Books from the Muse

I’m dutifully posting the books that were recommended to me by agents, fellow attendees, and presenters at the workshops I attended at Muse & the Marketplace 2024. I’m excited about them! Hopefully this list will helpful to my readers, as well as keep me accountable to actually reading them.

Bone Weaver - Aden Polydoros

I was lucky enough to hear Aden Polydoros speak on a panel of Jewish fantasy writers at All She Wrote Books in Assembly Row last October. So I’m familiar with him, but I’ve never read any of his works. Rebecca Podos recced this title to me on the topic of comps for Hand Magic. I’ve been resistant towards comping other Jewish fantasy titles for the sole reason that like… Okay, so they’re both Jewish? And? Surely an agent would want a comp that goes into a little more depth than that? But that’s my own thoughts and God knows I’m no expert. Plus, it can’t hurt to read more Jewish fantasy titles. The book jacket blurb is absolutely insane, so I can’t wait to dig into the story.

The Shadow War - Lindsay Smith

Literary agent Eric Smith recced me this book as a comp after I clumsily pitched Hand Magic to him at the all-Muse party at O’Connells on Saturday night. A World War II fantasy in which a group of teens from every walk of life must learn to control a shadow realm portal before the Nazis do.

Um….that’s amazing? Hello? How have I never heard of this book before?? I can’t wait to read it. Not sure how well it’s going to work as a comp, given the setting, themes, and plot are completely different. The connection is that they’re both first world fantasies about supernatural powers being studied and transformed into weapons of war.

Hm. That’s actually not bad. I’ll report back with more detailed thoughts once I read the book.

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft - Janet Burroway

The presenters of the You’re in Cult! workshop quoted very aptly and successfully from this craft book I’ve never heard of. I’ve paraphrased the quotes below.

“A story which is only about conflict will be shallow. There must be some deepening of our understanding of the characters. Story is not so much a plot as about human connection. Not so much a conflict of good vs bad but loyalty vs loyalty….”

“True that recognition scenes have played a disproportionately large role in the crisis actions of plots both comic and tragic…If, however, the notion of "recognition” is extended to more abstract and subtle realms, it becomes a powerful metaphor for moments of “realization.””

In short, many plots revolve around a “revelation” of character rather than a traditional climax. And this is totally true! Isn’t it satisfying when the MC realizes exactly what they need to realize at the exact moment they need to figure it out? Or when the reader has the realization because the narrative finally gave them the last missing puzzle piece? The traditional climax is great. But the realization? That’s the punch-the-air moment. The leap-out-of-your-seat moment. The throw-the-book-across-the-room moment. My favorite moment to read and also write, and probably a lot of other peoples’ favorite moment too. These quotes were so on the nose, I immediately wrote down the book they’re from, which is this one. I can’t wait to be educated further.

Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively - Rebecca McClanahan

This book was recc’ed to me on the last day of the conference by a lovely woman from LA who looked so ludicrously jet-lagged, I was amazed she was conscious, let alone coherent and animated. That west-to-east leg is brutal. She told me this is her favorite craft book! It’s always a surprise and a joy to hear about a favorite craft book that isn’t Save the Cat or Story Genius (no shade, I love those books), so I wrote it down immediately.

I love sensation in stories. Why I love books like McQuisten’s One Last Stop, De Robertis’s The Gods of Tango, and Christine Byl’s Dirt Work. They don’t just make you feel emotions, they make you feel physical sensations. Constantly. The sensation and physicality is a load-bearing feature of the books. It would be the highest honor of my writing career if someone, someday, described my work as vivid or sensual. It’s also a critical skill for world-building, and I’m going to have to do a lot of that if I want to write fantasy. Or anything, I guess. Very excited to dig into this title!

Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues - Kavita Das

Not a recommendation, just a really good-looking and topical book in the pop-up book room Muse did with the help of Porter Square Books. Don’t most books these days tackle one social issue or other? This could be a very helpful book for me and for a lot of people. Very excited to tear into it.

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Another Muse attendee recc’ed this to me in the “If you’re tired of workshops, come to this room” room. The idea of this book basically seems to be that disorder and chaos is beneficial in certain scenarios, which is just the sort of psychology that might be useful to writers, and might hold my interest over the length of an entire book. Not sure why, but I’m finding nonfiction difficult these days.

And that’s the gist of it! Going to try and read all of the books, as I’m pretty sure I haven’t read a totally new book since Some Desperate Glory, which was a year ago. Thanks, engineering school! Hot Revision Summer is in motion and I am stoked.

xx Claire