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Category Archives: Writer Problems
#writerproblems: When Life's River Changes Course (Or, Transforming #Writing shortfalls into Successful #WritingGoals)
Posted on December 1, 2019 by jeanleesworld
Well, here we are. Thanksgiving came and went before I could even show you Blondie's lovely art project for November.
I do so love anything that reminds me of stained glass windows. xxxxx
I had hoped to share another 1,000 or so words of What Happened When Grandmother Failed to Die with you.
National Novel Writing Month called to my imagination with the promise of storytelling in spite of all life's commitments. Thousands take up the challenge, so why can't I? And I was realistic about this, too. I knew 50,000 words was impossible, but surely there could be SOME way to accomplish a meaningful amount of words. I've done it before, and dammit, I could do it again!
But if you saw my banner for November, you might already know what changed the course of my plans.
Oddly enough, it wasn't the motherhood. I managed to turn Biff's day of fever into a quick morning of writing.
No no–it was the teaching. Yeah, the final projects from my University students were once again a big drain on time, but those at least I knew how to manage. The subbing among six different school districts, however, was constantly unpredictable. A small agreement of a three-hour stint would change into a six-hour haul among several different grades. I'd show up expecting to work with a special needs kid only to find out I'm actually teaching 1st grade math to kids more eager to stab each other in the eye with pencils than to just sit the Godfrey Daniel down. (You can decipher that bold phrase if you channel your inner WC Fields.) This doesn't even include the 5am phone calls of, "Can you come in today? All day. There are notes here for your duties, I think. We'll look when you get here."
It was a busy month. Busy, and rough. I'd be rushing from hours spent with a kid who refused to use kleenex and therefore had a steady stream of mucus running from his nose into his mouth while eating his snack and then coming up to hug every single adult and myself and to give us high fives with those same boogery hands and I had to prevent myself from gagging all over this kid OLD ENOUGH TO USE A FRICKETY FRACKIN' TISSUE and then get my own kids, NOT let them hug me so I wouldn't spread whatever germs are smeared in green on my person, and grade finals.
Gru was on to something here.
And the typical bits of motherhood don't vanish,do they? Blondie needed to work on her piano. Biff and Bash needed to do their homework, and they needed to attend their occupational therapy. All three needed to be fed with actual food, not just, you know, dog bowls on the floor. (Though that would be SOOOO much easier.)
At the beginning of November, I was certain I could use the same tactics I had in previous years to write while parenting and teaching. And if my life's course was still just motherhood and teaching online for the university. it could have worked.
But this fall, the course of my life changed when I added the substitute jobs. The river no longer flowed in the way I understood it. It went from this…
I missed writing so much.
I wanted life to continue its typical course with my writing floating atop. I might row for ten miles one day, just around the bend the next. But at least I'd be writing again.
Yet at least two weeks of November passed with no writing at all.
I had failed.
"Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success."
That failure hung on me like twin boys determined to make me a tree. It hung on me like the face my daughter used to make when I'd say time and time again, "Not now." It hung on me like the words my husband couldn't say because I had to work. I had to do more. There was always more to do.
And that, Dear Friends, is when it's time to stop.
You may think you can walk upon the river's stones. You may think you can continue on your course your way because you are you.
That's what I thought. I put on my sensible shoes and figured I could portage my writing across the rapids without *too* much trouble.
I was so bloody determined to carry my writing through these unpredictable waters that I failed to look on what I had done as any sort of accomplishment.
I managed to interview a fine indie fantasy author.
I inspired my daughter Blondie to start not one, but THREE writing projects. (More on Super Duckling later this month!)
I had written 12,000 words of a new story and shared share every one of those words with you.
It's so easy to get caught up in what we fail to do, isn't it? We get daily notifications of a gazillion new authors all hot'n'fancy with readers we'd LOVE to have for ourselves. We check out the new best-seller brew-ha-ha and wonder what on EARTH inspires people to spend money on such'n'such garbage when there's *our* stuff ready and waiting. We hear of yet another remake/re-imagining/reboot/re-whatever and wonder why no one notices the bounty of fresh fiction we create.
We look so longingly at the accomplishments of others that we forget what we ourselves have accomplished. No, I didn't finish my story, but I did work to help keep Blondie in music and Biff and Bash with their therapy. No, I didn't finish my story, but I did inspire my daughter to start her own. No, I didn't finish my story, but I did get to split my sides laughing while Biff and Bash shared their favorite quotes from a Captain Underpants read-a-thon (Seriously, Biff sat and read an entire novel out loud with Bash silently listening. It was AMAZING.)
So Friends, please don't dwell on what wasn't finished. There will always be a course to travel, and it will always be a mystery beyond the bend. What matters is that you take a step, then another, then another. One day you may take one hundred steps, the next one thousand, the next, just one. Every single step–every single word–is something to be proud of.
I'm going to start posting on Sundays instead of Thursdays, so now you have to wait until next Sunday for some awesome writing music, updates from Blondie, and perhaps some writing craft study on an old holiday favorite. More author interviews are underway as well, so be sure to stop by and see who's on the hot-seat in the coming weeks!
Posted in Blog, children, conflict, Drafts, Family, hope, Inspiration, journey, motherhood, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #creative, #imagination, #indieauthors, #proudmom, #timemanagement, #writerproblems, #writingcommunity, #WritingLife, children, hope, inspire, NaNoWriMo	| 48 Replies
#writerproblems: finding help #writing that d*** #bookblurb with #inspiration from #tvthemes
A few years back I wrote about the struggle to create a blurb for my YA Fantasy Middler's Pride. Studying the blurbs of my favoritest of favorite writers Diana Wynne Jones helped me see that so long as I gave readers the protagonist and problem in as few words as possible, I'd be okay.
However, as book reviewer and author S.J. Higbee has often noted, many authors and/or publishers feel compelled to stick waaaaaaaaaaaay too much information into the book blurb. (Click here for just one of MANY reviews where Sarah touches on the problem of chatty blurbs.) Where is the line between too much information and too little? We want to give readers a taste of the story inside, but we don't want to ruin their appetites. We want to engage readers without killing all the story's surprises or subverting all the expectations.
Which got me to thinking about M*A*S*H. Yes, the TV show.
I never watched M*A*S*H as a kid, nor did I know about the original book on which the film and television series are based. I only knew that whenever the theme song started playing on the TV, I went off and did something else.
Just listen to that mellow song played alongside these doctors and nurses treating soldiers near enemy lines. The show's opener had the look and feel of some medical drama, the last sort of show Little Me would want to watch.
Then I learned after marrying Bo that this show was a comedy. A COMEDY?! How the heck is someone supposed to catch the comedy vibes from that opener? The melody's a sad one; heck, the original song's called "Suicide is Painless." We see no happy or positive expressions on people's faces, only the urgency of aiding the wounded. There is absolutely nothing present in this theme to tell one that they're about to watch a comedy. Imagine if a book tried to pull this same stunt with their cover art and blurb. How do you think the ever-watchful Goodreads community would respond?
As writers, we need that blurb to give readers a genuine sense of the story-world they're about to enter. Usually just a few elements of the genre are enough to tell readers, this is what you're in for. If you dig X, then you'll love this.
Since television themes are always held to a similar degree of requirement (unless it's M*A*S*H, apparently), let's use a few more for examples: Bonanza, Twilight Zone, and Dragnet.
Not one of these theme songs is all that long, but we get enough out of the music to know the genre of each show: the twang of the western guitar, the dissonance of an eerie suspense-filled horror, the stalwart drums of justice. With just a few seconds, these themes accurately and concisely provide the audience a sense of the stories that will accompany the themes.
Now I'm not saying that chattiness is always bad. Heavens, Rod Serling's speech for Twilight Zone's theme is iconic. Then you have shows like Dukes of Hazzard and A-Team, which just so happen to be Bo's and my favorite TV shows from childhood. Both are spot-on with their carefree guitar and military snare, and both directly address the audience with the premise of the show (only the A-Team don't need no Waylon Jennings to sing because they got Mr. T, fool!). These themes are slightly over a minute long, but they don't overwhelm the audience with information. We only get what we need: Protagonists and Problems. It's up to us to stay tuned for more.
So what happens when that blurb of a theme does give us more?
This is where I think we enter the "chatty" territory, the "too much" territory. Allow me to force more of my 80s upbringing on you for examples.
Okay, I'll let the monotonous "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sung over and over in the background slide because it's like a companion to the drums. But do we really need to hear the traits of every main character in the opening of EVERY episode? She-Ra and Masters of the Universe did that, too, always breaking down every damn character so you would know just who the good guys and bad guys are, and who knows the secret identity stuff and who doesn't, because apparently you, you snot-faced lump of Cheetos-dusted child, are too dumb to catch on to any of this when watching the show.
And I think this is what really gets to me about those chatty blurbs on books today. It's like the publisher/writer thinks they have to talk down to the reader to ensure they understand the story's premise and conflict. Sure, no one wants the reader to feel confused, but the consequence of over-talking is that we make the reader feel inferior.
Hero, or Villain? Gosh, I just don't know!
Yes, there are some that like having all the dots connected for them, but not this gal, not this gal's kids, and I have a feeling that you don't dig being babied, either. Plus, it says something about us as writers when we don't trust our own storytelling skills to adequately show readers who's who and what's what inside the story itself.
There simply comes a time when all we can–all we should–give readers are duct tape, a lemon, and a broken magnifying glass. If they're intrigued with the few pieces you leave for them to find, then you can bet your MacGyver-lovin' boots they're comin' into the book for more.
Anyone else have a favorite television theme to share? I was trying to figure out how to squeeze in Hawaii Five-0, but I just couldn't make it work, dammit.
I'm really keen to dig into Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun. There's a lot to learn here about the use of the fairy tale's structure to create some very real history in a story's world-building.
Posted in audience, Blog, creator, Diana Wynne Jones, Editing & Publishing, fiction, Inspiration, music, reading, The Middler's Pride, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #bookblurb, #storytelling, #writingcommunity, #WritingLife, #writingtips, 1980s, blurbs, Music, reading, television, theme songs, Writing	| 38 Replies
#writerproblems (and #parentproblems): Brewing Trouble
Posted on September 5, 2019 by jeanleesworld
Back in the early 90s, when Wallace purchased The Wrong Trousers for Gromit, Batman faced a Phantasm, and the last Star Wars film consisted of an ewok and a girl facing a sorceress from I, Claudius, my uncle purchased a book that would challenge the comedic lobe of my wee mind.
Click here for more on this volume!
No, he didn't get this book for me; he bought it for his parents, my grandparents, whom I'm pretty sure never cracked the cover. You can bet your boots my brothers and I did, though. I was fascinated by these bizarre animals and people with 1950s glasses and beehive hairdos. The puns were atrocious, the wordplay crazy. My favorite running series in all the collections, however, had little to do with language and aaaaaaall to do with the situation.
Yes, I now know this is based on an actual event.
How did Gary Larson come up with these combos? Every pairing seemed so outlandish, and yet I always laughed, even when I was small, because Little Me knew:
That's a baaaad idea.
More Trouble Brewing
Even if you're not a fan of forcefully brewing trouble, there's no denying that we as writers thrive on trouble–aka, conflict. There's got to be a struggle between person and nature, person and person, person and self. There's a quest, an escape, a threat to overcome. Somewhere, whether in our world or in our imaginations, there must be something happening, ingredients to brew the trouble that make for a delicious story.
A recipe for disaster, if you will.
Recipes with ingredients only Gary Larson seems to come up with: poodles and falcons, sky divers and alligators, marching bands and migraine doctors. These are all common, everyday things in our world, but when mixed together the story–the conflict–is anything but ordinary.
Lord knows that as a parent of two Calvins and a Hobbes, my shelves are stacked with cookbooks of mayhem.
Probably THE best comic strip ever. Better even than Peanuts.
Yeah, I went there.
If you've never heard of Calvin and Hobbes, you MUST read them. Today.
Like now.
Calvin's best friend is a tiger named Hobbes. To all the world, Hobbes is a stuffed animal, but to Calvin, he is the ultimate friend and ally in a boring world.
When Bo found his collections of Calvin and Hobbes comics, Blondie and the boys snatched them up and still haven't let go. On the one hand, it's exciting to see the kids so engaged with a character. Calvin deals with a lot of kid issues like bullies and school woes, but he also gets into some very grown-up topics like environmentalism and death.
On the other hand, Calvin is, well, something of a troublemaker.
This comic feels like some hilarious yet horrendous portent of days to come with Biff and Bash. (No, Blondie doesn't get off the hook. Hobbes instigates just as often as he cautions.) Calvin can be rude, foolish, and downright diabolical, but I cannot stop loving him for one simple reason:
His imagination.
Calvin can take any thing, any place, any one, and create a universe of adventure.
He inspires Bash to be his own Stupendous Man, complete with sidekick (Bash's wee Bumble, Captain Ice Cube).
He inspires Biff to find magic on the snowy slopes, even after losing two teeth in a sledding accident.
Calvin's dad even inspires Bo's parenting style.
We tell the same thing to our kids.
Yeah, I didn't get to do much writing this summer, but I still consider the past few months well spent because I got to be a reader–no, that's not the right word. A listener. I was blessed to listen and watch Biff, Bash, and Blondie work together to create hilarious adventures featuring Thomas the Tank Engine, Wall-E the trash bot, Optimus Prime, Lego Batman, the USS Enterprise, and more. Every plot point was preceded with a "How About ___?" and a "Yeah, and then ___!". No villain's ever truly villainous, and no hero's ever truly perfect. Settings switch from Sodor to Cybertron to Gotham City and back again without characters ever missing a beat. I marvel at how their voices run through the story together, pulling each other along…and yes, sometimes one voice knocks another down, and I must end the story with a cliffhanger. They get so frustrated when their stories diverge with the same characters, and one wants the others to follow. I wish I had perfect motherly advice to give them, but considering my own experiences with collaborative writing went up in flames, all I can manage is a welp, kiddos, maybe you should just tell separate stories for a while.
And they do. Less excitedly, but they do.
Creative teamwork is a delicate thing, and I'm still very clumsy at helping it stay together. But after this summer I'm determined to keep trying because when together, my children imagined stories as magical as dandelion seeds flying through a northern wood.
When I am with my kiddos, there truly is treasure everywhere.
Do you have a favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic? Share it in the comments!
Did you miss my monthly newsletter? Read it here!
I'm also so very blessed to know amazing readers and writers in this blogging community. Ola shared some really helpful input on my YA fantasy novel, and Cath gave awesome thoughts on the opening lines of my newest publication, a western fantasy novella.
I've got an indie author interview on the way, as well as a fun exploration into theme music. We also need to do some serious pondering of the fairy tale, and how two storytellers of film and page came together to build a country's history out of…fairy tales?
Posted in Blog, character, children, conflict, Family, Fantasy, fiction, Inspiration, reading, Series Writing, Study, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #comics, #creative, #imagination, #storytelling, #writetip, #WritingLife, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, children, Conflict, Far Side, Gary Larson, reading, Writing	| 44 Replies
#Author #Interview: #indie #writer @jdstanleywrites talks #writing #scripts, #reading #magic, and the power of a #storyteller's #imagination
Happy Thursday, everyone! I'm please to introduce you to J.D. Stanley. He's an award-winning fantasy writer of novel and script as well as a Bardic Druid of the OBOD. It's an honor to share his thoughts with you today on this, the writing life.
First, let's talk a little about your background. I see you've done some work on radio and studio engineering. That's so neat! It reminds me of Celine Kiernan, who spent years as an animator for Don Bluth before beginning her own writing career. How would you say your time with language-aloud influences your language-written?
It really was a neat experience. What a blast for a day job! Studio engineering and writing were the reasons I went into radio broadcasting in 1986. For a creative, nerdy introvert, all the behind-the-scenes stuff was super appealing. Audio engineering is a singular, unique avenue of creation – all you have are the sounds to build a world. I still love it. Without solid writing, though, no matter how good the production, it won't sound realistic. Writing for that still makes me hyper-critical of my dialogue and narration today.
When I studied Radio in college, there was a great deal of focus on learning to write words meant to be spoken – so commercial copy, radio plays and show scripts. And the flip-side, how to speak that writing, too. The point was, to craft something that didn't sound scripted even when it was. I was lucky enough to get picked up by a program director who heard some of my freelance work and jobbed-out halfway through. Getting thrown into the deep end like that really hammered it home. Knowing listeners would hear my writing live shortly after I put the words down or a sponsor would pay more than tens of thousands of dollars as soon as I produced or voiced a spot was… terrifying. Nothing like having your feet to the fire to hone skills. Those lessons will never leave me and my continued voiceover work as well as coaching written and spoken communication keeps it fresh in my head.
I would say, all that time with language-aloud makes me remember to read my writing outloud to check with my ears for believability. The human ear is extremely sensitive to the naturalness of speech, the nuance of humans speaking, and it strikes you when it's fake. In my opinion, it's the best gauge a writer can use to check not only the flow, but human believability of what's written. I think it can help us make better connections with our readers. If we can reach them as another human, be accepted as a companion on a journey with them, we can connect. And when we can connect, then what we write can mean something to them. But if we sound like their Lit teacher? Dude, that's just not gonna happen.
I once attempted a bit of screenplay writing some time ago, and…okay, not going to lie. I stunk at it. What challenges do you feel are unique to screenwriting as opposed to novel writing? What advantages? Do you have a preference between the two?
I really don't have a burning desire to write screenplays daily and do prefer novel writing. I actually prefer fixing other people's work, being a script doctor, over writing them if I'm being totally honest. I enjoy helping other people's words work better. A script doctor gets no credit and most people don't even know that's a job.
There's a specific pattern to the storytelling in screenplays aspiring screenwriters need to learn. If you want to be a rebel and not do it that way, that's cool. But understand, that may be the reason you're not selling anything. It may be an interesting concept, for instance, so someone takes a peak. And then they're judged on a single page where there's supposed to be a predictable beat and it's missing, so their work gets round-filed. Or they don't know the first thing about proper format and think their story is so extraordinary everyone will look past that and give them gobs of money anyway. Or they can't write a logline to save their life, so no one ever goes past the logline to read the script. Or they're actually bad writers operating under the delusion it doesn't take good writing skills to write a screenplay.
I'd tell anyone thinking that screenwriting is a cool career choice… First? Understand the chances of selling one are slim to none. Once you get over that, you can move on. Practice the shit out of your writing and, especially, educate yourself from film industry professionals. Study books like Blake Snyder's Save The Cat, read their blogs and absorb a crap-tonne of successfully produced screenplays – there's a million available online – so you can see what it takes. And forget all those no-name Internet screenwriting contests held by genre enthusiasts who aren't writers and don't know what goes into a decent script. Sure, you'll get something to put in your credits. But winning a contest not hosted by industry professionals isn't validation of your talent as a screenwriter. If you thought it was? That's probably why you aren't selling any scripts after the contest is over. Pick contests held by actual screenwriters, directors and producers. They know what they're looking at. And a lot of them include feedback in reply for free even if you don't place. They'll be harsh, you'll hate everything they tell you and will probably make you cry, BUT they'll tell you exactly what to do to your script to turn it into a saleable product. Use them as your university.
You've quite a rich variety of favorite authors shared on your website. Do you think you can pinpoint which author and story first sparked the passion for storytelling inside you, and why you think it was that story more than any other?
No, I can't say there was any single author or story that sparked it for me. I could read and write before I started kindergarten, so was a bit ahead in that area and when I started writing my stories down consistently from when I was about nine, I hadn't read any of those authors yet. My first love was sci-fi and that's where I started writing, so maybe Gene Roddenberry was probably my earliest influence? I grew up on Star Trek in the '60s, though didn't know him as a writer at the time.
When I was about twelve, I'd read everything I was allowed by that point and got special permission from the local library to have an adult library card, so I could read more books. Real books. Normally, you had to be eighteen to have one of those puppies. Then I read everything in the adult fiction section. And all the poetry books. And then went through all the reference books. You want to know the depths of my nerdiness? I do, in fact, still relish the secret thrill of reading encyclopaedias and the dictionary for fun. Not even kidding. Back then, I read so fast, I started at one end of the adult section and used to take out thirty books at a time. Just clear them off the shelf all in a row, any genre, any author, and bring them home. I read one a day, sometimes two, and read every book from one end of the library to the other. Hence the massive list of authors.
Sad as it is, I couldn't even tell you who the rest of those fiction authors were, but I remember the stories. When I was thirteen, I read the John Jakes saga The Kent Family Chronicles and I think I can say around there was when I realised I had an affinity for historical stories. And then after ingesting more books, I fine-tuned that down to historical fantasy for what I most often prefer to write. Reading for pleasure, though? Just about every genre as long as the story is good. I wish there were more gunslinger books. What an under-represented genre.
Out of that ocean of stories, three will resonate with me until I'm dead – Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and Don Quixote. And overarching all of them is The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart and all Arthurian legend. I'm a total junky. And, of course, Lord of the Rings. Definitely a common theme. I'd like to think that says something about my character, but probably more what I would hope to aspire to and will never achieve. I think I was born in the wrong century. New things, like technology and science, fascinate the hell out of me and I continue to love sci-fi. But old things and old centuries make me feel at home.
If I understand your writing process correctly, I get the impression you're something of a "pantser"—one who doesn't plan out a story, but runs with the story as it comes. How on earth do you balance the madcap writing this method requires while also having kids? I got three, and there's no way in Hades I can focus on my own story when they're crashing Transformers and Enterprises into the land of Care-A-Lot.
Well, nowadays, my four kids aren't little, so I'm at a different stage. Though every stage comes with its own unique challenges. I also no longer drive due to my cataract, so have built-in writing time while commuting everywhere which I use to my advantage.
The ability of life to persistently work to steal our focus never ends, though. I just got the kids all self-sufficient and almost out of the house (two down, two to go!), but now have different roadblocks. My dad has declining dementia from a brain injury sustained from a fall, so now? Two of the kids still need me for some things, and alternating between being with my dad at long term care after work until about midnight, and travelling an hour-and-a-half across the city to look after my mom and helping maintain their house. I'm basically writing long-hand wherever I can get it in and it's weeks before I get to sit down to transcribe it. Or I'm doing everything on my phone and tablet on the go. It's not the way I prefer to work and it's slow, but it still lets me get it in there. Because I have to do it or my brain will explode!
When the kids were small, though? Honestly, if I was a different person and they were different kids, it probably wouldn't have worked. I'm a super analytical control freak with troop movement-level organisation skills, so there's that. Okay, and a life-long insomniac, so have more awake hours at my disposal than normal people. My most productive writing time is midnight onward, so it actually worked in my favour when they were little. I used to go to bed at 7:30 or 8:00pm when they did and woke up at 12:30 or 1:00am to write. I also got the laundry and cleaning done then to leave me free time to focus on the kids in the day – every time I got up to make a coffee, I did one task. Once a month I planned all the meals and snacks on a chart that I made shopping lists from so I wouldn't waste time or money. Sundays I cooked five full dinners and parcelled them up in the fridge with labels on them to save time in the week. I wrote a lot long-hand sitting on benches waiting for them to finish swimming lessons or martial arts or whatever else I had them signed up for. Somewhere in there, I cranked out five full first draft novels. I didn't go on trips. I didn't go out. My entire life was kids and writing or consignment art. And I was totally okay with that. Someone else? Maybe wouldn't be.
I have very clear priorities. I'm also very clear on what I'm willing to sacrifice. My mother wasn't ever a well person, so I learned early how to squeeze in things I really wanted to do between looking after her, raising my two sisters and working part-time to help my dad. I already had the experience when I found myself in the position of being the only parent of my own four kids.
Okay, so the "pantster" thing… I can say, with all honesty, I've never "pantsted" anything in my life. Being this consistently, incredibly busy, most times? There's no opportunity to write plans down. But let's be honest, a lot of the kid stuff wasn't rocket science and it left my brain free. So I trained myself to do it in my head. All of it. All the figuring out, all the plotting. By the time I had a block of time to sit down in front of a keyboard or with a pen and paper, I could just write my ass off. All my "outlines" start the same way – with a super-descriptive hinging scene, usually the story conflict or premise, with an important exposition of the main character. It's my brain shorthand for the whole story, a memory trick. Then I start telling myself the story – the who, what, where, when, why – and it morphs into the opening lines and I just keep going. The story is already done in my head and I'm basically transcribing by that point. I do it that way now, because that's how it needed to happen then or it wasn't getting done. And it not getting done is unacceptable to me. Since I still don't have a lot of time, I'm still outlining in my head. At least when I have stolen moments, I can write like a demon and not have to waste time plotting.
Wisconsin's landscape has a been a HUGE source of inspiration for my fantasy fiction. Your first novel, Blood Runner, is set in Canada—just like you! Do you find yourself utilizing special places from your life for settings in your stories, or is the landscape itself a muse?
I'd say it's more the landscape that's the muse. There's a few countries I have a huge affinity for, for no particular reason, though more in the historical sense – ancient Ireland, Britain, Rome, Egypt, Sumer, Japan. I've studied a lot about them over time, so have a lot of fodder in my head for inspiration. I can't go to those places, because the ancient versions I want to visit no longer exist. So instead, I use them to write from. Being immersed in one of those places is like taking a visit back in time to me. It's cool, like owning your own time machine, y'know?
In the grand scheme of things, Canada isn't that old and doesn't fit in with the affinity I have for some of those other ancient places. But the forests here are old and I do love that. The trees and rocks have been around a very long while. There's forest here with trees hundreds of years old and the Canadian Shield is right underneath us and that's been there since the last ice age. How cool is that? I've spent a lot of time in the forests, so love to write about them. Thinking about them is uplifting to me. I'm big on nature overall and love to write longhand outdoors when that's possible. I find that very inspirational, sitting outside under a tree scratching words out.
What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
Well, I'm a research junkie, so I'm doing research all the time, often not even toward a purpose, but because I love it. I have so much useless information in my head. So, the length of time I study is moot. With that much constant input, my subconscious has a tendency to make connections between seemingly unrelated things while I'm busy with life. When one of those connected circumstances bubbles up, that's when I sometimes do extra research to fill in the holes. I can't write about anything until I can speak about it with authority and I need to have it all in my head before I start. It's what we do as writers, isn't it? Become forty-eight hour experts on anything from rocket science to earth worms. When I know enough, then I write. To get to that point could be a few weeks, but could also be years. Since I don't work on only one story at once, it's always in rotation.
I do a lot of book studying, but depending on what I need, also do practical study. Fight scenes or any hand combat, for instance, I do, in fact, act out to make sure they're plausible. I'm lucky, because my eldest son does stunt work and is a multi-disciplined martial artist, swordsman, archer and edge weapon aficionado. He helps me physically block out my fight scenes for authenticity. I've done an extreme conditions survival course where they drop you in the forest in the middle of winter and you need to build a shelter, fire, find food and the like. I love camping and living off the land and know how to fish and clean animals and find edible forage. I had an organic garden when the kids were growing up, but it wasn't only that – it was major practical study. I read up on everything about crop rotation, pioneer techniques for vegetable gardening, organic pest control and composting, practiced it everyday, became a Master Composter, and tracked the results and weather patterns complete with sketches in a large binder over all the years I had it and still have that research data for reference. I also study, make and use herbal remedies myself, so that's ongoing, and have a great interest in living off the grid, so currently practicing those behaviours as I work in that direction. Over time, anything I needed to know about, I taught myself and picked up that skill from jewellery-making to calligraphy to hand quilting to home renovation to ceramics to building a hydro generator in a stream.
When the zombie apocalypse happens and it's end of times? You can come with. I plan on building a town. Only people I like get to live there. 😉
I also find it interesting that you created a fresh take on vampires. How much research did you do on vampires before choosing the path you took for Blood Runner?
I've been a big Anne Rice fan for a long time and loved Bram Stoker's Dracula, but actual vampire research for that story? Zero. Is that bad? I had actually been stuffing my head full of Ancient history and mythology from Egypt and Babylon for another story. And me being me, kept going backward in time, because for whatever reason, it became important I got to the root mythology and first organisation of city-states and society. That history fascinated the holy crap out of me and still does. When I studied the bits of translated mythology available at the time (there's more now), I couldn't stop. For whatever reason, I couldn't leave it alone.
There's a myth about a man who cannot eat or drink. And in their mythology, a dead body can be reanimated by the Water of Life – blood. To me, that sounded like some kind of proto-vampire. I stitched elements of a few myths together to create the premise. Gave him a nemesis, a real historical figure in the invading Akkadian king Naram-Sin who was painted in myth as pure evil and cursed by the head of the pantheon. The Great God Enlil's disdain for humanity was so well-documented as was a whole soap opera of inter-family pantheon conflict, the story told itself. It turned into a tale of mistaken vampire identity.
I still have so much story left that never made it into Blood Runner, a whole universe. I think once I'm done getting it out, it'll lose its association with vampires and people will see what it really is. Vampires are cool and I love them, but that's not the story focus, so I really didn't need the depth of research in that area I might have otherwise. It was only a device.
Your latest book, The Seer, is about a Druid named Bronan, and I see you yourself are a Bardic Druid. I would love to hear how your spiritual nature influences your writing; or, would you consider your storytelling to be its own "faith," as it were? I can't help but ask because I myself am a Christian, but I rarely include elements related to faith in my fiction. Severed Selves, you could say.
I don't think I can separate those things, because it's both – inspiration as well as the storytelling being its own brand of sacredness, since words come from the soul. I'm lucky, from the fantasy writer side of things, because Druids and magic are popular story topics with readers. I know a lot about modern Druids and history and mythology, so can speak with some authority in that space. Besides, people love that stuff. And why not? I'm just like everyone else – the ancient Druids are just as mysterious and fascinating to me, because there's really so little known about them. And magic is, well, magical!
I write foremost to amuse myself and being immersed in those magical worlds is escapism. Right up there with dreaming of flying and imagining we're superheroes when we're kids, right? I mean, it's a sad fact that the more life imposes arbitrary boundaries and traps us in expectations and responsibilities, we lose those dreams. It's limiting. I think we need to escape into times of unfettered brainspace to balance off all the other crap. Druidry is the continuous responsibility to keep balance on a cosmic level and this is exactly the same thing to me. When we can immerse ourselves in a world where those boundaries aren't grinding us down, even for only the length of time it takes to finish reading a story, we can regain some inner balance and perspective. As a reader, I love that. And as an author? I consider it a public service. lol
Words are my medium as a Bardic Druid, my divination, and how I connect with universal consciousness. I walk the path of knowledge, so seek out universal truths, those things that are real and true for everyone. That's where we all connect, so goes hand-in-hand with taking a reader on a journey. A lot of my writing to amuse myself is speculative, where I'm figuring these things out and pushing down my own thought barriers. As a Druid, I embrace the responsibility to maintain balance, speak the truth and especially to oppose injustice and be an agent of fairness for everyone around me. I've been told that makes me some kind of throwback, dying on a hill of my own moral code, and they may be right. But to me, treating people right and standing up against wrong is simply the right thing to do and not because of a prize at the end. I know all this stuff influences my writing and you can see it leaking out. In the sense of all that, being a writer is more than a job to me. It's rolled into my spiritual path and there's no way to tell where one ends and one begins.
I think the biggest influence on my writing is probably hyper-awareness about what I'm capturing in words. To me, words are so much more than only letters arranged on a page. The writing should be real and true, should be honest, and should allow us, as human beings, to meet there on common ground. We can laugh together, get riled-up together, cry together, I can lift people up and that's all about keeping balance. Speaking about injustice within the confines of a fictional story is giving voice to it, but in a way less uncomfortable to explore. I can write about universal truth. Or that, in fact, we're all the reluctant hero, working through our own myriad life crap and evolving as we go while learning to step up about bad things even when we don't want to. It's easy to relate to, because we're all on that same journey. In that way, we can connect with people we'll never know on a very deep, emotional level. That's so powerful, y'know?
Magic is simply intention charged with our own energy and that's carried into writing for a writer. From our perspective, there's an element of sacredness to it, because we do, in fact, tear those words out of our soul to get them on the page. Whether we know it consciously or not, that ability through writing is the greatest magic there is. If you want to get super existential about it… From that perspective?
Lastly, do you have any tips or encouragement for your fellow writers?
No, nothing.
Wait, yes. If you're not already lost down that road, take an ice cream scoop and dig out that part of your brain telling you it's a good idea and go get a real job. You'll thank me later.
Seriously, though, remember you're playing a long game. If you're doing it to become rich next week and can't understand why you're not famous after your first six months? Take your ball and go home. While that would be lovely, that's not the reality for most writers. You really do have to do it, because you get something out of it, out of the creation. You have to do it, because it makes you sacrifice for it and you don't care about that. You have to do it, because you can't think about not doing it or you'll go insane or die. If that's not where you live? Adjust your sails and get that ship on course. And newsflash, you have to actually love writing or you won't stick with it through the length of time it takes. I've seen some "writers" who apparently woke up one day and thought they'd become famous and make millions of dollars at writing after having never written a day in their life previous to that. They thought it looked like an easy gig. *Cue massive eyeroll.*
I've been a working writer, writing every day, mostly for others and getting paid for it, for over thirty-five years. Did it make me famous? Nope. It kept the lights on and bought groceries and clothes for the kids. And yet? It's fantastic to me, because I made money doing the thing I love the most. How many people can say that? With the kids now grown, recently I shifted to focus on only my writing and that new reality takes time to build. No matter how much previous experience I have, it doesn't matter. I'm fully prepared for the length of time that comes with creating a new reality. You're no different coming in thirty-five-odd years behind me. Creating any new reality takes time and that's where you have to live in your head every day. My goal now is the same as when I started back in college – do the thing I love every day and aspire to make that my entire supporting income. If you don't, you're going to have a lot of heartache and frustration. I think that's a solid, realistic and attainable goal adjustment for new writers to make.
Ask yourself if you want to be famous or successful – they're two very different things. Thinking about becoming famous is setting yourself up for disappointment. Think about becoming successful instead. Don't waste energy on whether anyone else is getting famous or rich before you and put all your focus and energy into honing your craft. Other writers aren't your competition, dude, they're your compatriots. Stop worrying about their pay check and worry about your own. Good writing means you can get paid, so never think you're a good enough writer. That self-doubt can be your continued catalyst – it makes you extra careful about what you're putting down there on the page and prevents you wasting time churning out garbage no one's ever going to give you money for. I live in a constant state of terror myself. LOL If you keep your head down that way, you'll end up becoming a polished, hard-working, consistent producer which is exactly where you want to be even if that magical fame unicorn never makes a stop at your house. Plain and simple, success takes hard work and hard work produces better writing.
It does indeed, JD. Thanks so much for chatting with me!
To find out more about JD, check out his website http://jdstanley.com/.
~STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK~
I'm goin' back to The Boys. Yup. THE Boys.
It's time to talk about what makes–and breaks–a hero.
Posted in Author Interviews, Blog, creator, Drafts, Family, Fantasy, fiction, Inspiration, Prewriting, reading, research, Uncategorized, Worlds, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #indieauthors, #IndieBooksBeSeen, #novels, #storytelling, #writingcommunity, #WritingLife, #writingtips, Druid, Fantasy, JD Stanley, magic, reading, scripts	| 35 Replies
#Lessons Learned from #TheHobbit and #RobinHood: use the familiar to build, not burn, bridges into your #fantasy #writing.
There comes a time when one must face Truth.
Despite all the amassed resources and ideas all around, there seems to be an insurmountable physical obstacle. For Plankton, it's his size. For me, it's being a mom during the summer months in the United States, when kids are home nearly all day. Oh, I plan on getting them to read and write as much as possible (Bash is reading to me from the Owl Diaries as I type this very post). But there's no denying the time crunch to cram whatever writing AND school work I can into the few morning hours they spend at the school. (More on their accomplishments in a future post, including a sample of Blondie's photography!)
So this month's world-building post is going to cheat, just a smidge. I'd like to compare how a classic novel and a more recent film each utilized words and/or visuals they felt the audience would understand to help engage them in the story's world. One accomplishes this brilliantly.
The other, not so much. (To me, anyway. I get this is all subjective. Moving on!)
I knew the animated film before the novel itself. "The greaaatest adventure / is whaaat lies ahead…"
Let's start with the beloved first paragraph of The Hobbit, including one of the best first lines in literature.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Consider that phrase "hole in the ground." Lots of us know holes: rabbit holes, construction holes, water holes, badger holes, snake holes, buried treasure holes, etc etc etc.
But a "hobbit"? What the heck's a hobbit? Considering what we know about holes, we imagine it to be some sort of digging creature, maybe a mole or some such beast. Certainly not one to wear clothes and enjoy afternoon tea.
(Unless, of course, you're Mole from Wind in the Willows.)
The rest of the paragraph continues to lead readers away from their presumptions about holes and establishes that a hobbit hole is nothing like they we know as far as holes go. Once given the line "it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort," readers immediately begin associating other things they know, this time the focus on familiar comfortable things, and building them into the hole.
Tolkien, of course, helps readers accomplish this with the second paragraph. No flying into adventure or action here; readers take their time entering the hobbit-hole and peering about.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats–the hobbit was fond of visitors….No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage…
Readers, especially young readers, understand what halls are. They understand what kitchens are, bathrooms, all the rest. By providing the hobbit with rooms and possessions readers know from their own lives, readers can quickly and easily build the The Hobbit's setting in their own imaginations.
Another tactic Tolkien often utilizes in telling The Hobbit is directly addressing the readers.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins has an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained–well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
Readers have not even met this Baggins yet, but once again they can put their own knowledge to use: the humdrum uncle, for instance, that always plays life safe, or the old man down the street that goes through the same routine every gosh darn day.
In other words: boring. Kids know what boring looks like, and they'll paint this Baggins fellow up with all the shades of boring they know. Tolkien starts readers on common ground so that when he's ready to share the details of what they don't know–like what a hobbit looks like–the readers can more easily integrate these details into their personal visualizations of the story.
Yet using common ground to engage the audience at story's beginning can go wrong. Very wrong.
Enter 2018's Robin Hood.
It's an adventurous tale of heroes and villains, justice and evil. We all know the plot's rhythm, the characters' harmonies.
Until now!
This film begins with a CGI book titled Robin Hood. The book opens to a stark black and white illustration of a town (and their artsy credits) an unseen narrator tells us: "So, I would tell you what year it was, but I can't actually remember. I could bore you with the history, but you wouldn't listen. What I can tell you is this is the story of a thief. But it doesn't begin with the thief you know."
O-kay.
So like The Hobbit, Robin Hood starts with a direct address to the audience. Unlike Tolkien's narrator, who walks hand in hand with readers into the story, helping them find their footing in its fantasy world, the film's narrator treats its audience with a bit of condescension–I'd explain things, but it's not like you'd really listen, right? You think you know this story? Well you don't! Ha!
The opening scene shows a lady in a buxom dress, sheer veil, and dolled-up face sneaking into a barn to steal a horse from the "toff" (ugh, the American accent takes all the fun out of that word) who lives there. The "toff" who catches her is–ta da! Rob. He gives her the horse for her name. Ta da! Marian.
In comes the narrator again, showing Marian and Robin being all cute and playful. "Seasons passed. They were young, in love, and that was all that mattered. Until the cold hand of fate reached out for them."
The audience watches hands sign some curious paper, hands coming out some super-smooth grey leather sleeves.
The narrator continues to speak while a messenger takes all these ominous letters from Grey Sleeves and enters the town. Grey Sleeves stands up and whirls his giant Matrix-ish long coat around as he walks towards a balcony. The messenger continues into town; the town reminds me of something from a Renaissance Faire, a mix of periods for color, stone, and wood.
"He stole from the rich and gave to the poor. He became a bedtime story. But listen. Forget history. Forget what you've seen before. Forget what you think you know. This is no bedtime story."
At long last, we are shown a huge metropolis that we can only presume is Nottingham, which is later called "the Bank of the Church, the beating heart of the Crusades".
Not that viewers ever feel this depth of city, as they only experience one, maybe two streets the entire film.
All the curious papers are draft notices for the Crusades. So the audience is shuttled ahead four years to a stealthy unit of soldiers all dressed in sand-colored armor. It's all sniper fire with arrows, complete with several repeating crossbows that act more like machine guns–yes, sound effects included.
The filmmakers have told viewers to "forget all you know," removing the medieval style of warfare they've seen before so it can be replaced with scenes strongly eliciting scenes of modern-day conflict in the Middle East.
When Rob returns to Nottingham and finds Tuck, who's ecstatic he's alive even though viewers have never seen these two together before and therefore have no clue how deep or strong this friendship is, they learn ANOTHER two years have passed. Tuck dumps a bunch of exposition about the war tax and how the Sheriff has forced many townspeople to work in the mines.
You know, the mines that look like something out of Bladerunner, what with the towering exhausts of flames built into the endless frame of the mountain.
And at this point, I just had to give up trying to figure out this world.
The opening narration told me to forget what I knew. Yet the opening scenes of the film insisted on showing me characters in modernized dress and modern cosmetics. For all the exposition about war tax driving people into poverty, they show plenty of clean streets. Sure, the people are all sooty from the mines. Mining for what? How do John and Rob jury rig so many ropes and pulleys into a frickin' firing range in the old manor? Where the heck does food come from around here? How is a Sheriff living in a frickin' palace that makes the castle in Prince of Thieves look like a rat hole?
If Robin Hood really wanted its audience to "forget all they knew," then MAKE THEM FORGET. You want all the modern flair in an olden time? Go all out in a sub-genre like steam punk. How awesome would it be to see Robin with an array of amazing crossbows, Little John with a clockwork arm, or the Sheriff's stronghold as some air-fortress circling Nottingham?
But the filmmakers didn't want viewers to forget, not really. They wanted people engaged in the story, but today's audiences don't understand the medieval period, right? So throw some modern music in, make even the poor commoners capable of dolling themselves up in velvet and smooth fitted leather. Sure, the coins can be old, and people can ride horses. The font on their draft notices can be printed in medieval font so they look old (seriously, those things look like they're printed from a computer). But nothing in this world feels old. I kept waiting for the Sheriff to check his phone for a text from the Cardinal. Jeez, DC's Green Arrow is more medieval than this Robin Hood.
Don't even get me started on how Muslim John can move around Nottingham with ease even after the Sheriff's fear-mongering speech. He is the ONLY man of color in the city, and nooooobody ever pays him any mind.
Just…done. (That, and there's a movie review that covers all my complaints and then some.)
Of course writers shouldn't just go and do what's already been done. How boring that would be! But there's a difference between building world-bridges and burning them. Tolkien took elements of modern life that the audience would know and used them to help readers connect to The Hobbit's world of fantasy. The crew behind Robin Hood wanted everything to look cool, but that's all it could do–"look" cool. There's no age to the sets, no life beyond what the camera shows us. Audiences are left wondering how these peasants can dress so elegantly, why the Crusades look more like the Iraq war, why NO CIVILIANS seem to actually LIVE anywhere (again, just…Loxley's manor and the Middle Eastern town, apparently, are tooooooooooooooooootally uninhabited). They told us to forget what we know, yet took exactly what we know from the here and now and did their damndest to stuff the Robin Hood story into it.
Gah, now I'm just rambling.
I love the story of The Hobbit. I love the story of Robin Hood. As a reader, I'm always ready to run headlong into these fantastic adventures because I want that escape from the humdrum everyday of the here and now. I don't want to see the here and now used as some sort of tape to patch the fantasy together. No audience wants to see the tape hanging over the edges, blurring what's underneath.
Only the beautiful fantasy world built with love, with time, and with care.
Thanks for following me through this meandering post! Next month's posts shall be a bit more whimsical, as I've got interviews, marshes, creativity, and point of view ponderings to share.
Oh! And hopefully I'll have everything set with the free fiction of the month and a newsletter, too. Have anything you'd like to share and/or plug? Let me know!
Posted in Blog, character, creator, Fantasy, fiction, Images, Inspiration, Lessons Learned, Plot, setting, Uncategorized, Worlds, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #amwritingfantasy, #firstchapter, #RobinHood, #TheHobbit, #worldbuilding, #writerproblems, #WritingLife, #writingtips, Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, readers, setting	| 30 Replies
#Creative #Children, #Writing #Friends, and a New #Publishing #Adventure
Let's start with something sweet, shall we?
Matching shirt day!
Blondie finished the school year with a straight-A report card. She was particularly proud of her last story for writing class: "The Invention that Changed the Chicken World." It's a suspenseful tale of action and intrigue as Zach, a lowly chicken residing on a dairy farm on the slopes of Mount St. Helens, discovers that special rocks from the volcano will help him build a jet pack. He successfully builds a model only to be discovered by a nefarious squirrel…well here, you read it:
Little did Zach know that two sinister eyes were watching from the trees. Later Zach was walking back to the coop when suddenly, a squirrel jumped in the way! He was wearing an eyepatch on his right eye! Worst of all, he was pointing a GUN AT HIM!!!
"Gimme your rocks, sonny. Then you can have anything you want," said the squirrel calmly.
"What do you want with MY rocks? Go get your own!" shouted Zach. The squirrel leaped at him, took the rocks, adn sprinted away. Chickens, you might say, aren't very fast. Zach, however, was just the opposite. Zach ran like a lightning bolt and caught up with the squirrel and took the rocks.
Blondie, "The Invention that Changed the Chicken World"
The tale continues, but Blondie refuses to read it out loud for me, the stinker. 🙂 Her story was such a hit with Biff and Bash that Biff even started his own story:
"a chick who makes a space ship"
Blondie's promised us all more stories about Zach the chicken this summer, and I'm excited to see Biff truly enjoy drawing and writing. Bash, meanwhile, is turning out some amazing creations with Lego; even we will set them apart so that no one else can wreck them.
The little droids meet Chopper and Orgo. Orco. Or-something.
Next week the boys will finish their school year with an end-of-year party at the carnival on the edge of town–the one that leaves its bones bare to the winter months, and where Biff fell from a platform and took a steel girder to the head.
You can imagine how excited I am for all of this.
GIF appropriately from Kindergarten Cop
But even though the kids are wrapping up their school year, my current term at the university has a ways to go. Plus, I've taken on a new job as substitute teaching aid at another town's school district. It'll help the family income, plus it gives me a chance to work with kids aged 4-18. If I want to write for these people, I should probably, you know, hang out with them'n'stuff…
(Side Question: Why the heck does anyone think four-year-olds can learn to walk on stilts? These kids can barely remember to use a kleenex, let alone tie shoes, and we trust them to walk with GIANT METAL RODS?!)
Let's move on to the lousy news next.
In January of 2018 I announced Aionios Books would be publishing my novel Fallen Princeborn: Stolen.
Click here for Amazon Page
The plans had been to publish the entire series over the course of a few years, starting with Books 1 and 2 to come out pretty close to each other. We individually published six short stories over the summer and fall to help promote the first novel, and on October 31, 2018, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen hit the shelves.
Well. You might have noticed the second novel's not out yet.
The folks at Aionios Books chose not to continue with my series.
Am I bummed? Of course I am. It feels like that moment in A Fistful of Dollars when Clint's caught by the baddies after helping a girl escape. They beat him to a pulp, taking extra care to cripple his shooting hand. One look at him, and you'd think he's a goner.
Only he's not. He manages to escape despite his injuries and hides away in an old mine. Over the course of his recovery, he slowly, surely, tenaciously, teaches himself to shoot with his other hand.
Yeah, I may be down, but I'm a professional, dammit. It's a wild world out there in indie publishing, and every fighter's got to do what he/she can to survive. Aionios made the call they felt was best for them. So, we just need to do our own parts in helping Fallen Princeborn: Stolen stay alive while also adventuring off in our own directions.
In my case…well, first I'm learning to shoot with the other hand.
Publishing solo.
This means I've got to do a complete overhaul of my platform: website, social media, the whole kit'n'caboodle. Don't be surprised if a link's down one day and up the next–we're talking years' worth of posts to revise.
I intend to rework and re-release my six short stories of Tales in the River Vine.
I'm also excited to publish a new tale, a tale that hearkens to those wild days of territories stitched with railways and bounty hunters ready to kill for a few dollars more…
"Between you and me, I doubt they've got the know-how to outsmart Night's Tooth." Sheriff Jensen narrows his eyes at the poster like he could scare it. "No proper description of the man, and a modus operandi as bizarre as hell."
"Why bizarre?" Sumac pulls the poster from its pin and stares thoughtfully at Night Tooth's name.
Now the sheriff goes all quiet again, thinking. He's really sizing Sumac up this time, like as not making sure Sumac's not crazy as a loon. "Because they find bite marks in the rail cars' walls, that's why. This man's got a wolf with him, somethin' big as a bear and twice as smart."
That's a whap Sumac's not expecting. No doubt his lady employer would have a good laugh over that one. "Well, as I see it, Sheriff, some creatures are born into killin' like others are into dyin'. I reckon Night's Tooth is of that first camp, wouldn't you?"
"And yourself?"
The wind whistle-whines against the glass. Another train cries out from the rails beyond La Crosse's commercial center.
Sumac smiles. He knows he doesn't have to answer.
And, God-willing, before 2019 ends I'm going to publish the next installment of the Fallen Princeborn series.
"Charlie."
The name sucks the air clean out of Charlotte's mouth. Her lungs shrivel, her mind bleached like bones in the desert—
Someone stands out in the middle of the Wild Grasses. Pale arms hang perfectly still against a sparkly shirt. The breeze plays with red hair too bright to mistake. It carries the scent of bus and berries to Charlotte's nose and stings her eyes to tears. A pink bubble inflates out of the mouth. Baby blues shine like search lights.
Pop. "I'm still waiting for you, Charlie." Pop.
The Voice rushes to the bellows within Charlotte, brings air and feeling back to her lungs. One, two, don't let Orna get to you.
Charlotte heaves a breath as deep as she can. Her legs don't want to move, she can't move, but she will move. She forces one foot forward, then another, commands her back to straighten, and she screams, "I know who you really are!" She chews the unsaid words "you bitch!" like gristle, wishing desperately to spit them out at The Lady wearing her sister's shape like some Halloween costume. But even the shape of Anna forces the hateful speech to stick between Charlotte's teeth. "Go back to your hole!"
"You should have died in the Pits, Charlie. She's got something a lot worse planned for you now."
"'She'?" It was just a tiny word, but its reference jabs the Voice in Charlotte's heart good'n'hard.
Baby Blues grin like some damn playground secret.
"Don't fuck with me, Orna." Charlotte's walking before she knows it, wading into the Wild Grasses, arms swaying fists, teeth clenched, "You're the one never leaving this land alive, I swear!"
The berry and bubble gum stink to Charlotte's nose now, all its pungent sour sweetness driving its way up into her sinuses and stinging behind her eyes.
More and more red hair blows over the Baby Blues, more hair than Anna ever had, and it grows longer, longer. She's engulfed in hair like some Ginger-fied Cousin It.
Charlotte's almost close enough to grab a lock and yank it off. "Take my sister off!" She lunges forward—
But Cairine's teeth close upon Charlotte's shirt, her nose a sharp chill on Charlotte's neck. Cairine pulls Charlotte back as a bubble pops under all that impossible hair. A new voice grinds under Anna's punctuated soprano:
"Let's not rush. I'm still owed a sweetheart."
Red hair spins round, tightens, stretches, into a giant red bubble. It floats above the wild grasses and pops to the echoes of girlish laughter.
In the meantime, I'm excited to spend June celebrating my dear friend Anne Clare–she's releasing her debut novel this summer!
I've known Anne for decades, and like me, Anne's been balancing teaching, family, and her writing life. For years she's been researching and crafting a story that spans countless miles and years–just like our friendship. xxxxx
I am so, so proud of you, Anne!
I'll be interviewing Anne and the impeccable James J. Cudney, who has another cozy mystery on its way to bookshelves next month.
What else lies in store? Oh, some world-building craft, methinks, and a study of the incredible Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi. I shared one composition of his weeks ago, but it haunts me still. Let this song carry you on its magic into next week, where we sit, and listen, and imagine together.
Posted in #Princeborn, Aionios Books, Blog, children, creator, Editing & Publishing, Family, fiction, hope, journey, motherhood, Series Writing, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #indieauthors, #IndieBooksBeSeen, #proudmom, #publishing, #teaching, #writerproblems, #writerslife, Aionios Books, children, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen, parenthood	| 53 Replies
#writerproblems: #characterdeath in #storytelling (Part 2: melting shoes and raising stakes)
In my January post about character death, we discussed the traumatic moment of a beloved character's death. I loved reading your comments on how character deaths can be utilized to help strengthen stories. The ever-lovely author Shehanne Moore nailed it when she said:
A threat is a threat. End of. People can't go up against the big guns and come out unscathed, or be labelled ruthless warriors and then be pussy cats. On another level life doesn't always end happily with rose tinted sunsets.
These past few months, I've been struggling with the Act 1s of stories littered with murder and mayhem–mainly mayhem. It hit me, then, or at least while describing a corpse, that the Unknown's Death can do wonders in making a story compelling to readers.
Now I'm not just talking typical Red Shirt Deaths. The lovely Cath Humphris referred to this kind of death back in January:
Which deaths irritate me? Well, it's not so much in books, as on screen, and hopefully these days less usual to see. I mean those dramas when you can pick out who who will be 'knocked-off', pretty much from their introduction, because of their race or gender. A lot of the old 'B' movies and detective series were extremely lazy about the introduction of 'canon fodder' characters. It's such a shame, because some of these stories were otherwise entertaining.
I and many others label these "Red Shirt Deaths" in honor of the original Star Trek show. Whenever the Enterprise crew explores an alien planet, some random security officer dies.
The Red Shirt Death is meant to make the "life or death" stakes clear to both the characters and the audience of that given episode. The audience, however, knows full well that Shatner and Company aren't going to get killed, so there's not exactly much tension when a Red Shirt dies.
But the Unknown Character Death done right can burn into your reader's psyche and leave a scar for years, and years, and years.
I mean, you know that scene.
The kind that traumatized you as a child. The kind that glued you to the story even though your little brain's utterly horrified and wants your body to flee to the safety of your mother's lap, your father's desk.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out when PG meant "Pare down the Gore." So long as characters didn't have sex, drop F-bombs, or remove each other's intestines on screen, the movie was considered family friendly.
I still. Remember. That screaming.
A shoe, screaming.
You only saw the shoe in that one scene.
You sure as hell didn't forget it.
And just look at the reactions of Detective Valiant and the other officer. They are horrified. When grown men who carry guns are horrified of a toon dying, you bet your boots a kid in the audience is cowering behind her dad while he talks about Star Trek V (Dad talked A LOT during movies.)
In this one moment, we get:
The judge's disregard for toon life
That toons, previously thought impervious to death, can actually die
That the protagonist humans regard toon life with at least some respect
That the protagonists would rather protect a toon wanted for murder than hand him over to this judge
The stakes have officially been raised because we now have visual evidence of the consequences that will be met if Roger Rabbit is captured. We now know the lengths to which the villainous judge will go in order to have his way. Detective Valiant now knows what he's up against.
We the audience now know what the good guys are up against, and we're scared to death for them because we've seen what will happen if the bad guys get them.
Another '80s example comes in Jim Henson's fantasy epic Dark Crystal. The scene's so terrifying that YouTube won't even let me share the scene, so I've got to link you to the moment where an evil Skeksi is draining the life essence from a podling and traumatize you that way.
Does the podling die? No.
Then it's not character death, Jean!
Hush, yes it is. This creature's life has been drained. We've witnessed a living being undergo a damning transformation into a zombie.
This may as well be death.
Once again, this is a moment that
establishes the power of the evil Skeksis
displays the evil Skeksi's disregard for innocent life
That's what makes these deaths so horrifying:
We're watching the innocent and vulnerable be rendered lifeless.
These aren't armed podlings. The shoe wasn't trying to kick the judge and take him down. These are innocent, unarmed creatures completely unable to fight against the threat.
When we see them die, we realize the villains are without mercy or conscience. We must watch on to see the heroes take the villains down because those villains must be held accountable for their actions.
How to swing this in a book?
Let's return to Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. I wrote a post on this book some time ago as a great study in world-building; this time, let's see how they handle a character death in the first two chapters.
On page one, we meet the expedition team into the mysterious Area X, and the narrator of this novel is the biologist. The others are the psychologist, the surveyor, and the anthropologist. Why no names?
I would tell you the names of the other three, if it mattered, but only the surveyor would last more than the next day or two. (9)
The stakes feel raised at this point. We know something goes wrong with the surveyor and psychologist, but we don't know what. We follow the biologist and her team investigate a peculiar structure near the base camp of abandoned by previous expeditions, and wonder when things will go wrong.
We don't have to wait long.
The anthropologist was gone, her tent empty of her personal effects. Worse, in my view, the psychologist seemed shaken, as if she hadn't slept.
"Where is the anthropologist?" the surveyor demanded, while I hung back, trying to make my own sense of it. What have you done with the anthropologist? was my unspoken question… (38-29)
The surveyor and biologist go into the structure and walk the seemingly eternal stairs downward to discover new footprints, and beyond them, they discover:
It was the body of the anthropologist, slumped against the left-hand wall, her hands in her lap, her head down as if in prayer, something green spilling out from her mouth. Her clothing seemed oddly fuzzy, indistinct. A faint golden glow arose from her body.
Something clicked into place, and I could see it all in my head. In the middle of the night, the psychologist had woken the anthropologist, put her under hypnosis, and together they had come to the [structure] and climbed down this far. (60,63)
We're only in Chapter 2, and one character–one of the only four characters in this novel–is already dead.
It's not like we knew the anthropologist. The biologist seemed to barely know her, let alone care about her as a human being. But by killing a character this early in the story, we know the stakes are raised. Not only do we see what Area X can do to a human being, but we realize one of the human beings in this expedition is willing to kill to achieve her ends. We readers need to see that psychologist be held accountable. We need to see the biologist escape Area X, so we read on.
There's a power in the sacrifice of the innocent life to the villain's ambition.
Use it wisely.
How about you? Have you ever seen/read the Unknown Character Death used effectively? I'd love to know!
Things are going to get personal here about family, friends, and the future of Jean Lee's World.
Posted in audience, Blog, character, Fantasy, fiction, Inspiration, Plot, reading, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #characterdeath, #plotting, #storytelling, #writerproblems, #writetip, #writingcommunity, #WritingLife, Annihilation, characters, Dark Crystal, Jeff Vandermeer, Who Framed Roger Rabbit	| 64 Replies
#AprilShowers Bring #Indie #AuthorInterviews! @JIRogers_Author discusses #worldbuilding in #scifi and #writing the #sixwordstory. #IndieApril #WritingCommunity
Posted on April 11, 2019 by jeanleesworld
Thank heaven for this month of fantastic interviews! I'm still trudging my way through grading finals, pricing all the little Bs' toddler clothing to sell, preparing for two rounds of family visits for Easter…oh and maybe writing in there somewhere. Whew!
So let's continue on with our amazing Indie April and chat with sci-fi wonder, J.I. Rogers.
First, let's get the niceties…well not out of the way, as it were, but if you'd like to introduce yourself—who you are and what you write, etc etc etc.
Hi. I'm J. I. Rogers, and I write a fusion of dystopian science fiction and space opera. My bio aptly states that when I'm not acting as a conduit for the voices in my head, I'm a poster child for Gen X and the Queen of most boondoggles that lead to eye-strain and tinnitus. Simply put, I'm a green-eyed, ginger-haired, caffeine addict who currently spends most days (and nights) creating bits to go into 'The Korpes File Series,' art, or convincing to my family and friends that I'm not dead.
What would you say was the first book (or author) you read that inspired you to become a writer?
The graphic novel series "Love & Rockets" by Los Bros Hernandez is what truly set me on this path. I've been an artist for far longer than I've been an author, and Jaime's work, in particular, sparked the Muse to create my own world. It's taken close to thirty years to get the ball rolling. In the meantime I'd have to say that every book I've ever read has pushed me toward committing text to screen; even the ones I didn't like. Authors such as Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Barbara Hambly, George Orwell, R. A. MacAvoy, Anne McCaffery, G. R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett have also added their influence. I wrote a few short, fantasy stories based in Mercedes Lackey's world in the 90s, but my APA, "Northwest Passages," was sidelined by other projects.
Now according to your "About" page on your site https://jirogers-author.com/, you started working on the sci-fi series The Korpes File back in 2012. This series is set on a different planet, Tamyrh. I've never imagined creating an entire PLANET, let alone its various histories and cultures! Can you describe your world-building process for us?
I have a bit of experience in building worlds stemming from my time playing fantasy and sci-fi based role-playing games… Yes, I was one of those dice-rolling, graph-paper toting geeks that played in and ran campaigns through the 80s and 90s. My process could be best described as 'organized chaos.'
Character Development:
Usually, I'll start with the character, loosely identify their physical and personality characteristics, and then I'll interview them to learn more. After a couple of paragraphs, I have more of an idea of who they are and how they fit in the world. I've found that the characters themselves reveal a fragment of 'foundation' information or a core element fairly early on. Things like 'bullied,' 'has integrity,' and 'chronic tease' are just a few of the things that have emerged. From there, I let them flesh themselves out as I write. I'm still learning things about Nash and the other inhabitants of my world.
I have found a few photographs that are close to how I visualize the different racial groups of Tamyrh, but none that define the characters. I'm planning to release a sketchbook in 2020 with my vision of what everyone looks like.
World Development:
I'm continually finding visual inspirations in our world that I can shape to place in mine, as my Pinterest account can attest. Other aspects, the alien ones, have lurked in my subconscious for decades.
The protagonist in The Korpes File, Nash Korpes, sounds like a fascinating character, burdened with history he didn't ask for and facing an entire society down in his own "private war," as you put it. Would you say Nash first appeared to you as a complete person or did you piece his character together over time?
Nash's 'Sarcastic voice' revealed itself first, the rest followed. To be completely honest I'm still learning things about him, and I'm almost done the draft of book three.
You have a little disclaimer on your Korpes series' web page that the stories contain some serious themes, such as genocide and racism. Were these themes you felt compelled to address via your story, or did your characters seem to guide you into these topics and address them their own way?
All the themes addressed were things that happened organically. There are six distinct humanoid groups on Tamyrh, and one uniquely alien. I had a vague idea of the physical and racial characteristics involved, and as I created the environments (cities, countries, and cultures), they suggested other, human-relatable traits and issues. An excellent example of this subconscious creation would be I knew the Korlo were xenophobes. It wasn't until I discovered they had never fought a major war on their own soil, they had a small population, and their culture was highly class oriented that I understood why they responded negatively to the Diasporan (refugee) influx. Another example: I didn't know one of the main characters was gay until he started hitting on another character in a bar scene. Some of the storyline has been on the loom for over thirty years, and the Muse is good at picking up stray threads.
As a fellow series writer, I have to admit that fatigue does occasionally set in—my brain keeps thinking on other projects, and if I don't let my fingers at least get a few things down my creativity goes haywire. The timeline for your series looks pretty extensive, so I can't help but ask how you stay dedicated to a single series for so long without going nuts.
HA! I am nuts, just ask anyone who knows me.
It helps that as I'm writing, I'll write scenes or chapters in the future or past (other books). I have at least four or five projects going at once, so if I tire of one, I can keep momentum and interest going by working on another… or stepping out of the office and down to the studio and doing some art. There are also movie nights. When my hubby and I merged households, our book and movie collections threatened to form a singularity. To appease the various gods of chaos, we watch a movie every couple of days.
On the flip side of building an entire world, you also do the "Six-Word Story Challenge," telling scenes not only with six words but with a unique image in the background. Now I know you've been doing this for at least a year, even creating these six-word stories with alphabetized theme words. I believe you've had an exhibit for these pieces of storytelling art, correct? How on Tamyrh did you get into this unique vein, and how would you say it powers your creativity?
"Six-Word Story Challenges" are great little warm-up exercises. Sometimes they'll lead to a much longer scene, and other times, they're the perfect summation (I've even hidden a few in the books).
The art exhibition was more of a happy coincidence. A friend and I were going to do a joint exhibit and then she had to withdraw due to poor health. The show was scaled back (I had to omit pieces that were designed for a larger space) and come up with something that could fill the void. I opted to have my show become interactive by encouraging people to look at the art (paintings, sculpture, and prints), then write a six-word story about their experience. I had about forty responses, half of which were genuine attempts. The other half were by someone who liked noodles.
I think it's safe to say all writers have their own writing Kryptonite. Mine's that dreaded phone call from the school principal—kills my creativity in a heartbeat. What's your writing Kryptonite?
I lived in East Africa when I was growing up. A Cheetah has to eat its kill soon after it's brought down; they don't eat carrion unless the situation is dire. In the past, tour buses would come in close so the tourii could get better shots, the noise would scare the kitty off, and the poor thing would have to go and find another gazelle to run down. This was a problem because of the enormous amount of energy they expend in the chase. After being run off a third time, some were too weak to make another try and actually died.
Laws were passed to prevent the tour companies from harassing the wildlife.
When my hubby closes the door to his office, he's busy. When I close the door to my office, it means I'm writing. If I'm pulled out of my groove to do something that didn't really need me to do it I'll get peevish and make snarly noises. If it happens three times in a row, I'll try to eat the tourist.
You are an AMAZING supporter of fellow indie authors in the blogging community as well as on social media. What advice would you give newbie writers as they work on building their own author platforms?
My advice is to share posts, create engaging content, leave reviews, be positive without looking for immediate evidence of karmic return. In other words, treat people the way you'd like to be treated.
Ultimately, it might even lead to Jean Lee inviting you to appear as an interviewee on her awesome blog.
Aaaaw, shucks. 🙂
What would you say are common traps for aspiring writers, and how would you suggest avoiding them?
1. Don't edit as you write, only edit after you have the first draft done.
2. Schedule your time on social media like it's a job. Have a reason to be there and a time when you log off.
3. Take breaks, stretch, and remember to go outside and play with your friends.
4. Drink more water.
5. Remember to sleep.
Do I do all of these things? No, but I'm aspiring.
What would you consider to be the most problematic practice in the publishing industry, and how would you try to change it?
I've never been a fan of politics, and it seems to be a constant in any field, creative or not. I would love to win something like a Hugo or a Nebula Award at some point before I die, but the former has become highly political from all accounts, and I'm not traditionally published in the case of the latter. I'm not holding out much hope.
How would I change that? It's out of my power. However, if you can't bring about big changes, change something in your own neighborhood, right? There are a lot of indie publishers who embody positive energy and support their fellow authors; actions like theirs make everyone stronger. Model the behavior you wish to see, be the person you want to encounter and boost the worthy folks you meet. Pay it forward.
Oh! Tell us about your current project(s), please!
I'm currently working on books three through six of "The Korpes File Series," painting the cowling on my Vino scooter before I put it back on the road, finishing up some WAY overdue art commissions, and creating a character sketchbook for my patrons (that's due out in 2020).
Many, many thanks, my friend! I hope you'll check out J.I. Rogers' amazing stories on her Amazon Author page as well as subscribe to her newsletter. You can also find her on Twitter and on her website.
Stay tuned for yet another lovely indie author interview next week–in fact, I've actually gotten requested by more authors to interview them, soooooo this interview-a-thon may very well spill into May. We shall see!
In the meantime, here are links to my novel and FREE fiction, juuuuuuust in case you haven't checked them out yet, wink wink nudge nudge say no more. 😉
Posted in Author Interviews, Blog, character, Editing & Publishing, fiction, Heroes, Inspiration, Series Writing, setting, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amwriting, #indieauthors, #Interviews, #scifi, #worldbuilding, #writingcommunity, #WritingLife, #writingtips, art, dystopia, J.I. Rogers, theme	| 33 Replies
#writer, your body does not define your #writing voice: a response to the #YA #cancelculture among #readers and #authors
Purity tests are the tools of fanatics, and the quest for purity ultimately becomes indistinguishable from the quest for power.
Jennifer Senior, "Teen Fiction and the Perils of Cancel Culture"
There is a darkness creeping along the edges of Twitter. Like the Nothing from Neverending Story, it haunts authors with hushed whispers until it moves in swiftly with a power unmatched by any other.
It is the Cancel Culture.
I had not heard of cancel culture until last month, when debut YA author Kosoko Jackson pulled his book from publication because he was accused of being insensitive to the Muslim community. You can read the account here. Like article writer Jennifer Senior says, there's a strong sense of irony that this YA author pulls his book after he and others demanded YA author Amélie Wen Zhao pull her book due to evoking "an offensive analogy to American slavery." Click here for that article. (Oh, and here's another article I found while editing this post that mentions yet another YA book mobbed by cancel culture.) This issue's grown to such a point that PENAmerica recently held a panel featuring a diverse array of writers and critics to discuss the matter–click here for that, as it's a thought-provoking read.
Whether you wade through all the articles or not, I really want you to see the quote from Jackson that speaks to this stormy state of YA Literature:
What Jackson's case really demonstrates is just how narrow and untenable the rules for writing Y.A. literature are. In a tweet last May, Jackson himself more or less articulated them: "Stories about the civil rights movement should be written by black people. Stories of suffrage should be written by women. Ergo, stories about boys during life-changing times, like the AIDS epidemic, should be written by gay men. Why is this so hard to get?"
On the one hand, I LOVE the idea of bringing all the voices from all the walks of life onto the page. No one's voice is worth less than another.
But while the cancel culture and purists may say they are fighting for diversity, their words come off more as calls for segregation.
Case in point: American Heart by Laura Moriarity. Initially her book was awarded a starred review from Kirkus…until cancel culture called for otherwise. Not only did Kirkus pull its star, it completely altered the review. Click here for a comparison of the two reviews. The New Yorker even did an editorial on "problematic" book reviews, (click here for that) and I think writer Ian Nolan's conclusion on criticism is worth noting here:
…criticism exists in different flavors, but its defining feature is an individualism of response. That response can be wise or unwise, popular or unpopular. A reviewer can squander authority by seeming too often at odds with good judgment. But, without critical autonomy, the enterprise falls apart. The only reason to hire a critic, instead of giving a megaphone to the crowd, is that creative work—books most of all—isn't processed as a collective. People make sense of art as individuals, and their experiences of the work differ individually, too. A reviewer speaks for somebody, even if he or she doesn't speak for you.
Ian Nolan, "Kirkus Reviews and the Plight of the "Problematic" Book Review
In an age when people are supposedly only making books (and movies, as the bickering over Captain Marvel shows) for certain groups of people and NOT for the general public, I would like to ask this:
Why must my body define my voice?
I am a white woman born of two white parents in the Midwest. My parents both worked for protestant churches, and together barely made enough to make ends meet. Frugality was the name of the game no matter where we lived, be it a small farming town up north, or deep in Milwaukee's North Side.
My father was born and raised in Milwaukee in a tumultuous time. White flight, housing discrimination, police brutality, and the Civil Rights movement all boiled over to overwhelm the inner city and scald it with the Milwaukee Riots. I can't imagine how this affected my dad, seeing the death, the pain, the hundreds upon hundreds arrested in a war for equality. Maybe taking that Call to serve his childhood church in Milwaukee is answer enough.
Milwaukee has become infamous for being one of the most segregated cities of America. We saw it then, that first Sunday: even though the church is situated in a densely populated area, only a handful of elderly white people sat in the pews. Not a single resident of the church's neighborhood attended. No one had tried to connect with the predominantly African American community. They had merely preached to their own.
I think Dad saw this and remembered the prejudice and anger that had poisoned his town so deeply in the 1960s. It would explain what he did next.
Juneteenth Day comes every 19th of June to celebrate the emancipation of slaves in 1865 in the last "holdout" state (Texas) after the Civil War. Dad reorganized the church's annual outdoor picnic to be held in June as close to the 19th as he could get. He invited a gospel choir directed by a friend of his in a church from Milwaukee's East Side, another struggling area. Then he reached out to the congregation's few young members to form groups for canvassing the neighborhood, leaving flyers of invitation to the church's outdoor service. With a mixture of words from the Bible and Civil Rights activists, Dad preached a message of Love, Equality, Justice, and Hope.
If I am to take this cancel culture to heart, then my father should not have worked to heal the old neighborhood. He was a middle-aged white man; therefore, he cannot possibly connect with those of a different color. He should have kept with his own kind. We should all only keep to our own kinds.
That mindset might help explain how Milwaukee was deemed "America's Most Segregated City" in 2016.
Have we forgotten what it means to look beyond ourselves?
Have we forgotten what it means to have empathy?
em·pa·thy
[ˈempəTHē]
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Stories have a power completely, utterly unique: they can take a person born in one body, and transplant them into another. That body could be living three hundred years ago on the other side of the world, or three hundred years into the future buried deep beneath the earth, or even three thousand universes away. When we take the age-old writing lesson of "write what you know" and give it the Orwellian twist of "write only what you know," we limit that power severely, dangerously.
When we limit that power, we limit our ability to empathize with one another. We lose our ability to connect with those beyond ourselves. We begin to turn away from the wealth of a diverse world, and huddle with our own kind.
Do not let others take your power away. There are countless worlds inside of you, filled with people of all cultures and creeds. You have every right to bring those people to the page.
No voice should be fettered by the body it's born in.
I'm still pretty wound up about this, so if you feel like talking, add your comments below! If you're new to my site, welcome! You are welcome to sign up for my newsletter, check out my free short stories, or pick up my first novel, which is free on Kindle Unlimited. Thanks for coming by!
Posted in Blog, conflict, Editing & Publishing, fiction, reading, Reality, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Voice, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #bookreviews, #cancelculture, #indieauthors, #writerproblems, #writerslife, #writingcommunity, #yalit, authors, diversity, Milwaukee, segregation, Writing	| 66 Replies
#writerproblems: #writing a #cliffhanger vs. a #standalone in a #novelseries
Posted on February 28, 2019 by jeanleesworld
I'm going to pause before I even begin in order to say how amazingly patient you all have been for enduring this 30-day blog-o-thon. I've been doing my damndest to catch up on reading your sites, but I have a feeling it's going to take a month of NOT writing just to see all that you lovely folks have done during this cold, snowy month.
During one pre-dawn hour set aside for morning coffee and blog reading, I came across an old book review by the amazing Chris Lovegrove. His closing nails the very topic I wish to discuss today:
I felt a little cheated by the end. The lack of resolution for one character felt manipulative. Increasingly, fantasies these days are clearly labelled Book One of a spellbinding new series or The first volume of such-and-such saga; it wasn't till near the end that I realised that this wasn't a standalone novel but that I would have to invest time and maybe more money in the sequel.
Chris Lovegrove, "Suspending Disbelief"
Indeed, what has happened to the standalone story? We are an audience of franchises and serieseseses to the point where filmmakers will divvy up a book and spread its material so thinly that a single story is transformed into a film trilogy. (cough cough HOBBIT cough cough)
When I study Diana Wynne Jones' library (as every good and proper fantasy fan should do), I see 25 stand-alone stories. 2 duologies, 1 trilogy, 1 quartet (quartology?), and the octology of Chrestomanci. (I'm just making up number words at this point.) We won't even get into the short fiction stuff here, or plays, or whatever else. Strictly novels. (If I missed any, let me know!)
If you go through all these novels, not one ends with a cliffhanger. Correct me if I'm wrong, but DWJ was one to practice what she preached:
My feeling is that the best stories leave the reader trying to imagine what happened after the story stopped.
–Diana Wynne Jones, "Some Hints on Writing"
As far as DWJ was concerned, the story she needed to tell began and ended in one volume. Even the DWJ stories considered sequels or parts of a series are only considered such because they're in the same universe, NOT because they're picking up where the previous plot left off. Look at the Howl trilogy: Howl and Sophie go from primary characters in the first book to making cameo appearances in the second. In the third book they appear halfway through the novel with some importance, but still, they are not the primary protagonists. One of the primary characters of Deep Secret returns in The Merlin Conspiracy, but again, he is not the main character. DWJ utilized the same universe for multiple stories, not necessarily the same characters. Heck, Chrestomanci's rarely a main character in his own series! (But I already wrote about that.)
I started paging through other Young Adult Fantasy stories read from my bookshelf or local library to see which stories end on a cliffhanger, and which are capable of standing alone.
Celine Kiernan's The Poison Throne: She was travelling at a good pace, though, and it was not long before she disappeared up the winding path, to be swallowed into the treacherous depths of the bandit-laden forest and the company of wolves.
Cliffhanger. The protagonist's clearly beginning another journey. Not only is the primary antagonist of the story is still in power, but we learn our protagonist is entering yet another enemy's territory.
Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games: Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. "One more time? For the audience?" he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.
Both. This one's a bit grey to me. On the one hand, the protagonist has survived the Hunger Games. The primary conflict of the story has come to a close. However, we read here that the protagonist's personal journey is not over, so there is, in a sense, a cliffhanger, just not like the life-or-death situation the protagonist's been in for much of the book.
Stephenie Meyers' Twilight: I touched his face. "Look," I said. "I love you more than everything else in the world combined. Isn't that enough?"
"Yes, it is enough," he answered, smiling. "Enough for forever."
And he leaned down to press his cold lips once more to my throat.
Standalone. You read right. Yes, I've read the whole series, so yes, I know there are more books after this. But I'll give Meyers credit for giving this novel an ending that feels like an ending. As far as everyone knows, the last of the bad vampires has left the region and the girl's got the guy. All's right with the world.
JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (hush, I'm an American, THAT'S the title here): Harry hung back for a last word with Ron and Hermione.
"See you over summer, then."
"Hope you have–er–a good holiday," said Hermione, looking uncertainly after Uncle Vernon, shocked that anyone could be so unpleasant.
"Oh, I will," said Harry, and they were surprised at the grin that was spreading over his face. "They don't know we're not allowed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer…"
Standalone. When you consider the primary conflict (protecting the Sorcerer's Stone from Voldemort) that conflict officially ends in this book. Yes, Voldemort gets away, but his plot's been thwarted. Even the other school-friendly subplots of making friends, succeeding in a wizarding school with a muggle's childhood, and so on are wrapped up. The Voldemort conflict does not start creating cliffhangers until the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban.
Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel: Magnus reached behind himself and locked the parlor door. "Very well," he said. "Why don't you tell me what the problem is?"
Cliffhanger. Any time a story ends with a question, it's an automatic cliffhanger–especially when that question pertains to a protagonist's "problem."
Peadar Ó Guilín's The Call: Early in the new year, she tells her parents that she has to leave again.
"The Nation must survive," she says. "I can help with that."
She sits alone on the bus, her suitcase propped up on the seat beside her so she can pretend it's Megan sitting there instead. And off she goes through the snowy roads, Agnes and Ferg waving her away, hugging each other, their pride so fierce it burns.
Standalone. The protagonist has survived her three minutes. The fight goes on, and so will she, determined to leave her parents and teach other children how to survive the dark land of the Sidhe. By this story's rules, she cannot be summoned back into the Sidhe realm for another hunt, so again, by this story's rules, our protagonist is officially free.
Of course, Peadar totally subverts these expectations in The Invasion, but I appreciate how he made this novel self-contained. Had this remained a standalone, it'd still be awesome.
Off the top of my head…
Other good examples of what I feel could be considered standalone novels whether or not they're in a series: Court of Thorns and Roses, Uprooted, Neverwhere, Chronicles of Narnia
Know any others? Let me know!
Other good examples of what I feel are cliffhanger novels: Cruel Prince, Mortal Instruments, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen
Ibid on the knowing and the letting of me knowing
Hey, what's my own book doing there?
Yes, I must plead guilty. I was in a similar situation as JRR Tolkien; as you know, LOTR is one HUGE tome broken into three books for readability's sake. The same thing happened with Stolen–my publisher kindly pointed out that people aren't necessarily going to be drawn to a debut novel 650 pages long. Two novels, though, would split that length into readable installments. The result?
Her head nestles against Liam's knee. The Voice in her heart sighs, too exhausted to notice a pounding, a drumming rising from deep, deep in the Pits.
A cliffhanger.
So what makes a cliffhanger tolerable and not infuriating?
Somewhere along the way, SOMEthing must be resolved.
A series is bound to have many plot threads, and that's fine. But if a few hundred pages cannot tie off a single thread, readers are going to get pissed.
Rightfully so, too. In a way it comes back to those expectations and payoffs: the patience of a reader lasts for only so long. The more you build, and build, and build, yet never follow through, the more readers will feel lost, disengaged, or both. Why spend time in a world that's constantly tangled with characters never decently understood?
So sure, maybe the antagonist is still free at the end of Book 1. Maybe the hero's journey has only just begun. Was a battle fought and one? Was an internal conflict resolved? Did a relationship come to fruition or destruction? So long as SOMEthing has been brought to a close, a cliffhanger ending will still bring some satisfaction to the reader.
Resolve nothing in that first book, and readers will resolve not to invest time in the second.
Tie a thread or two, and hold your world–your series–together.
Today's the LAST day of my sale! If you haven't snatched up Stolen yet for just 99 pennies, get it now while the gettin's good!
Posted in #Princeborn, Aionios Books, Blog, Fantasy, fiction, Peadar Ó Guilín, Plot Arc, reading, Series Writing, This Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer Problems, Writing	| Tagged #amreading, #amwritingfantasy, #DianaWynneJones, #novelseries, #writerproblems, #writerslife, #writetip, Cassandra Clare, Celine Kiernan, cliffhanger, JK Rowling, Peadar Ó Guilín, Stephenie Meyers, Suzanne Collins	| 29 Replies

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