Writers are generally sarcastic, snarky, witty people, and that's wonderful—we tend to like each other like that. But, here's the thing—we shouldn't write for writers. It's kind of like a composer writing a piece specifically to pander to the musicians that see it—it might have sixteenth note runs in the tuba line, but it's probably much more fun to play than it is to listen to.
Sorry. I forgot the point for a second. Any who, I see it a lot—we write characters like ourselves. They're snarky, ironic, and can often times come off as intellectuals—which all kind of adds up to a real asshole, if you don't strike that perfect balance between all the potentially offensive elements.
Do I like sarcastic characters? Yes. Is it just a writer thing? No, but we need to be cautious about it anyway. Take, for instance, the smirk. This is an error a lot of people make—myself included—in the name of vocabulary variety. People tend to think of a smirk as sort of a half-cocked smile which, if that's a universal understanding, it could work. However, for the time being, a smirk is a nasty little bugger, and it makes your smirking character look and seem weaselly.
Take Miranda Priestly from 'The Devil Wears Prada'. While she's a delightful character, she isn't really all that likeable. That's because she's too sharp and kind of nasty. However, Andrea is a great heroine—she's smart, outspoken, but not mean and nasty. It sounds like really dumb advice, but you'd be surprised how often unpleasant characters make it into the hero role, and not even as an anti-hero.
It could be a non-issue, but it's such a dangerous path to tread. The more personable your main characters are, the easier it's going to be for the fans to really connect and care, and those hooks are barbed, making them the perfect tool. Once your reader really gives a crap about the characters you want them to, they're going to care, because ripping those hooks out is going to hurt like a son of a bitch. Of course, if you start ripping them out, making your character slowly transform into an utter asshole—believably, of course—there's going to be a slow pain and an open, bloody wound in your reader, which is kind of our job, right?
But they have to be good people first, or you have to write an anti-hero, which is a whole 'nother beast. The problem is that not everyone likes sarcastic people—though I don't know why—or overly witty people. I feel kind of like a nutter on a street corner at this point, prophesying the doom of your writing career, but that's not what I mean. I'm just saying to be cautious, and honestly ask yourself if your sympathetic characters are actually sympathetic, or if they're just nasty. Honestly answer the question, too.
Voss
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Opera's Lessons
Yes, opera. Better than anything, opera pulls us in. Sure, part of it is the song and dance—it's exciting and musical—but part of it is the fantastical feeling. I've espoused about opera at least once before on here, but this is different. I'm talking about the specific style and grandeur of opera and, above all, that boils down to a single factor. In opera, they don't care.
They don't care what someone else thinks about what they're doing. Look at 'Carmina Burana.' One of the most famous operas in the world (and it is an opera—I refuse to dispute that fact) has an entire movement about a goose being boiled (or it might be a duck) from the goose's (duck's?) perspective. Or look at, say, 'The Barber of Seville', my personal favorite opera. The scene right before the intermission is about how they all have headaches and are going crazy—for fifteen solid minutes.
Opera has this stigma, you see, and I don't get it. Someone apparently decided, long before I was born, that opera is boring, but I have to assume that, whoever that was, never even saw one. Opera is far from boring. It's the single most exciting art form out there. Sex, murder, betrayal, fantasy, magic, crossdressing—it's like every season of 'Passions' thrown into three hours, with a musical score.
What does it have to do with writing? It shows a good, gung-ho philosophy that's sorely lacking in literature, outside maybe bizarro fiction and books about opera. We all have this useless, mostly self-imposed set of rules that tells us what we can and cannot do in our writing. Of course, when you lay it out like that, it becomes petty obvious that it's bullshit. If it's our writing, then we can do whatever we like. Sure, there are some things you have to be careful of if you want into a specific market but, for once, we're not focusing on the commercial aspect, here. This is about writing your book or your story, exactly the way it should be. Believe it or not, chances are you're not going to offend people if you write it the way you know you should. Okay, you won't offend any more people than you would normally.
So take a hint from Wagner, Rossini, Ravel, and Orff—stop giving a shit. People are going to think what they're going to think no matter what. You're not going to make everyone happy—so why impose needless restrictions on yourself? Sounds silly, right?
Voss
They don't care what someone else thinks about what they're doing. Look at 'Carmina Burana.' One of the most famous operas in the world (and it is an opera—I refuse to dispute that fact) has an entire movement about a goose being boiled (or it might be a duck) from the goose's (duck's?) perspective. Or look at, say, 'The Barber of Seville', my personal favorite opera. The scene right before the intermission is about how they all have headaches and are going crazy—for fifteen solid minutes.
Opera has this stigma, you see, and I don't get it. Someone apparently decided, long before I was born, that opera is boring, but I have to assume that, whoever that was, never even saw one. Opera is far from boring. It's the single most exciting art form out there. Sex, murder, betrayal, fantasy, magic, crossdressing—it's like every season of 'Passions' thrown into three hours, with a musical score.
What does it have to do with writing? It shows a good, gung-ho philosophy that's sorely lacking in literature, outside maybe bizarro fiction and books about opera. We all have this useless, mostly self-imposed set of rules that tells us what we can and cannot do in our writing. Of course, when you lay it out like that, it becomes petty obvious that it's bullshit. If it's our writing, then we can do whatever we like. Sure, there are some things you have to be careful of if you want into a specific market but, for once, we're not focusing on the commercial aspect, here. This is about writing your book or your story, exactly the way it should be. Believe it or not, chances are you're not going to offend people if you write it the way you know you should. Okay, you won't offend any more people than you would normally.
So take a hint from Wagner, Rossini, Ravel, and Orff—stop giving a shit. People are going to think what they're going to think no matter what. You're not going to make everyone happy—so why impose needless restrictions on yourself? Sounds silly, right?
Voss
Monday, April 16, 2012
Norm!
'Cheers' fans—anyone with me?
There's a reason 'Cheers' was so successful—the characters. I can say Sam Malone and we all get the same ladies' man, misogynistic, former alcoholic barkeep running through our head. Heck, all I had to do was bring up Norm and everyone got it, right? They have sticking power because, like most really good characters, they're caricatures, just a little shy of reality. That doesn't mean they're unsympathetic—who here doesn't feel for Carla, somewhere deep down inside of you?—but they're not real people. That's what makes the most recognizable, beloved characters, and there are some real masters out there—Mervyn Peakes comes to mind, for me, as well as Robert Rodriguez and Tetsuya Nomura.
How does it work? I have an exercise (I know, I know—I always have an exercise. Sue me.) to help out with that. We all have at least one character sitting in our brains fully formed, right? Get them clear in your head right now, and then grab your thesaurus. Yes, I said the 'T' word. That little book you've been told to keep shelved for so long is officially allowed out of its cage.
I want you to make a list of, say, three to five words that you would use in a brief description of this character—leave some space between them, though, enough to jot down some words. Now take your first word and—no, don't touch the thesaurus yet!—think about it. How many connected words can you think of that bring the right effect to your character? If you wrote angular, maybe you're thinking sharp or pointed or spiny or carved or harsh—anything you can come up with for that single descriptor on your own.
Once you've done that for all of them, crack the thesaurus and go to what you think the best word is on each aspect's list. It may be the original one, or it may not. What matters is that it speaks to you. Put that on another list and look it up in the thesaurus and list your favorites of those words. That's not to say you'll be using them as descriptors in your work, but you now have a different view of this character, a different, perhaps deeper understanding of them physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Now, you could do it for all of your characters—it sounds like a good bit of fun—but eventually you won't have to. Eventually it will internalize and you'll start pulling things together naturally—and that's when your writing really takes off, in my opinion. When you create these skewed characters, it makes your work look better. It sounds crazy but, in practice, it works. Looks at Miranda Priestly from 'The Devil Wears Prada.' No one is actually like that. Look at Irma Prunesquallor from 'Titus Groan.' No one actually looks like that. El Mariachi from 'Desperado', 'El Mariachi' and 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico', Rorschach from 'Watchmen', Bellatrix Lestrange from 'Harry Potter'—they're not realistic. Everyone says they want realism in their fiction, but they want a semblance of realism, in reality (really).
It might sound crazy, but what's the harm in trying?
Trying to figure out how to make people yell my name when I enter the room,
Voss
There's a reason 'Cheers' was so successful—the characters. I can say Sam Malone and we all get the same ladies' man, misogynistic, former alcoholic barkeep running through our head. Heck, all I had to do was bring up Norm and everyone got it, right? They have sticking power because, like most really good characters, they're caricatures, just a little shy of reality. That doesn't mean they're unsympathetic—who here doesn't feel for Carla, somewhere deep down inside of you?—but they're not real people. That's what makes the most recognizable, beloved characters, and there are some real masters out there—Mervyn Peakes comes to mind, for me, as well as Robert Rodriguez and Tetsuya Nomura.
How does it work? I have an exercise (I know, I know—I always have an exercise. Sue me.) to help out with that. We all have at least one character sitting in our brains fully formed, right? Get them clear in your head right now, and then grab your thesaurus. Yes, I said the 'T' word. That little book you've been told to keep shelved for so long is officially allowed out of its cage.
I want you to make a list of, say, three to five words that you would use in a brief description of this character—leave some space between them, though, enough to jot down some words. Now take your first word and—no, don't touch the thesaurus yet!—think about it. How many connected words can you think of that bring the right effect to your character? If you wrote angular, maybe you're thinking sharp or pointed or spiny or carved or harsh—anything you can come up with for that single descriptor on your own.
Once you've done that for all of them, crack the thesaurus and go to what you think the best word is on each aspect's list. It may be the original one, or it may not. What matters is that it speaks to you. Put that on another list and look it up in the thesaurus and list your favorites of those words. That's not to say you'll be using them as descriptors in your work, but you now have a different view of this character, a different, perhaps deeper understanding of them physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Now, you could do it for all of your characters—it sounds like a good bit of fun—but eventually you won't have to. Eventually it will internalize and you'll start pulling things together naturally—and that's when your writing really takes off, in my opinion. When you create these skewed characters, it makes your work look better. It sounds crazy but, in practice, it works. Looks at Miranda Priestly from 'The Devil Wears Prada.' No one is actually like that. Look at Irma Prunesquallor from 'Titus Groan.' No one actually looks like that. El Mariachi from 'Desperado', 'El Mariachi' and 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico', Rorschach from 'Watchmen', Bellatrix Lestrange from 'Harry Potter'—they're not realistic. Everyone says they want realism in their fiction, but they want a semblance of realism, in reality (really).
It might sound crazy, but what's the harm in trying?
Trying to figure out how to make people yell my name when I enter the room,
Voss
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Purely Titular
(This post is unaffiliated with the A to Z Challenge)
So, over the course of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, the title of my blog has been brought up a few times. Well, I've been putting off this post since I started the blog, but I guess it's time to cover the information. Are you ready?
It's a ploy to get people in here. It sounds really cool and draws the attention of sci-fi and fantasy fans.
Now, for those that didn't really buy that, yes there's more to it.
Demon hunting is the subject of my very first full-length manuscript (Tartaros). Ever since I met one particular person, I've been minorly obsessed with Catholic demonology. While it doesn't feature a whole lot into 'Tartaros,' I do have a copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon on my computer, and I peruse it from time to time for fun.
As for the tenth-dimensional physics...I like it. A lot. I don't really get along with regular physics that much. But quantum physics/mechanics, I can work with. They make sense. So, if you read my sci-fi, you'll almost assuredly be able to find some reference to some dimension from four to eleven. I chose ten because it's a nice, easy to understand dimension in physics, and it sounds good after demon hunting.
So no, I don't post a whole lot of anything to do with demonology or science on my blog, it's entirely an interesting title to get my hooks in.
Glad to be over with that,
Voss
So, over the course of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, the title of my blog has been brought up a few times. Well, I've been putting off this post since I started the blog, but I guess it's time to cover the information. Are you ready?
It's a ploy to get people in here. It sounds really cool and draws the attention of sci-fi and fantasy fans.
Now, for those that didn't really buy that, yes there's more to it.
Demon hunting is the subject of my very first full-length manuscript (Tartaros). Ever since I met one particular person, I've been minorly obsessed with Catholic demonology. While it doesn't feature a whole lot into 'Tartaros,' I do have a copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon on my computer, and I peruse it from time to time for fun.
As for the tenth-dimensional physics...I like it. A lot. I don't really get along with regular physics that much. But quantum physics/mechanics, I can work with. They make sense. So, if you read my sci-fi, you'll almost assuredly be able to find some reference to some dimension from four to eleven. I chose ten because it's a nice, easy to understand dimension in physics, and it sounds good after demon hunting.
So no, I don't post a whole lot of anything to do with demonology or science on my blog, it's entirely an interesting title to get my hooks in.
Glad to be over with that,
Voss
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Modifying the Standard
Classic image of Hell: fire and brimstone.
Classic image of a dragon: great, bloody, flying, fire-breathing lizard.
Classic image of high elves: noble, slender, beautiful, ancient humanoids.
Classic portrayal of magic: muttering magic words and *bam* magic.
I could go on. These are all wonderful—especially as fallbacks, little minor things to fill in at the spur of the moment, since they require no real explanation—but boring. If something classic is going to figure into your work, change it up a little. I once read an interview with Masashi Kishimoto (the writer and artist for Naruto) on how he came up with the world. He just said (I'm paraphrasing) that most of what he came up with was him just trying to break the norm. Ninja? Put him in an orange track suit. Magic? Screw magic words, they're just going to make pretty symbols with their hands.
Guess what? It worked! Huge, multi-national franchise from a blonde, orange ninja that makes shadow puppets (I love Naruto, don't get me wrong on that point. The world-building is breathtaking, to say the least.)!
So, why not have some fun and change it up? It's one of my favorite exercises. Take a basic idea like dragons and see where you can go. Sure, fire-breathing is awesome, but take a look at Douglas Niles' drackans from the Watershed Trilogy. They breathe a fog that knocks out their prey...until they taste darkblood. Then it turns into a scorching blast of steam. They have a carapace over their wings that breaks open after puberty. They have a color war between brown and green. I love them.
Dwarves don't always have to dig tunnels and have excess body hair. Who says there can't be comely, dwarves? Who says elves have to be gorgeous, or shoot arrows? Why can't an elf, just once, shoot a sub-machine gun, or be a heroin addict?
The best wizard I've seen wasn't just kooky and wise—he was just insane, rambling, and had no bloody idea what he was talking about.
We all know the normal things, but they've been done to death, revived, and killed again at this point. Yes, you are going to get crap from people for messing with the 'official' lore. Stephenie Meyer did, and she has one of the best vampire mythos I've read. But, you can also root into the foundation much better with something different—I bring you to Meyer again. In today's age, vampires sparkle and are very, very pretty.
So, take a chance and have some fun. Screw the norm, just do what you want to do—if you prefer that your dragons live underwater and knit sweaters for the fish, make it work.
Now go, frolic with your imagination,
Voss
Classic image of a dragon: great, bloody, flying, fire-breathing lizard.
Classic image of high elves: noble, slender, beautiful, ancient humanoids.
Classic portrayal of magic: muttering magic words and *bam* magic.
I could go on. These are all wonderful—especially as fallbacks, little minor things to fill in at the spur of the moment, since they require no real explanation—but boring. If something classic is going to figure into your work, change it up a little. I once read an interview with Masashi Kishimoto (the writer and artist for Naruto) on how he came up with the world. He just said (I'm paraphrasing) that most of what he came up with was him just trying to break the norm. Ninja? Put him in an orange track suit. Magic? Screw magic words, they're just going to make pretty symbols with their hands.
Guess what? It worked! Huge, multi-national franchise from a blonde, orange ninja that makes shadow puppets (I love Naruto, don't get me wrong on that point. The world-building is breathtaking, to say the least.)!
So, why not have some fun and change it up? It's one of my favorite exercises. Take a basic idea like dragons and see where you can go. Sure, fire-breathing is awesome, but take a look at Douglas Niles' drackans from the Watershed Trilogy. They breathe a fog that knocks out their prey...until they taste darkblood. Then it turns into a scorching blast of steam. They have a carapace over their wings that breaks open after puberty. They have a color war between brown and green. I love them.
Dwarves don't always have to dig tunnels and have excess body hair. Who says there can't be comely, dwarves? Who says elves have to be gorgeous, or shoot arrows? Why can't an elf, just once, shoot a sub-machine gun, or be a heroin addict?
The best wizard I've seen wasn't just kooky and wise—he was just insane, rambling, and had no bloody idea what he was talking about.
We all know the normal things, but they've been done to death, revived, and killed again at this point. Yes, you are going to get crap from people for messing with the 'official' lore. Stephenie Meyer did, and she has one of the best vampire mythos I've read. But, you can also root into the foundation much better with something different—I bring you to Meyer again. In today's age, vampires sparkle and are very, very pretty.
So, take a chance and have some fun. Screw the norm, just do what you want to do—if you prefer that your dragons live underwater and knit sweaters for the fish, make it work.
Now go, frolic with your imagination,
Voss
Friday, April 13, 2012
Lamentation of Swans, Fluther of Jellyfish
Yes, a fluther of jellyfish. It's the proper terminology for a group of jellyfish. Trust me. It's an example of the sort of useless knowledge you're bound to pick up along the way. Your characters are no different, but there's a beginning author syndrome dealing with those tidbits—characters always seem to have just the right knowledge for the situation. They've either been to the right city, no matter how obscure, studied the right tribe, no matter how long extinct, or happen to be everything short of a doctor of whichever out-there subject you happen to pull out of your rear end.
That works about, maybe, once. Things aren't easy in real life. Unless your character is under some kind of luck spell or blessed to have an eternal good life, it takes more effort than that to get things taken care of. You can't just have them knowing everything, or have an expert waiting off-stage to explain the entire thing. There's no conflict that way. Somehow or another, they need to earn the information. Sure, there can be flashes of trivial, otherwise useless knowledge, but not a whole slew of it.
Those flashes also provide a unique opportunity for continuity. If you introduce a piece of information early on, and then have it come up later in your plot as being actually useful, it creates resonance. Even if your reader doesn't explicitly, consciously remember the information, hearing it again jogs the memory, and they go 'Hey, there's that thing! You brought it back around! Whose a good author? Whose a good author? You're a good author! Yes you are, yes you are!'
What? That's what authors really want. Honest to goodness.
I suppose this could be more informative, couldn't it? That's kind of why I write fiction, though—I can make it all up. Here, let me try again.
Okay, I think I've got a little more in me. That little trivial knowledge can also be used really well to bring people together. I kind of don't want to admit the number of times I got together with my friends and just talked trivia, or played Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit. It brings people closer to see what menial crap we all know. That's why games like that exist—they're fun and, unless the players are insanely competitive, lighthearted. That's how my first ex and I met, actually—historical trivia.
Okay. I'm officially spent. Not the best night's sleep, I have yet to get coffee, and 'Burlesque' is on—I think it's a good show of focus on my part I wrote this at all.
Considering how much it would take to buy a lamentation of swans,
Voss
That works about, maybe, once. Things aren't easy in real life. Unless your character is under some kind of luck spell or blessed to have an eternal good life, it takes more effort than that to get things taken care of. You can't just have them knowing everything, or have an expert waiting off-stage to explain the entire thing. There's no conflict that way. Somehow or another, they need to earn the information. Sure, there can be flashes of trivial, otherwise useless knowledge, but not a whole slew of it.
Those flashes also provide a unique opportunity for continuity. If you introduce a piece of information early on, and then have it come up later in your plot as being actually useful, it creates resonance. Even if your reader doesn't explicitly, consciously remember the information, hearing it again jogs the memory, and they go 'Hey, there's that thing! You brought it back around! Whose a good author? Whose a good author? You're a good author! Yes you are, yes you are!'
What? That's what authors really want. Honest to goodness.
I suppose this could be more informative, couldn't it? That's kind of why I write fiction, though—I can make it all up. Here, let me try again.
Okay, I think I've got a little more in me. That little trivial knowledge can also be used really well to bring people together. I kind of don't want to admit the number of times I got together with my friends and just talked trivia, or played Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit. It brings people closer to see what menial crap we all know. That's why games like that exist—they're fun and, unless the players are insanely competitive, lighthearted. That's how my first ex and I met, actually—historical trivia.
Okay. I'm officially spent. Not the best night's sleep, I have yet to get coffee, and 'Burlesque' is on—I think it's a good show of focus on my part I wrote this at all.
Considering how much it would take to buy a lamentation of swans,
Voss
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Kids
“I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!”
Sorry. Broadway moment. I'm talking about using kids as tools in our writing. Okay, that sounds really bad, but that's what it really is. Little kids are great tools to provide dialogue, get your more mature characters thinking, and provide more internal conflict. Plus kids provide the cute factor for the reader, and they make your characters care about someone that can't take care of him/herself. And putting kids in dangerous, potentially lethal situations, while a pretty cheap emotional ploy, works.
But I'm not here to talk about putting kids in dangerous situations. Well, maybe a little—I'm not above manipulative writing on occasion. When I started thinking about this post, I was thinking more about that old(ish) show, 'Kids Say the Darndest Things.' It didn't happen very often, of course, but on occasion the kids on that show would say something very apt, or something that would just make an adult stop. It's because kids are innocent, and don't really know those unspoken societal laws we old fogies have ingrained in us. When confronted with that childlike honesty, how your characters respond is a quick and cheap way to show us a serious part of their personality.
They can also increase conflict in a very serious manner, especially when you have a romance or action-based plot. Think about it. If your romantic interest has a kid and your main character is reluctant about children, you have instantaneous conflict, and a chance to soften the main character's personality through the course of the plot. In action-based books, unless your main character is a heartless asshole, when you somehow or another put the kid in danger, your characters are going to have to go out of their way to keep the young one safe from the marauding demons or what have you.
Now, when you do put kids in dangerous situations, don't waste that reader reaction, either. One of the easiest things to do is make your reader hate someone or something for trying to harm the little kid. As soon as, say, your evil sorcerer tries to sacrifice a child (or, better yet, a schoolhouse full of children) to the Nameless Dark One for ultimate power or something, your reader is going to call him an asshole and want revenge.
So yes, when it comes to literature, children are really good multitask tools. Simple as that.
Voss
Sorry. Broadway moment. I'm talking about using kids as tools in our writing. Okay, that sounds really bad, but that's what it really is. Little kids are great tools to provide dialogue, get your more mature characters thinking, and provide more internal conflict. Plus kids provide the cute factor for the reader, and they make your characters care about someone that can't take care of him/herself. And putting kids in dangerous, potentially lethal situations, while a pretty cheap emotional ploy, works.
But I'm not here to talk about putting kids in dangerous situations. Well, maybe a little—I'm not above manipulative writing on occasion. When I started thinking about this post, I was thinking more about that old(ish) show, 'Kids Say the Darndest Things.' It didn't happen very often, of course, but on occasion the kids on that show would say something very apt, or something that would just make an adult stop. It's because kids are innocent, and don't really know those unspoken societal laws we old fogies have ingrained in us. When confronted with that childlike honesty, how your characters respond is a quick and cheap way to show us a serious part of their personality.
They can also increase conflict in a very serious manner, especially when you have a romance or action-based plot. Think about it. If your romantic interest has a kid and your main character is reluctant about children, you have instantaneous conflict, and a chance to soften the main character's personality through the course of the plot. In action-based books, unless your main character is a heartless asshole, when you somehow or another put the kid in danger, your characters are going to have to go out of their way to keep the young one safe from the marauding demons or what have you.
Now, when you do put kids in dangerous situations, don't waste that reader reaction, either. One of the easiest things to do is make your reader hate someone or something for trying to harm the little kid. As soon as, say, your evil sorcerer tries to sacrifice a child (or, better yet, a schoolhouse full of children) to the Nameless Dark One for ultimate power or something, your reader is going to call him an asshole and want revenge.
So yes, when it comes to literature, children are really good multitask tools. Simple as that.
Voss
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