LORE Chats with Barry Longyear

Barry B. Longyear occupies a distinctive place in modern science fiction. His fiction moves between speculative storytelling, historical material, mystery and intensely character-driven work, while his reflections on craft repeatedly return to a deceptively simple principle: the writing itself has to remain the goal.

This LORE conversation preserves Longyear speaking at length about that principle. He discusses the danger of measuring a career only through sales and awards, the emergence of an individual narrative voice, the unpredictable length of stories, historical research, changing publishing technology and the writers and editors who helped him early in his career.

Barry B. Longyear: Science Fiction, Awards and the Writing Life

Barry B. Longyear was the first writer to win the Hugo Award, Nebula Award and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in the same year. His best-known work includes Enemy Mine, along with the Enemy Mine, Circus World and Infinity Hold series, Sea of Glass, other science-fiction and fantasy novels, and writing on recovery and the craft of fiction.

The original LORE interview begins with Hill asking a question that hangs over much of the conversation: at what point does a successful writer feel that he has finally “arrived”?

The Original LORE Interview

When does a writer finally “arrive”?

David A. Hill: In your seminar, The Write Stuff, we get to find out why you started writing. Can you identify the point where you truly felt that you conquered those goals? The point at which you felt you “had arrived?”

Barry B. Longyear: There have been several times when I felt I had arrived: When I sold my first story to George Scithers at Asimov’s in 1978, when I became the first writer to win the Nebula, Hugo, and John W. Campbell Awards in the same year, when I first saw books of mine on the shelves at a local bookstore, and just about every time someone writes in to tell me what something I’ve written has meant to them.

Then there are all the times when I beat myself up as a failure, not making the big bucks, not getting the book sales and placements I think I deserve, and so on. This is the kind of stuff that can give you a heart attack. I finally had to settle on writing as the goal because writing is what I love doing, whether it sells or not, and that no one really “arrives” until they drop you in that box and throw dirt on you. As it has been said many times before, “The joy is in the journey.”

Finding an individual narrative voice

Hill: Your narrative voice is an easy one to become immersed in. Were there any writers who you had to distance yourself from to find that voice, or has it been all you from the start? Do you see any writers now that remind you of you?

Longyear: When I began writing science fiction I had to stop reading other SF authors altogether. If I read some science fiction one of two things would happen: (1) If I didn’t like the way the guy was telling his story, I’d get in a war with the tale; (2) If I did like the way the guy was telling the story, suddenly his stuff (word choices, pacing, structure) would come out of my fingers in my own writing. So, I had to turn to cop stories and mysteries for my reading pleasure. Of course, now that I have begun writing mysteries, beginning with my Joe Torio mysteries (The Hangman’s Son and Just Enough Rope), I may have to get into reading cookbooks.

About the voice, I made a point simply of writing my own stories my own way. The voice evolved; I never looked for it.

Do I see any writers now that remind me of myself? Every time I run into one of these fragile, defensive creatures who compensate by becoming big mouthed blowhards, I am reminded of my baby steps at this business. The only thing that saved me was to drop the business and concentrate on the art. That I get to be a writer, making up marvelously complex and beautiful lies that point at truths that can be gotten to no other way, that is the great gift. That’s the cake. Should I actually make a sale now and then, that’s the icing.

Historical research and “Alten Kamaraden”

Hill: What makes Alten Kamaraden so special for you?

Longyear: First, one of my German fans has pointed out to me that the proper spelling of the title should have been “Die Alte Kamaraden.” Useful information delivered late.

What makes the story so special? I have done forensic research for years, preparing to write mysteries. So when I read a description of the scene when Hitler’s associates witnessed the aftermath of the double suicide, the crime scene was all wrong. I did extensive research on the story, costing perhaps three or four times what I was paid for it, but every step, every wall, every odor, bullet, and crumb of chocolate cake is exactly where it was during the real event. Are you kidding? I worked my ass off writing that story. That’s what makes it and every other story I write so special, to me.

Why stories refuse to obey word counts

Hill: When beginning a story, is it always clear whether you’re embarking on a novel, novella, short story, or other form?

Longyear: No. When I began “Enemy Mine,” I had set out to write a short story of less than 5,000 words. But story characters frequently take over and do the writing while all that is left for me is to do the typing. The reason I have no control over word length is because I don’t plan much of anything out in advance. If I knew what happens next, the story would bore me and wouldn’t finish it. Without planning, you have to take what you get. That’s one reason that most of my awards are for longer pieces.

Enemy Mine, Firefly and science-fiction influences

Hill: As Enemy Mine is considered by some to be a sci-fi reworking of Hell in the Pacific, and considering your works of historical fiction, I have to ask: Are you familiar with Joss Whedon’s Firefly series and the Serenity film that both draw significantly from Civil War events and personalities?

Longyear: We’ve dropped the Quick Shot reviews because I simply couldn’t keep up with the demands of such a feature and write stories, too. But here’s the review: The mysterious Regina loves the Firefly Series. I think it’s lame. The premise is idiotic. So the outlying planets had a rebellion and were brought under the heel of the central authority? I can buy that. Why that would require post Civil War dress and weapons, and why this would lead to the remaining settlers looking, dressing, talking, and smelling like they’d been flushed out of the Ozarks in 1896 I can’t buy.

If we were to accept that premise, then, by the same token, the Civil War should have been fought by the Redcoats and Butternuts in shakos, tri-cornered hats, using Brown Bess and Kentucky long rifle flintlocks. Personally, I can’t see U.S. Grant in a powdered wig, can you?

But, the Mysterious Regina loves the series. What can you do?

About “Enemy Mine” being a reworking of “Hell In The Pacific,” was that Toshiro Mifune or Lee Marvin who gave birth to the baby alien?

The Civil War and Confessions of a Confederate Vampire

Hill: With your new Confessions of a Confederate Vampire series, you obviously feel there is much more to explore from that period in history. Did you have an existing affinity for the Civil War era, or did you use this as impetus to study the period?

Longyear: I am the product of a Southern military school education. The last Civil War veteran died while I was at that school. You go to class every day in the middle of history, and the Civil War did, for all practical purposes, reinvent the USA. I already had the interest, therefore.

I was mired in research on a book I was going to do on Robert E. Lee. The project was going nowhere, and then I learned that MacKinlay Kantor took twenty-five years to research his novel Andersonville. And that’s only about a crummy stockade! You do Lee, you’re doing the whole damned war!

At the time I was in my mid-sixties. A twenty-five year project, given my health problems, wasn’t in the cards. Then I went to Readercon in 2009. My Kaffeklatsch was against a vampires vs. werewolves panel, so I only got one attendee. I mentioned that I had never done any vampire stories. He said that he was a big vampire fan.

I only had 58 minutes left to go, so for the hell of it I asked him in what kind of setting would he like to see a vampire story set? He said the post Civil War South always interested him—and I don’t know what else he said. I had another project that I had shelved, about the North Carolina soldier who shot Stonewall Jackson and takes on the responsibility for the South losing. I had wanted to bring him all the way until the first integration of schools—except that would make him incredibly old unless he was a vampire!

I went straight home from that convention, began writing, and had the book done by the next Readercon. For irony fans, the fellow who suggested the setting and triggered off this event is named William Sherman.

Publishing in a changing market

Hill: How do you feel about where the science fiction market is today? Does any of it particularly excite you?

Longyear: Science fiction authors and publishing always fall on hard times during a recession. Science fiction books compete with beer, as one editor explained it to me, and when the choice is between beer and a book, it’s no contest. Every time a new writer comes up to me and says, “What do I have to do to make sales?” my impulse is to say, “Beats the hell out of me, kid. If you ever find out, would you drop me a line?”

However, publishing technology has come a long way since the publisher’s purchasing agents had writers by the throat. Print-on-demand, CreateSpace, Kindle, Nook, Sony, iTunes—it has never been easier or cheaper to go into publication. Today’s publishers don’t get it yet, but a lot of the readers have, and so have a few writers.

My agent couldn’t place my two mysteries, The Hangman’s Son and Just Enough Rope. They are great stories, “well written and suspenseful” say the rejections, but book publishers, simply because of the base costs of old-fashioned book production, are looking for sure things. Big names, blockbusters.

What I did after three or four years collecting rejections was to withdraw the two manuscripts, form my own publishing company (Enchanteds), and put them out as reasonably-priced trade paperbacks and criminally cheap Kindles on Amazon. No, I am not making millions. I am making enough, and it enables me to keep writing rather than go flip burgers or dig ditches. That excites me.

George H. Scithers, Isaac Asimov and paying mentorship forward

Hill: Was there anyone equally special to you that helped you along when you were a struggling writer?

Longyear: George H. Scithers, editor of Asimov’s, and Isaac Asimov himself. From George I got kick-ass, no nonsense “figure out how to fix this” rejections, and solid on-hands instruction on what makes the various elements of a story work, and work better. From Isaac I got a few suggestions and always much encouragement. If I can ever be half as much help to someone as those two were to me, it helps me pay back a little of the debt I feel I owe those two.

The biggest door writing opens

Hill: Seeing all of the other pursuits and interests you have, do you find that your success as an author opens doors for you into other areas you’d like to explore?

Longyear: Not really. Gardeners want to talk about gardening, Civil War and movie buffs want to talk about the Civil War and movies. I guess the only door being a writer opens for me is complimentary memberships at SF conventions in which I work my ass off.

The big door it opens for me is the world of writing which brings me wherever I want to go, with whomever, doing whatever I want, as well as I want. When new writers want to know the ins and outs of doing that and I can tell them, I am in pig slop heaven.

At the time of the original LORE interview, Barry had just completed the first novel in his Confessions of a Confederate Vampire series, The Night.

What Barry Longyear Says About the Craft of Writing

Several themes recur throughout the conversation. Longyear distrusts the idea that a writer reaches a permanent state of success. Awards, bookstore appearances and reader responses can all feel like arrival points, but none removes the insecurity of the profession. His solution is to define success around an activity he can actually control: continuing to write.

His discussion of narrative voice makes the same point from another direction. Rather than constructing a voice deliberately, he says that it evolved from writing his own stories in his own way. His comments about Enemy Mine likewise describe fiction as discovery rather than execution of a rigid outline.

The historical material reveals the other side of that spontaneity. Longyear may resist planning plots, but he describes taking research extremely seriously. His account of reconstructing a historical scene down to physical details demonstrates how improvisational storytelling can coexist with painstaking factual preparation.

Barry B. Longyear and Enemy Mine

Enemy Mine inevitably occupies an important place in any discussion of Longyear. The story’s expansion beyond his intended short-story length provides one of the interview’s clearest examples of his approach: characters and story determine the necessary form rather than an imposed word target.

His joking response to comparisons with Hell in the Pacific also shows the personality that runs through the interview. Longyear is willing to discuss influences and genre conventions, but he resists overly neat explanations for how fiction is created.

David A. Hill’s Original Contributor Note

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