When NOT to use the hero's journey mentor pattern

The Mentor character is a very familiar one, especially in hero journeys and coming-of-age stories.  The pretty classic formula for the mentor (Obi-Wan, Gandalf, Dumbledore) goes like this:

After the protagonist becomes committed to the quest, the mentor provides advice, help, and tools.  Once the quest gets tough, however, the mentor disappears (or dies) and doesn’t come back for a long time.  If the mentor does finally come back, it is in a different capacity: he can sometimes advise or deal with events elsewhere (or maybe he just left a helpful diary), but he can no longer personally lead the hero through what only the hero can do.

This formula worked just fine in Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, because those three stories following the coming-of-age of the new guard (SW and HP) or the lone adventure of an everyman (TLOTR).  But what happens when the protagonist is in a power growth fantasy?  Take the following story:

Y is a high school student who is possessed by a dangerous magical entity but who manages to retain control.  He slowly begins to be able to use the entity’s magic himself, but in the process, the entity becomes more and more powerful.  If he doesn’t keep the entity under control, the entity will destroy everything.

Enter Professor G.  Professor G is the strongest sorcerer in the world, although only in his mid-twenties.  In order to fight internal corruption in the magic world, Professor G has been recruiting and training sorcerers who have the potential to be as powerful as he is.  Impressed at Y’s potential, Professor G brings Y to his magic school and begins training him.

So far, we have a pretty classic beginning, but there are two big differences here between this story and Star Wars or Harry Potter, and those differences are important: first, Professor G is less than a decade older than Y, which means Y can’t be the new guard replacing the old guard—they’re the same generation.  Second, Y is explicitly said to have the potential to be as powerful as Professor G within the course of a few years—which is certainly not the case for Harry or Frodo.  (Luke has the potential to be more powerful than Obi-Wan, but, as with the others, the age gap is huge.)

There’s one more element that I haven’t mentioned, but which is very important for story and character development: Y is a fairly classic, good-hearted and grimly determined hero, whereas Professor G is silly and extravagant.  This not only creates a very different interpersonal dynamic than the classic hero-mentor dynamic, it also lends the story much-needed variety.

Now, given this information, let’s plug in the classic next step for the mentor (which is what the story does):

When things become dangerous, the villains specifically target Professor G and trick him into being trapped.  Now Y is fighting them alone, without the help of the world’s most powerful sorcerer, and the situation is dire.

And here is where everything falls apart.  Let me explain:

1. The Protagonist Looks Pathetic #1: The author (irl) got Professor G out of the way because G was overshadowing Y by being way cooler and more fun than him.  But how pathetic is that?  You don’t make you’re protagonist more cool by getting rid of everyone cooler than him; if he isn’t cool enough on his own, that’s a him problem.  Besides, man is judged by the company he keeps.  Y is cooler because Professor G respects him and interacts with him.  What’s more, Professor G provided an excellent foil, and without him, the story becomes a one-note grind.  (Also, you got rid of the best character, you dunce.  I’m not going to keep watching your show now, though I will look up how it ends.)
     Solution: Make Y cooler through keeping his association with Professor G

2. The Protagonist Looks Pathetic #2: The entire premise of the show is that Y has the potential to be as powerful as Professor G.  So if you have to get rid of Professor G to give Y a challenge (since otherwise Professor G would easily solve everything), what does that tell us about Y’s power level?  Besides, since Professor G was the scale by which power is measured in this world, any power growth apart from him is meaningless.
     Solution: Make Y look more powerful by showing he has become worthy to fight alongside Professor G

3. The Villains Look Pathetic: If they can only be a threat when Professor G isn’t around, they aren’t a threat.
     Solution: Make the villains so powerful that they’re a threat even when Professor G is around.

4. Characterization Is Ruined: Professor G is depicted as someone who can only be delayed but never truly stopped, and who endlessly does the impossible.  So the fact that he doesn’t ever figure a way out of the trap by himself . . . is unbelievable and annoying.
     Solution: Keep Professor G in character by having him find his way out. (Bonus: this may itself cause further interesting complications)

5. It Isn’t Awesome.  This is an extreme power-growth magic story.  Having the protagonist not look pathetic isn’t enough; we need the most awesome fight and magic visuals which are full of personality for a variety of battles.  Getting rid of some of the best visuals, and visual variety, is foolish.
     Solution: Include the most awesome climactic sequence by utilizing both Y and Professor G’s powers, personalities, and interactions to the max.

If your goal is to make your protagonist look strong and cool and awesome in a power-growth fantasy, show that he can fight as an equal next to the world’s strongest sorcerer . . . not that the only way to make him look good is by getting rid of everyone better than him.

Note to anyone who figured out which story I'm talking about: yes, I do know how the rest of the series goes and how it ends, and I'm sorry to say it only doubles down on the error I outline here.  

Custom Cover Art

 The Midnight Files returns!

Two years after the end of Amazon's Kindle Vella serial novel format, The Midnight Files is finally being published by Thinklings Books as e-book, paperback, and hardback.  Book One, The First Partner, will be coming this October and  the other two books in Octobers 2027 and 2028.  

It's been a boatload of work reediting these, of course, but that's not what I want to talk about.  Instead, I'm very excited to say that I'm having custom art done for the covers.

Now, not all covers need custom art.  For many, in fact, stock images do as well or better.  However, The Midnight Files really needed its protagonists on the covers but those protagonists also have some extremely specific characteristics that it's frankly impossible to find in a stock photo.  Namely: Nebekah Lawrence's hatchets and Daisy Allen's gloves.

Thinklings Books has an excellent cover designer, but we don't have a dedicated artist, so we turned (where else?) to Fiverr.  After several hours of searching, we found Gaurav.  

It's always a risk, hiring on a new artist, but we thought, based on his previous work, that he might be well-suited creating art for The Midnight Files.  I reached out to him and arranged a custom gig, sent him the files, and he sent me back his first sketch.

The sketch was good, but not quite right.  I'd given him a description of Agent Lawrence for the cover, and she ended up a bit too superhero.  I gave him a few notes.  Now, professionally, for my books and other Thinklings Books and books from clients back in my editing days, I've dealt with a lot of graphic designers, and my experience has generally been a difficulty communicating well with them.  

Not so Gaurav.  He took my notes and ran, not only adjusting everything I'd mentioned but somehow practically reading my mind and getting back to me a sketch that was astonishingly good.

But I hadn't hired him just for his sketch work.  I'd hired him for his brilliant use of light and color, and he didn't disappoint.

This is what he got back to me.  Just look at that back glow . . . and the gleam on those hatchets . . .

Now: is this always how I pictured Agent Lawrence to look?  No, and it's still not.  But it also is, because he captured the essence of her.  He even somehow captured something deep and complex in her expression . . . because from a distance, it looks tough, even angry, but if you zoom in close, it looks somewhat sad.  And that is not only an astonishing combination and achievement from the artist, but also about the truest possible representation you could have as her as a character. . . .

Overall, it's been an interesting and nerve wracking experience.  But I'm extremely happy with the result, and hope you like it too!

I'll continue to update you on the book as time approaches.  At the moment, a proof copy just arrived, and so I'm editing it.  Again.

A Sonnet About Emrys

 

 

A Sonnet About Emrys*

 

Shall I compare him to starless nights?

He is the void, the beautiful abyss

And no one can forget the fearful sights—

Nay, nor recognize anything amiss

In their altered thoughts and crystalline dreams—

Imposed by his intense magnificence:

The reversed brightness like a dark moon seems

Beguiling as wishes, rich as incense.

O Emrys, how above us all you are:

How above our wisdom, your simplest thought;

How above our heads as the distant star

How above our might, in cosmic battles fought.

Yet though we cannot match you, matchless sir,

We love you with a love that's pure as purr.

 

 

*The older of my two black cats: Emrys, who was named for Merlin.

Who was lately sitting in the sun with my Shakespeare Omnibus, which he had just finished reading and was in the midst of contemplating,

A Horatian Ode upon a Hungry Light Switch

 

I recently visited a 6^th-grade classroom, and the following writing prompt was on the board:

“There is a light switch in your house that no one knows what it is for, until 1 day you discover its purpose! Write about this day (6–8 sentences, 6 minutes).”

Although there was zero expectation that I do so, I was intrigued by the prompt and wrote my own version—which, however, took me closer to an hour, since I randomly decided to write it in the form of a Horatian ode.  Or possibly Roald Dahl.  In any case:

 

A Horatian Ode upon a Hungry Light Switch
by Deborah J. Natelson

The light switch on the kitchen wall,
Which seemed to have no use at all
Into its own, one day
Came in a dreadful way.

“It’s for the trash disposal drain,
Since tossing food is such a pain,”
My mom hypothesized—
It drained her before our eyes.

 “It’s for the outdoor lights,” Dad said,
“So you don’t have to reach overhead.”
He flicked the light switch on—
And poof!  His head was gone.

 “It’s just for pranks, some silly game;
A switch for losers.  Totally lame,”
Said Older Brother Chen—
He had two legs, back then.

 “It skews our words, so it can roast
Our family like a Reddit post!”
I smell her burning still—
My sis upon the grill.

 That’s four down of our family;
Its own target left is me.
Unless you’ll come to call—
Feed the switch upon my wall.

An Odd Way of Categorizing Story Types

Writing The Midnight Files has had some interesting effects on the way I view stories.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the basic premise of The Midnight Files is that story genres invade the real world, changing how it functions to match story conventions.  To set the world right, the Agency sends in agents who kill or unravel the story, often by using its own conventions against it.  Or, to put it another way: The Midnight Files is basically TVtropes.com mashed with Supernatural with guest stars from every popular novel/movie/videogame.

One of the things the Agency does to help its agents defeat story genres is by categorizing them into not only genre but strain, type, subtype, and variant.  (Genres are described as “infecting” the real world, so I use some infection vocabulary.)

For example, in Agency parlance:

 

The Haunting of Hill House: Horror genre, House strain (Decadent variant), Malevolent type

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Horror genre, Rules strain, Survive-One-Night type (Multiple Nights variant), Animatronic subtype

Sherlock Holmes: Mystery genre, Private Detective strain (Impersonal variant), Deductive type

Labyrinth: Fantasy genre, Coming-of-Age strain, Fairytale type, Challenge subtype

 

I try to create these categories based on what is most impactful to the nature of how the story plays out, based on patterns I see when related to other stories.  For example, in horror, location often defines a story’s tropes more than the villain: a horror ghost story that takes place in a house will more similar to a cursed mirror story that takes place in a house than it will be to a ghost story that takes place somewhere other than a house.

Part of the effect of breaking down story tropes in this manner is that sometimes I realize that stories I thought of as fairly different are actually fairly similar.  At the moment, I’m writing a Gothic Horror in the style of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and I noticed two things:

1. Gothic Horror and Gothic Romance that take place in an Ancestral Estate are more similar to each other than they are to other types of Gothic in either genre.

2.  Jekyll and Hyde is basically the same story as The Picture of Dorian Grey, except for the differences caused by the characters of the protagonists.

I address the first point somewhat in the story, so I’ll tackle the second here, because I think it’s, well, interesting. 

First of all, I would categorize both stories as: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type.

 

Jekyll and Hyde: a man with secretly decadent habits makes a drug to cure his boredom.  This drug makes him transform into an evil version of himself.  The evil version is happier than the kind version and intrigues the kind version.  In fact, the kind version realizes he’d be happier if he stayed as the evil version permanently.  However, when he realizes the evil version is actually going to become permanent, the kind version repents and kills himself rather than let the evil permanently take hold.

Dorian Grey: a man, previously innocent, discovers the pleasure of decadent habits and indulges his evil side more and more.  A portrait of him transfers the effects of his evil onto itself, allowing him to dodge the effects of his evil.  At once point, he realizes that he has become evil, but decides he likes it too much to give it up and decides to keep it permanently.  When he sees the evidence of his evil in the portrait, he tries to get rid of the evidence by stabbing it, which ends up killing him instead.

 

If I were to create a template for a generic version of these stories, it would look like this:

In a Gothic Horror style: a man is tempted by decadence.  Given a magical means, he is able to indulge is evil side without being caught.  However, the evidence and power of his evil eventually catches up with him.  If he is, at heart, a moral man, he kills himself rather than let the evil spread.  If he is, at heart, an immoral man, he attempts to kill the evil rather than let him incriminate him (and in doing so, accidentally kills himself instead). 

 

The detailed categories of each would end up looking like this:

Jekyll and Hyde: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type (moral variant), transformation subtype

Dorian Grey: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type (immoral variant), magical object subtype

 

Overall, Jekyll and Hyde would be not much changed if it utilized a magical portrait instead of a scientific potion, and Dorian Grey would not be much changed if Dorian physically transformed.  More important is the fact that Dorian, was at heart, a really horrible person through and through, and Jekyll had some redeeming qualities.  Despite this, for years I have thought of the two stories as quite different, not because of the nature of the protagonists, but because of the sort of magic/science used to effect the plot.  Which is, I suppose, a lesson more on the importance of window dressing than on anything else . . .

In any case, if looking at and breaking down stories like this helps you at all, I recommend giving it a try!  It isn’t perfect by any means, but it can be both useful and fun if your brain works that way.

Writing Emotion

 One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever heard is this: if you want to have a character react with an emotion, take a moment and act out that emotion.  For example, for anger, you might think really, really hard about something that makes you angry, so that your whole body reacts—and then you observe.  How has your face moved?  What are your hands doing?  What are your legs doing?  Your feet? 

 Now look at an object in your room.  That is truly, absolutely disgusting.  Revolting.  It makes you want to puke looking at it.  What do you do?  Do you stay faced fully toward it, or do you turn away?  Do you want to keep looking at it?  How does the inside of your throat feel?

 That is one level of emotion: the immediate physical reaction.  But there is another: compensation.

 Often, with strong emotion, our reaction is an attempt to somehow get rid of the side effects of that emotion by dealing with other things in our lives that cause a similar or overlapping feeling.  As for me, when I’m stressed, I find any clutter far less bearable, because clutter also makes me feel stressed. When I’m under stress (or an emotion that causes stress, such as frustration, grief, or even excessive excitement), I tend to go on a cleaning spree.  I may not be able to do anything to lessen my grief, but by gum, this kitchen is not going to be adding to my stress.  It’s a form of exerting change on what I can control to compensate for not being able to fix what I can’t.

 Of course, everyone is different, and so everyone exerts this control on something different: for some people, a messy house is not going to be a cause of stress.  The question is then: what is?  And that comes down to your character’s unique personality.  Perhaps they find impending deadlines stressful, in which case they might do something to forget, or they might work overtime.  Perhaps they find decision-making stressful, in which case they might exhibit avoidance behavior or dump the problem on someone else.  In either case, these can be secondary reactions to the emotion that’s causing the bulk of the stress.

 At the moment, this is all theoretically, so let’s take a story case study.  We’ll use a classic form:

 Once upon a time, there was a humble village out in the middle of nowhere.  This village had been at peace for many generations, untouched by the great evils taking place far away. 

 Then one day, minions of the great evil attack the village, slaughtering the inhabitants.  Our protagonist manages to hide in a cellar, so they don’t find him.  When he finally emerges, once the attackers are long gone, he finds everything he’s ever known and loved destroyed.

 He could have different initial reactions: freezing, running around trying to find people, fleeing, hiding back in the cellar.  This is a good time to show character and initial shock.  But . . . what about after that?  Does he bury all the bodies and tidy the place up before either leaving or making himself a new home there?  Does he keep running all the way to the next village?  Once there, does he try to get people to help, or does he pretend not to know about the event, so he can’t be connected to it?  Does he work obsessively to get strong enough to defeat the evildoers?

 I used this beginning as an example for three reasons.  First, it’s reminiscent of the Call to Adventure in the Hero’s Journey.  Second, I actually recently read a rather different take on it in the beginning of Bog Standard Isekai.  Third, I spend the entirety of Sunday and Monday cleaning my house. 

 Goodbye, dear Flora.  You were the most wonderful dog.

12/8/2010-1/4/2025

Russian and German books I've desperately wanted to read that don't have English translations

I've read a great many books translated from Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean, because there are a huge number of fan translators who've made it their mission to bring those novels to an American audience.  But what about novels written in other languages?

I've long been a fan of Alexey Pehov's Chronicles of Siala, but only the first trilogy plus the first book of the following series have been translated.  None of his other award-winning books.  Some of them have been translated to German, which is slightly better . . . I took German in high school and a little Russian in college, and German's definitely more attainable for me.  I even started (very laboriously) translating the second of his Wind and Sparks books from German.

Then there's Lilli Thal, who wrote the staggeringly brilliant Mimus, a book so good I never realized it wasn't fantasy.  The only of her books that has been translated from German to English.  How I want to read more!

Say, did you know that Google Translate has gotten really good lately?  Turns out the combination of years of machine learning aided by a touch of AI makes the translation from German to English really smooth.  And did you know that with the Google translate app, you can hold up your phone in front of a book page and read the translation almost instantly?

Well, now you know.  You can.  

It's not perfect.  Quotation marks tend to get lost, and there are a few other issues -- and I'm grateful that I have just enough German to help me along. 

 But.  But........

I feel like a supervillain who has just accomplished his goal of taking over the world and needs to raise his long, spiky fingers in the air and break into maniacal laughter.  

But I'm reading it!  I'm reading them, the books I've wanted to read for years!  And they're good.

Well, not all of them.  I read a dud from Pehov, though I have hopes for the next one.  But, regardless, the first 100 pages of Lilli Thal's Die Puppenspieler von Flore (The Puppeteers of Flore) is definitely extremely good.  And I am happy.

Like this: 

:)

But more like this:

:D

or even . . .

*raises hands to the crackling lightning, throws back head, and lets out echoing laughter*