discouraging. There are endless revisions, plot dead ends that you can't figure out how to fix, and rejections. Always rejections. Even if you have a supportive family, unless they are writers, they can't completely get it.

Writers understand.

See, when I started out writing, I was so afraid of being judged that I tried to muck through on my own. The result was a torrent of rejections that I couldn't quite process. I was terrified that I was a bad writer. I had to realize it wasn't about being a good writer NOW. It was about the determination to become a better writer, constantly. Every story and poem is different. I have to strive to be better every time.

To do this, I learned to make myself vulnerable. I joined a critique group. The feedback hurt, but I balanced that by providing painful feedback to others. It taught me tact, and that other people had just as many faults and foibles in their writing as I did. That actually surprised me. I had this stupid idea in my head that really good writers didn't have to revise. They wrote. It was good. The end. Instead, I discovered that people I respect immensely could write stories that were riveting yet at the same time deeply flawed. This made me feel better--normal!

Beyond the critique cycle, writers need other writers for information and support. We need to know about the wait times for markets, and which editors are awesome or awful, and which places are open for submissions. Also, we need other writers to commiserate with on those days when five rejections flood in at once, and to cheer us on when we get a long-sought acceptance.

Never underestimate the power of a group hug, even if it's typed over the internet!

Beth Cato's stories can be found in Nature, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and many other publications. She's originally from Hanford, California, but now resides in Arizona with her husband and son.

Learn more about Beth’s fiction, poetry, and tasty cookie recipes on her website.

Prompts for the Poet

by Beth Cato

I used to believe in Muses, in writing only when inspiration galloped through my head. And you know what happened? I rarely wrote. Inspiration is a fickle thing.

A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to write speculative poetry as well as fiction. There are lots of romantic ideas about poets and Muses, but in my experience, it's rare that I spontaneously create a poem. Ordering myself to think of a poem on the spot will likely cause me to go completely and utterly blank. It's too much pressure. The world is too vast, and most poems are a brief flash of emotion. I need a narrower focus. I need prompts.

Almost all of my poetry is written during two months of the year, April and November. That's when the Writer's Digest Poetic Asides Blog hosts its Poem A Day Challenge. The name really says it all: for the thirty days of each of those months, the goal is to write a daily poem. Most of the prompts are general enough that they can easily be adapted to a science fiction or fantasy focus. This is made even easier by markets like Penumbra that supply their themes well in advance. I can approach the challenge, already knowing, "Okay, let's see if I can combine this day's prompt with the Fae, or gaslight fantasy."

That narrow focus means everything when I'm trying to shove a full story of subtext into twenty lines of verse. Speculative poetry has a lot in common with flash fiction in that you want a straightforward plot or image, and very few characters. I rarely use names. It's enough to attach pronouns. I also can approach the poems knowing that the editors and readers likely have a thorough understanding of mythology or other tropes of the genre. This means I can get to the magical heart or scientific angle of the poem right away. There's no time for development or explanation.

Each day of April and November, I begin by looking at the basic prompt. Then I look at other prompts to layer with it. I let my thoughts drift. I go wash dishes, bake cookies, or work on another writing project, and all the while these prompts are clashing in my head.

With the goal of one poem a day, there's no time to mess around. I can't wait for Muses. My creative process is violent. I'm jamming together puzzle pieces from completely different sets. Oftentimes, the first line comes into my head, and the rest of the poem flows from there. I usually don't know how it will end until it ends. The poem finds its natural rhythm with its unnatural subject matter, and takes on a life of its own.

If a Muse does visit me, it's not because I'm idle in wait for inspiration. It's because I set a trap and lured her in.

Beth Cato's poetry can be found in The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal Magazine, Every Day Poets, and on various pieces of paper crammed into her purse. She lives in Arizona, but is from Hanford, California.

Learn more about Beth on her website.