Concatenation

I played World of Warcraft, off and on, for about a year back around 2006.  I quit because it was expensive, addictive, and not even fun.  Around 2008 or 2009, I became interested in watching machinima—videos made using games, especially but not exclusively World of Warcraft.  I watched a lot of Oxhorn.  I still follow Cranius, who makes videos with Legs.

Probably the most impressive machinima I saw turned out not to be a machinima at all, but rendered animation.  You can watch it here:
The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.

The song is jpop singer Namie Amuro’s “Hide and Seek.”  I have a friend, whom I’ll call Ruby, who is a huge Namie Amuro fan, but I was just uninterested. My elder sister is a huge fan of the Japanese rock group L’arc en Ciel, which I never liked and probably biased me against Namie Amuro. 

Then I saw this video again and again, and the song really grew on me.  I wanted to hear more by the artist, but the few clips I looked up sounded nothing like “Hide and Seek,” and the story might have ended there, except that I became roommates with Ruby.  We lived together almost three years, and in that time, I watching all of Namie Amuro’s music videos and concert DVDs and acquired about eight of her albums and was generally converted into a fan.

Although most of her music still sounds nothing like “Hide and Seek.”  In fact, I get the impression (from her concert DVDs) that she doesn’t even like the song.  Oh, well.

So what was the point of all this?

Namie Amuro recently turned 40 and, after a 25-year music career, decided to retire.  I guess dancing energetically for three hours straight in high heels while singing flawlessly is pretty tough on a body, and one might want to do something different.

Anyway, I received an email from Ruby that had been sent at about 2am saying that Namie Amuro’s ~Finally~ concert was sold out in Japan, but that there were plenty of tickets left in Taipei, Taiwan, in about a month, and would I like to go?

Which is how and why I was in Taiwan for a week.

And it was amazing.

Pushing Past Personal Limits

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post called Writing Advice, in which I listed the (few) things I believe are necessary for writing well.  I still stand by that post, although I think I’d like to add one item to it:

Writers, get more exercise.

If you’re anything like me, you have a tendency to sit for ages in front of the computer or with a notebook, which is great if you want to look like Jabba the Hutt but not so great if you want actual blood flow to your brain.  So you just sit there, getting stupider, when twenty minutes of exercise would cut right through your writer’s block and overall make you a happier, healthier person.

You’ll also learn a lot about writing action sequences and their after effects.  Have you ever worked out until you wanted to puke and faint?

I did, last week, because I did a high-intensity Zumba . . . my first really serious exercise in seven months.  15 minutes in, I honesty wanted to puke and faint.  I had to put my head between my knees for 30 seconds.  Then I kept going, and the endorphins kicked in.  After 45 minutes of Zumba, I felt like I could dance forever—and love it.

(Boy, was I sore the next day.)

And that’s something a lot of writers don’t bother with: action sequences leave you sore and aching (and often bruised and cut and broken and headachy and weak), and this effects not just what you can do physically, but what you can do mentally.  That hour of Zumba pretty much knocked out my brain for the rest of the day.  But after a week of getting lots of exercise, when I went back . . . I didn’t feel like puking or fainting.  I just felt fantastic.  And it totally worked out my soreness from the strength-training yoga two days earlier.

So exercise not only improves your brain and body, it also teaches you what certain types of exertion feel like.

But that’s not what I sat down to write about—it’s just what reminded me of it.

In my life, two instances stick out to me where I (out of character) exerted myself far beyond what I might have believed possible.  These aren’t necessarily the most exertion I’ve ever gotten—just the ones that I’m amazed at myself about.  Because I didn’t have to do them, and (beforehand), I couldn’t imagine wanting to try.

The first happened when I was maybe eleven years old.  I was a competitive swimmer.  One Saturday, during our dry land training, one of our coaches decided to run a contest: whoever could do the wall sit, with good form, for the longest would get a free PowerAde.

After 15 minutes, she begged us to stop, and promised that the six or seven of us left—er—sitting would all get a PowerAde.

I literally couldn’t walk after that. 

I have never, before or since, done the wall sit for more than a minute.  I’ve never enjoyed the wall sit.  But I did it.  And I got a PowerAde.

Yay?

The thing is, in the end, it wasn’t about the PowerAde.  It wasn’t even about my fellow competitors.  I just kept going because I was keeping going.  I think I would have been there for twice as long, if she hadn’t stopped us.  What madness is this?

The other time was last July 4^th.  I’d been doing Zumba for a couple of months by then, and I was friends with the woman who owned the dance studio.  She asked us to Zumba for the Fourth of July parade through town: 3.5 miles at noon in 95° weather.

I hate heat.  I’m not huge on physical exertion.  I wasn’t in that great of shape.

Our instructors dropped out halfway through.

I danced the whole way.  I was the only one who danced the whole way, and one of only two dancing at the end (my sister danced most of the way, but came over faint near the beginning and had to stop).  I danced through the puke stage, through the elation stage.  I danced through the fatigue stage and through the collapse stage.  I danced until my body’s air conditioning kicked in and I had chills running down my limbs.  I danced beyond all sense, beyond all endurance, and I smiled the whole time.

Why?  Madness?  Masochism?  No: because the people at the end of the parade deserved to see dancing as much as the people at the beginning.

How strange and uncharacteristic those two events—that wall sit and parade Zumba—were for me.  I never would have believed them of myself, but they’re true.  And now I know a little more about myself, and about what will drive me to push myself beyond endurance.

What would push your protagonist to that level?

Story Hook

Went to a writing workshop yesterday, which included a section on hooks. As an exercise, we were told to write a hook, "enough that a reader could get at least a sense of what kind of story it is. A romance? An epic fantasy? A horror story? A story about your cat? An epic horror story about your cat?"

So naturally, I wrote this. And when he asked for volunteers to read aloud, I couldn't resist  . . .

The eyes watched me.

The rest of the cat stalked down in the valley, disemboweling cattle and tormenting sheep, but the rest of the cat didn't matter. It wasn't dangerous. Only the eyes could hurt me now, because the eyes were the windows to the soul, and I was already dead.

I wrote another prompt too, for the fun of it, for a short humorous story I've been meaning for years to write -- "Financial Wizard."  It's about time to do that.

Bribing Cops

 

Three books I love.  One satirical literary fantasy, one Gothic romance horror, one epic high fantasy.  What do they have in common, aside from being amazing?  They’ve all been translated from another language—in these cases, German, French, and Russian.  And I’m currently rereading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is what prompted this post.

About two years ago, I went on a modern books-in-translation binge, especially Russian books.  Since 2016, I’ve read at least twelve books in Russian translation (the best of which is definitely the aforementioned Chronicles of Siala, beginning with Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov, translated by Andrew Bromfield).

One of the most fascinating things about this is one starts to see trends.  Most of the books I’ve read are either British or American (with the occasional Australian/Canadian/Irish/ etc. author thrown in).  Every nationality and culture has its own unique flavor, but all of these, ultimately, came out of the British empire, and so aren’t that different.  I’ve had a little more diversity through editing—I’ve edited for quite a few native Chinese speakers, whether they now live in China, Singapore, the U.S. or elsewhere—but my only real encounter with Russian culture was the semester of Russian I took my first year of college.  (And Russian Sherlock Holmes, of course).  Then I later had more exposure through a friend of mine who is a professional chess player and teacher (and with whom I wrote Game of Kings.)  But learning about a culture in class or hearing funny chess stories is much different than engaging with literature.

Here’s an example:

In every Russian book I read, police officers and guards could be bribed.  Almost all of them, almost always.  Didn’t matter if the books were high fantasy, sci-fi, or low fantasy, you could bribe law enforcement.  In none of these books was this made a big deal of; it was simply a fact of life.

Compare this to British/American stories.  When you find any bribable cop, he’s the exception, and scandalous.

That’s one of the fascinating things, to me, about reading books from less familiar cultures, especially in translation.  Not only will a good translator give you a taste of the language, the writer will give you a taste of something foreign—not through explaining it to you as in a class, but through trends of basic assumptions.

(Well, that and the fact that you have a higher probability of finding higher quality books in translation, since otherwise no one would have bothered to translate them.)

And through those basic assumptions, you begin to see your own assumptions—which may be more or less interesting.

Diana Wynne Jones

Written 2014.

I first had the pleasure of reading one of Diana Wynne Jones’s books when I was twelve years old.  I got it from a bookstore, and it wasn’t the book I intended to buy.  I don’t remember which book I wanted, only that it wasn’t on the bookshelf, and so I regretfully settled for The Homeward Bounders.

I was writing a book of my own at the time, one which involved the protagonist going from world to world for unspecified reasons.  As soon as I read The Homeward Bounders, I knew that here was exactly the book I wanted to write, but simply wasn’t good enough to manage.

Years passed.  One by one, I began to acquire Diana Wynne Jones’s books.  The library had a dozen, but a dozen wasn’t enough.  Besides, what if one was checked out?  What if the library wasn’t open?  What if I wanted to read one, but had no way to get to the library?  I had to own them.

Now it’s 2014.  I never stopped writing (what writer can?), and I never stopped adoring Diana Wynne Jones’s books.  When I, as I invariably do, run out of things to read, I slope over to my bookshelf and glumly look at my collection.  Should I read that?  I’ve read it a dozen times; surely any book pales after that many reads.  (Hers only get better.  How could I have missed so much on my first read?  Or my fifth?)  I pick out one of hers.  I have read her books aloud to my sisters and roommate, and sometimes failed to read them aloud because I was laughing so hard.  I’m never disappointed.

I’m not embarrassed to read what some would call children’s books.  Or if I ever am embarrassed, I remember that I shouldn’t let that stop me.  I learned that from Fire and Hemlock.  I’ve learned so many things from her books over the years.  I’ve learned about people and about writing, about magic and about possibilities, about humor.

This competition says I’m supposed to write about how I’m Diana Wynne Jones’s greatest fan—but, frankly, there’s nothing great or special about my being a fan of hers.  Of course she’s my favorite author.  Of course I read her books again and again.  Of course I admire her work.  But that is not greatness in me; it is greatness in her.

But for myself, I can say this: in all I write, there will always be a little of her, a faint echo of all that I have learned and laughed and enjoyed from her books.  And I suppose that’s greatness of a sort.

How (Not) to Write a Series

So, I’m going to be talking a bit about things that ruin (or at least bring down) book series . . . when I loved the first book.  These aren’t absolute rules; but I do think they’re things to consider when writing.  Thinking about them has certainly prevented me from doing some things I really dislike in other authors.  All of the examples I use below are from real books by good writers.

So, without further ado:

1)      Changing protagonists between books.  I’ve read a couple of trilogies in which each book in the trilogy is written from a different character’s point of view.  In each case, the trilogy gets further and further from the original protagonist, so that that character is barely a footnote in book 3.  Why do I hate this?  Because I get very attached to my protagonists.  I want to read more about them, not about some character I barely know or have never met.

Doing this right: in his Bartimaeus trilogy, Jonathan Stroud adds a protagonist (who does sometimes hold the narrative) for books 2 and 3.  But he doesn’t get rid of his other protagonists.

In the Animorphs series, K.A. Applegate rotates the narrative between six protagonists.

2)      Excessive time lapses between books.  In effect, having excessive gaps between books can be the same thing.  If it’s been 10 years since we last saw our protagonist, who was then about 18, then the protagonist and surrounding characters are, in essence, different characters.  I don’t want to know what happens to the hero in 10 years—I want to know what happens next.

Doing this right: the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher sometimes has a jump between books, but he doesn’t do it in a way that I feel I’ve missed anything.  He fills the reader in.  Basically, the jumps between books are of all the unimportant filler bits—just like the jumps inside books.

3)      Nothing ever changes.  This is in some ways the opposite problem to #2.  Instead of too much changing, nothing ever changes.  Maybe things will sometimes look like they’re going to change, but it’s one step forward, one step back.  Soap operas do this a lot, and I find it very frustrating.  I want things to progress at a reasonable rate!  Otherwise, what’s even the point of having more than one book?

Doing this right: in the Nero Wolfe series, no one ever ages and neither of our protagonists gets married or moves away; they stay the same.  But the story isn’t about them: it’s about the mystery.  And the mystery is different in each book.  Personally, I wish Sherlock Holmes had been written like this . . . indeed, most of the TV show adaptations use this method.

4)      Changing genres between books.  There is a series of books I absolutely love.  They’re action-packed space opera . . . except that book 9 is instead a romance.  Not even a very well-written romance.  This isn’t an insult to romance novels, but if I want to read a romance series, I’ll read a romance series.  You promised me awesome space action, darn it, so what’s this nonsense?

Doing this right: in the Alien franchise, Alien is a horror survival film but Aliens is more of a military sci-fi thriller, Alien 3 is tonally fatalistic, Prometheus is more of a philosophical, exploratory film with horror elements, and Alien: Covenant is a combination.  Every film in the franchise feels like a different genre . . . yet somehow (with the exception of Alien: Resurrection, which felt to me like bad fanfiction), they work together.

5)      Not staying true to your premise: internal consistency.  This is related to #4, but is more internal to books.  It deals with proper and consistent characterization within your world and with consistent world-building.  This one seems to come out particularly in relation to sex.  Many authors, regardless of their settings and characters, write their characters with their, the author’s, sexual mores . . . when it makes zero sense.  If your hero is a very proper, religious, Victorian gentleman faithfully devoted to his fiancée, he should not out of the blue meet a rather rough woman and immediately decide to have sex with her.  Similarly, if your character is in a celibate profession in a world that Takes That Seriously, he should not just decide to get married because you, the author, want some romance.  Write a different character, if that’s what you want.

Doing this right: Harry Potter is a good example.  Rowling expands the universe with each book and lets the protagonists develop naturally.

6)      Not staying true to your characters: I’ve also seen this take the form of either creating caricatures of/writing fanfiction* about your own characters.  I read the sequel to one book, and found all the characters had turned into bizarre, exaggerated versions of themselves.  Then there’s a rather famous book that develops an awesome and intense villain.  Then in book 2, this villain is suddenly the hero with a backstory that’s basically a watered-down version of the hero’s story in book 1.  It’s an absolute waste.  Based on the way it’s written, my theory is that the author fell in love with his/her own character and so decided to retroactively make him “awesome.”  What this actually does is make him weak and pathetic.  This doesn’t mean your characters can’t learn and grow—they should.  But it should be natural growth.

*I love fanfiction, but there’s a time and a place for it.  And it’s for your fans, not you.  You shouldn’t be writing it about your own book.

Doing this right: It’s hard for a character to undergo a major shift while staying the same person, but it can be done.  The trick is to push the character past the breaking point so that a major transition between books/movies makes sense.  Darth Vader managed this between III and IV.  I’m having a hard time thinking of a book example, but I’d love to read one if anyone has a suggestion.

7)      Letting your protagonist get boring: It’s hard to know what to do with a really long series.  Some authors solve this by never letting their characters age—something that works well for detective stories.  But many series want their protagonists to continue to age, and that’s fine.  Just don’t let them get boring!  I don’t mean that your character can’t meet a romantic interest and get married and have kids.  But if your hero has previously been zipping around the galaxy performing heists, then don’t make him stay at home dealing with bureaucratic issues while waiting for the birth of his children.  Give him a spouse who will help him be more exciting, not drag him down.

Doing this right: the Star Wars Expanded Universe (or Legends).  These novels vary in quality, but Timothy Zahn starts us off very strong, and I’d also like to put in a good work for Matthew Stover’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. I haven’t read all the post-VI EU books, but the ones I’ve read keep all our heroes in character and interesting/awesome while letting them marry and have children and progress with their lives.

8)      Undoing the ending.  This usually comes about when the original material wasn't written to have a sequel but was then so successful that the maker decided to add a sequel . . . and so retroactively reset the universe (this fits into #2).  Either that, or the sequel is written years later and the writer tries to be realistic by being pessimistic.  So: you know that romance you were rooting for that finally came to pass?  Yeah, it went down the chute after the last installment and you'll never see that person again.  Or that happy ending?  Nah, they died off screen/ between books.  How about everything we've been working for for the entire series?  Disappeared when you weren't watching.  I hate this.  I will sometimes refuse to watch or read a sequel if it does this.  If I care at all about the characters, this will absolutely ruin the entire series for me.

Doing this right: I'm not sure I can think of any example, because the story needs to move forward, not back.  I have seen fanfiction that fixes problems with the source material by creating sequels (like, why did Loki have such a stupid plan in the Avengers?  Well, because he was building towards something else/ his motivation wasn't what people assumed.  I've seen multiple fan sequels that do this very well indeed).  This is, in fact one area in which fanfiction excels: recognizing and fixing problems.

TL;DR: Stay true to the premise and characters you’ve set up in book one, and progress that story at a moderate rate without undoing your ending or progress.

Based on a Real Person

In my career as an editor, I came to realize that the “these characters are based on no living people, living or dead” found in the beginning of only some books is, in many cases, nonsense. 

Of course, no writer writes in a void.  We all pick up ideas from our surroundings: from the people with whom we interact, the places we go, the jobs we work, and the books we read.  Where the wonderful diversity in writing comes from is in how we process these factors.  Take three professional gardeners, male, 30 years old, residents of Butte, Montana, married with two children and have them all read The Lord of the Rings and then write an original short story . . . and you will get three very different stories with perhaps a few connecting elements.

I am the middle of three sisters, separated from the eldest by 1.5 years and the youngest by 2.5 years.  We grew up in the same household, read many of the same books, and wrote.  We have approximately equal levels of intelligence and native writing talent, although I have done by far the most to develop that talent by writing most prolifically.  All of us write fantasy sometimes, but that fantasy is vastly different—not only in basic subject, but in the language we use, the descriptions, the settings, the characters, and so on.

But that’s not where I was going with this.  Where I was going was the phenomenon of basing characters off real people.  Since we don’t live in a void, everyone must necessarily take real life elements and recombine them; but some writers explicitly base characters on real people and some writers do not.

A writing friend of mine and I had a long discussion about this several years ago.  She is the sort of writer who loves basing characters on real people—indeed, does so almost exclusively.  There is practically no character in any of her books not based on a real person.  But contrast, nearly none of my characters are based on real people.  I find that trying to base a character on a real person (and I’ve tried this; some people are just so interesting they need to be written about—or I need some catharsis after dealing with them) makes it impossible for me to write them.  I get stuck in a box, unable to move creatively in directions untrue to the original person but not knowing the original person deeply enough to be interesting.

What sort of writer are you, if you do write—and if not, which do you think you would be?  And why?