Stop the Presses!!

GAH! Today is an amazing day.

Why?

Guess what came in the mail a week early!!!


BAM!

Delicious

Yup.  Tad Williams' Shadowrise.  I pre-ordered it earlier this month and it wasn't supposed to be out until March! I have been waiting on this book since early 2007.  2007! 

I've been loving the Shadowmarch novels although I'm going to have to read the summaries.  All I can remember from where we left off  is that Ferris Vansen and the Funderlings and come in contact with each other...I think we left them in the base of the castle (??)  And Briony (who, I have to add, is one of my favorite female characters of all time, coming just short of Jamethial Knorth.  She is also the character I've really just been able to connect with and relate to most out of all the books I've ever read) was with..some people...somewhere.  And I'm pretty sure Barrick was beyond the Shadowline with the Qar.  Maybe. And I remember stuff that *happened* in the Southland but I can't remember exactly where we left off.

Synopsis are my friends for these.

Anyways, had to share my pure and utter joy.  :)  All my other books are getting shelved and I'm not sorry about that at all.  Look forward to comments, reviews etc on book 3 of the Shadowmarch series in up coming posts!

Stereotypical literary disconnect

Stereotypes get a bad rap in our society.  I know I grew up with people saying ‘hey, stereotypes are bad.  Don’t use them.’  I do understand this.  Stereotyping can, of course, lead to an over simplification of a complex issue or society.  The only problem with dismissing stereotypes or giving them a negative connotation is that, well, stereotypes are often true, as much as we don’t like to admit it.

I remember preparing to go to Germany and thinking, “I’m not going to listen to what a lot of people say about Germans.  It’s all stereotypical.  I’ll wait until I get there and see.  I’m not silly or naïve enough to believe everyone walks around in Lederhosen.”  Now, I think it was a good thing on my part to head into a new situation with no preconceived idea of what I was going to find, but I might have gone a bit too far in thinking that stereotypes were simply stereotypes: a conventional, oversimplification of a culture.

On my first week of orientation, I was hiking through the Alps near the Austrian border.  The group I was with came out of the woods into a little village, tucked into the folds of the hill.  As we walked down their main…well, path, we saw a group of ducks waddling out from a garden, quaking anxiously.

 

Ducks don't like stereotypes either

Odd, we thought….until the large angry German clad in full lederhosen and alpine cap burst from behind the house shouting in angry Bavarian and waving a broom around.

Here we were, a little alpine village and people were walking around in lederhosen, the classic feature in a German stereotype.  The more I experienced in Germany the more I realized, much to my chagrin and amusement, many German stereotypes were, if not true, then at least based in a strong reality.  Every morning my host parents would ask me what my plan was for the day—had to be organized.  You had to make sure you stood in the correct place on the escalator or you were frowned at, people had beer in their hands by 10am.  Yes there was more to the culture, but I was constantly surprised by how much had fought against looking at the stereotype over and over when here was the evidence for it, day after day.

 

Trust me, it wasn't just at Oktoberfest 

So what does all this have to do with literature and writing? 

People are turned off by the idea of using a stereotype when writing a character as much as they are when using stereotypes in the real world.  They think ‘no, this is bad.  No one wants to read a stereotype. They’re boring.”  To an extent, I completely agree.  Having a major or minor character be a complete stereotype with no thoughts or feelings of their own will result in a lifeless cardboard cut out of a character.  But, what about using none at all? If we really think about it, if stereotypes do most definitely exist in the real world, why can’t we use them in literature?

Now, before I go on, I need to point out that yes, on the surface, basic stereotypes most certainly have a place.  They are a great way for a writer to get their reader to recognize a place, situation, scene etc., quickly so they can move on with the main purpose and plot of a storyline.  When we’re talking about characters, stereotypes work well for those little fly by characters who aren’t major characters, aren’t minor characters, but occupy the smallest roles: cooks, maids, passersby etc.  But what about more minor characters, or even a major character or two?  If we want our character to be realistic why can’t we use them?   Or why do we steer away from them.

Here, I think, there is a disconnect in the literary world.  Some can argue, yes we are speaking, not of cultural stereotypes, but rather literary stereotypes.  Okay, but let’s define our terms.  A cultural stereotype is a commonly held belief about a culture.  A literary stereotype can be clichéd or predictable situations or characters.  But now the big question.  If discussing characters, and characters are people, based on how people interact, feel, move, etc., then where do these clichéd characters come from if such people do truly exist in the real world.  If you look at their origins, originally, they’re not truly separate things.  So, now, why can’t we consider stereotypes in literature?  Or like to read about them?

I think, to answer this, we have to look more closely at the origin of the literary stereotype.  I think most stereotypes in fantasy writing, when you think about it, have a strong base in archetypes.  That's pretty clear.  I mean most characters you can identify with some archetype, and many characters grow out of archetypes and, good characters take on a life of their own. So when people go anti-literary stereotype, they mean the stereotypes that are based on these basic cardboard archetypes.  That makes perfect sense.  You make a stereotype out of an archetype and you still have a lifeless character.

But why not instead make a stereotype based on a person you met on the street?  Would it still be a stereotype?  Maybe not because there are so many different aspects of the personality as to not fit neatly into one group.  However where is the line where one becomes a stereotype?  Bears thinking on.

Going back to the archetypes.  Again, archetypes have to come from somewhere.  They didn’t pull an Athena and burst fully formed completely on their own onto paper.  Since archetypes again, are models, those models had to be based again on something.  So, if archetypes are again based on people, and stereotypes in literature are based on archetypes, why can’t stereotypes work as realistic characters in literature?

Perhaps because over time, the humanity is leached out.  An archetype is only a snapshot of one type of person in time and, as time goes on, and literature advances and writers forget the humanity in those forms as they try to use them.  Once the humanity is lost, so is the character, which is why readers don't respond to them as they would relate to a cultural stereotype.

So if the reader does respond some stereotypes but not others then perhaps the way we view  the word ‘stereotype’ in  conjunction with literature itself is flawed.  Perhaps we do have stereotypes in literature, as both major and minor characters, but we don’t see them because they are so realistic, they’re so much a part of the real world, that they are not recognizable.

Perhaps it is because of stereotypes that some characters are so relatable. So by saying 'don't write stereotypical characters,' we really are because of what people are...and that is the literary disconnect.  I think what we really mean to say, is don't make a character a cardboard cut out of a basic archetype.

Thoughts?

Desert Attraction

 

There is a desert in my long story. I realized I needed one after I realized I had an attraction to writing things set in a desert.  I’ve written in 3,(sorta 4),  group writings projects set in deserts and I find myself interested and excited by them and I think there is, in general, a sort of romance associated with the desert and with desert peoples.  At least in my mind.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom captures that attraction a bit in the introduction.  1001 Arabian Nights is full of it.  Even the cultures of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia reek with stories and romance.  Why?  I’m not sure.  Perhaps it is because, for many of us, it is a culture so alien.  It is a culture that has to adapt and make a living out of one of the harshest types of landscape in the world.  Maybe it’s the colors, or the textures, or fluid writing.  Or maybe even the mystery of a world very different than our own, only added to by the fact that few fantasy novels today are set in deserts.  All I know is that I am not only attracted to the idea of the desert culture, I am inspired by the desert cultures in existence.

For me, the strongest inspiration when it comes for the inspiration came from the Bedouin cultures and the cultures of the ancient Islamic empire.  It was such a unique and interesting place.  Orators, those who could tell a story, were among the most revered types of people because most everyone couldn’t read or write.  Therefore, those who came and told the story of the people were among the most revered.  Within the culture, the history was identity, and without the identity they were nothing.

Writing was an art form and was so ornate because it was a form of worship.  If you look at Islamic architecture, there are words hidden everywhere in forms of art.

 

Ancient I-Spy

Architecture served an important function.  Minarets were used for indoor air conditioning, catching the wind and funneling the cooler air down into the building proper.  Taller buildings were used so that more shadow would be created in the streets to make things cooler and the Islamic empire is also credited with creating the first windmill. 

Really, just fascinating stuff and, as a writer, I can use some of these ideas and transplant them into my world, or at least give me things to think about.  In some cases, you can take aspects of the culture and place them outside of the desert if need be.

I’ve seen other authors grab inspiration from these same desert tribes, desert peoples, and desert cultures.  Most desert societies I’ve read in fantasy literature, generally stick closer to the Bedoins, where they are often times tribal, people in live tents, and they travel about.  The Aiel, for example, from Wheel of Time are like this.  Also the Kheldathi (which I completely spelled wrong) in Colors in the Dreamweavers Loom are again tribal desert people.  Sword-Dancer takes place primarily in the desert but focuses on, instead of tribal people, how to travel across a desert and survive.

I think one of the best things about the desert is the landscape gives you, as a writer, the opportunity to create a culture that is unique from most of the rest of your land.  The culture is, more than others, intimately connected to the landscape for survival, which adds something unique to other places in your world.  Not only that but we have great sources of inspiration to draw from which all come together to add a richness, and a uniqueness, to a story.

Sneak Attack Descriptions

As I read, I ask myself a lot of questions.  What’s going to happen?  Why did the author find this necessary to write?  What is its place in the story?  Why did they choose that word?  When I read to review, I do the same thing. I ask myself a lot of questions.  When it comes to the work to be reviewed, I do this partly to see if what I’m saying has too much bias and if I have a legitimate reason for making a suggestion.  One of my biggest questions I ask myself is:  Is there really something wrong with this?

I do that a lot with descriptions.  As I’ve read and asked questions I’ve come to start asking ‘Why does this work in this sentence , but not in that sentence?’  How can person A write something in their draft and it succeeds, but it fails in person B’s draft?  Why does one descriptive sentence fail while another one succeeds?

Of course there are lots of answers to that question, but one I want to address specifically is one I’ve seen a lot.  One that is probably the biggest contributor to purple prose.  That would be, what I’ve dubbed, sneak attack descriptions.

 

Your sentences won't know what hit them.  Unfortunately neither will your readers. 

Sneak attack descriptions are descriptions that are snuck into sentences and have nothing to do with the purpose of the sentence itself.  I’m not talking about one or two descriptions. I’m talking about a lot of descriptions that derail the point of the sentence and make the reader not know what the writer is talking about.

For example:

 As George walked down the ochre gravel path that twisted like a monstrous snake through the snowy woods and undulating hills filled with large trees and bright birds, he pushed a lock of ebony hair out of his gray eyes and looked for the road.

I did this a lot as a kid, especially after I had mastered the basics of writing and moved on to trying to sound cool and try to describe things.  Now, I think back on it and go ‘ewww! Too much!’ The sentence above isn’t the best example (they're kinda hard to write when you get out of the habit) but it gets the point across.  It is simply loaded with descriptions.  Every noun has an adjective and some of them are large 'cool' sounding words.

Now, I’m not against a lot of description.  Anyone whose read my work knows I like my description, but the key is knowing when to use a lot, when to not, and knowing what kinds of sentences can handle a lot.

The above sentence is about George walking down a path and looking for a road.  That’s the point of the sentence.  That’s what it’s about.  However, I’ve made it sound bad by cluttering it up with unnecessary adjectives.  I’ve “snuck in” descriptions of the surroundings and the character so I don’t come right out and info dump.  While that’s a noble cause, it unfortunately clogs your sentence and makes the adjectives ridiculously noticeable.  So they’re not really that sneaky.  More often its just really obnoxious and you might as well have just come out and info dumped.  Plus when you add those 'cool' sounding words on top of all that descriptions, it just sounds like you're trying to impress the reader with your large vocabulary.

Trust me, no one's impressed.  You sound dumb.

Also, after slogging through descriptions of place and character the reader forgets what they were reading about.  In this case, you forget about George walking simply down a path. Since the purpose of this sentence was an action, you have to ease up a bit on the descriptions.  A few are fine, you need a few to spice it up. But don’t ramble too far from the main point.

Example:

As George walked down the gravel path, he pushed a lock of hair from his gray eyes when he approached the manor.

Simple, clean, and to the point.

Now you can completely fill a sentence, or sentences, with description.  No problem.  However you have to make sure the purpose of that sentence is to be description.  So, to rearrange the previous example:

George looked at the path in front of him.  It wound its way through the undulating hills like an ochre snake, disappearing over the snowy horizon where the hills swallowed it whole.

I used most of the descriptions from the first example, but the difference is that the subject is the path itself and George is looking at it.  Whenever a character is looking at something, or entering somewhere new, it just begs for descriptions. In fact, the reader is expecting it because it makes perfect logical sense to see or experience what the character does. So go for it.  When the purpose of the sentence is to describe something, just come right out and describe it.  You don’t want to go on for paragraphs of course, but this is where you put all those tasty descriptions.  Not in an action sentence.

Now, there are many many other ways to put descriptions into sentences, and into paragraphs, and many techniques you can use to describe something.   You have to pay attention to connotation, technicality of the word, sound of the word, placement with in paragraph and story, etc, but paying attention to the purpose of your sentence is just one way to avoid sneak attack description.

Well, that, or hire a ninja.

Character Spotlight: Har of Osterland

Books: The Riddle of Stars/Riddlemaster trilogy (The Riddlemaster of Hed, Heir to Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind)

Author: Patricia A. McKillip

The vesta nudged at him, its warm breath in his ear.  He slid his arm around its neck, his face dropping against its face.  It was still for a moment in his hold.  Then it broke free with a sudden movement, its head jerking back; and as the circle of gold horn lifted like the rim of the sun against the white sky, the vesta faded, and a man stood in its place.

He was tall, lithe, white-haired, half-naked in the snow.  His eyes in his lean, lined face were ice-blue; his hands, reaching down to Morgon, were scarred with the white imprint of vesta-horns.

Morgon whispered, “Har.”  A little smile flared like a flame behind the light eyes.  The wolf-king slid a powerful arm under Morgon’s arm, lifted him to his feet.

“Welcome.”   ~The Riddlemaster of Hed

Har is the land-heir and king of Osterland, a northern kingdom in the Riddle of the Stars trilogy.  Often he is called the ‘wolf king’ for he often travels about his kingdom in wolf shape. Har and Osterland go hand in hand because he goes into the minds of the creatures of his kingdom and explores the roll of the land through the eyes of different animals.  He protects his land and its animals like his children and poachers fear his wrath.  He bears the scars of vesta horns on his palms, as a mark of a shape changer and is as good of a riddle master as any at Caithnard.

Har is probably one of my favorite minor characters.  He’s one of those characters you get fascinated by and is completely memorable although he isn’t constantly present in the books.  He’s one of those characters that takes of a sort of wise mentor role to the main character, Morgon, but I think his mentoring role is a bit unique.

In many fantasty novels, there is often a wise person under which the hero trains.  Har is one of the many for Morgon.  Har teaches Morgon the shape-change, but most importantly, Har makes Morgon, forces Morgon to face who he is.  McKillip did this very well.  Instead of going through a lesson with training, Har tells him point blank:

Your instincts took you out of Hed before you even realized why; out of Hed to Caithnard, to Aum, to Herun, to Osterland, whose king has no pity for those who run from the truth.

This is almost as soon as they meet.  No games, just point blank “you’re running from the truth.”  This interaction is absolutely essential to Morgon and to the plotline as Morgon is still living in his past, living in his comfort zone of Hed, thinking of going home, even though part of him knows he can’t.  He doesn’t want to face his destiny, but Har points out, ‘you have to.’

This is a cathartic moment for Morgon in many ways and a big turning point for his character.  He becomes angry.  Angry enough to look for Suth as Har asked, which in turn, is what Morgon needs to do to find his own riddles.

The great thing about Har, and how Har is written, is that he doesn’t steal the show.  He gives the MC the tools, and the MC runs with them.  He doesn’t bleed over into the MCs world.  He’s very much his own person in his own place and I think that gives him his strength and memorability.

Another great thing about Har, which I attribute to McKillips always impressive skill, is that she gives you hints of Har’s past.  Inticing little hints.  Enough to make you wonder, make you fascinated, and see a three dimensional character, and enough to make you go ‘gah I want to know more!’ but again not enough to detract from the main story and the MCs journey.

Har of Osterland: King, Shape-Changer, Mentor, Riddlemaster.  Who could want more?

Good Day

Guess what came in the mail…

Ta da!  It’s the next book in the Sworddancer series.  No, I’m not giving up on Eragon, but it’s good to have something else on the side, eh?

And there’s this:

Isn’t it cute?  :D  Thanks go out to Liz for nominating me for this little award.  Apparently, as I get it and pass it along, I have to list ten strange or unusual things about myself.  Weird, eh?

10) When I was in third grade, I wrote a story about Meow Mix cat food.  My parents sent it to Ralston Purina and they made me an honorary product manager.

9) My best friend and I tried to write a book in middle school.  We gave up after 50 pages, but we also had 2-3 pages of bloopers :D

8) I used to be allergic to eggs, wheat, and milk, but now I am only allergic to alcohol

7) I remember when writing.com was stories.com and it makes me feel old

6) A German policeman once called me a bad student

5) I think igneous geochemistry is really really neat, but I’m not getting my Masters in it

4) I haven’t taken an English class, creative writing class, or the like, since high school

3) I have some very talent friends, and for that I think I’m blessed.

2) Writing sad situations for characters can depress me for an entire day.

1) I use to hate reading

That last one is going to be a blog post later :)

And now I’m nominating

The Artist

And

The Musician

It begins...

Snarkfest 2010.

Eragon came in the mail today and it started to annoy me immediately.  And by immediately I mean before I even got the package open.  Because whoever wrapped it decided to make it darn near impossible to actually *get* to.

 

After I ripped off the first layer of tape

Who knows.  Maybe the half.com seller was trying to be nice and discourage me from reading this book of epic failure.

 

Freaking thing is wrapped up like there're gold and gems, not a crappy book, inside

Sadly, I needed to read this book because a) I can be snarky with it and b) if I'm going to make references to it, I need to talk about it. But it was really hard.  No edges that stuck out, no easy open tabs, it was like the packing was vacuum sealed to the book itself!

  

Come...out!

 

  Ten minutes later...

Finally success!

Oh...crap...it's Eragon

There and Back Again

I have a confession to make.

I like The Hobbit more than I like the Lord of the Rings

Shhh don’t tell anyone

Now don’t get me wrong, I love both of Tolkien’s masterpieces, but I think I’ve always been drawn more to The Hobbit versus the Lord of the Rings.

There’s a simplicity to The Hobbit that I really like. While I like complex thoughts and themes I’m also a huge fan of travelogues which is, in a way, what the Hobbit is.  The strength is that you, as a reader, get to explore a world that is not changed or shaped by an impending evil.  You get to experience a world as it is, just as a traveler would travelling through a strange land.

I find this is wonderful.  I love travelling, and I have my fair share of Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson on my shelves, but the awesome thing about doing it in a fantasy world is that you truly get to experience something so different and otherworldly.  And again, because it is not shaped by evil or changed, you really feel as if you are plunged somewhere different and get to see the culture as it really is, and the characters have mini adventures in the world that exists that are a result of the land being what it is.

Sword-Dancer was like this, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed it; it had that travelogue feel.  Two of my favorite Narnia’s, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair are also exist separately of one great evil antagonist. There are even some places in the Lord of the Rings that are like that.  The place with the Old Forest, the Withywindle and the adventures in the Barrowdowns exist just because they are features of Middle Earth and not connected with Mordor.

Notice a trend in a few of the titles I named?  They’re a bit older.  It seems as if more in modern fantasy, there is less of this travel feel with mini adventures, almost as if that is a mark that belonged to 70s, 80s, early 90s fantasy.  Perhaps this is because of the dark trend that seems to be popping up more and more, or maybe it’s simply because I’ve just seemed to have read a lot more epic type fantasy recently rather than the stand alone fantasy.  Or rather stand alones are becoming a little less common.  I’m not sure what it is, but I know the travel feeling, the spirit of the place, that made me fall in love with the Hobbit, doesn’t seem to be quite as present as it once was and I miss that.

Push-Pull, Pull-Push: Tension in Sword-Dancer

 

I swallowed, then managed a casual tone.  “You might need some help getting to Julah.”

                Those blue eyes were guileless.  “I might.”

                I waited.  So did she.  Inwardly, I grimaced; conversation wasn’t her strong point.  But then again, conversation in a woman is not necessarily a virtue. ~Sword-Dancer

Last week, Liz over at the Wandering Quill, talked about tension in stories and cited the Sword Dancer series by Jennifer Roberson as a good example of tension used and balanced properly.  Since Sword-Dancer is my current read I had this idea of tension in the back of my mind as I read trying to decide if a) I believed Liz and b)how Jennifer Roberson was able to accomplish her tension building.

Well, to answer a) yes I do believe Liz.

Roberson seems to me to be, primarily, a character writer.  By this I mean her stories can tend to be more character driven than plot driven.  In fact, I would say Karavans was a story soley built along character interactions, and the honest plot didn’t kick in until the second book.  However, since it was so strongly fused together by the characters and the tension was carried by the characters, the reader didn’t really notice.

So, with what I know of Roberson and as I read Sword-Dancer, it seems to me that the primary mode with which Roberson delivers her tension is through character interaction.  This is opposed to a single character being driven along by outside influence, or outside influences being stronger tension builders.

At just under 100 pages into Sword-Dancer the tension in the book is clearly drawn by the relationship between Tiger and Del.  In fact the first bit of tension in the story is when Tiger first sees the Northern woman and then it is questions raised about each other and the reactions to each other that move the plot forward.

What Roberson did was bring together two people, one male, one female, from two different cultures, but have just enough in common to tie them together.  By creating the differences, she allows for several layers of tension.  The first is the most obvious: male/female. 

As the story is told in first person from Tigers POV there is the clear sexual tension.  How does this make the reader keep reading?  Del’s reaction to Tigers advances.  They have a strange dynamic and, especially told from the male perspective, adds the feeling of what’s going to happen?  Will he ever get her?  Oh I know he’s not going to do that *now*.  There is a tension involved from the reader looking forward to Del’s response.  It’s a constant pull push, push pull between the two personality types.

Another level related to the male/female layer, is the cultural level.  Both come from very different cultures and so one characters culture creates tension as they do something that is out of the norm for the other.  As a result, the other character has some sort of response, and BAM mini action and burst of tension as the two puzzle each other out.  Again the same pull push as in the male/female layer but this time sexual tension is replaced by cultural tension.

The character tension is very important in Sword-Dancer as the first 100 pages or so are dedicated to a trip through the desert, which, without something happening, can all be very mundane.  Thus the character interaction is the absolute primary and necessary source of tension, at least in the beginning of the book.  Additionally, character interactions are easy to tone down or heat up depending on the level of tension actually required so the reader is treated to all tension all the time, nor is it a constant steady plot.

Although character interaction shoulders the primary role of tension, secondary tensors exist as well, but those do nothing more than feed the primary tension.  For example, Tiger and Del come across an Oasis.  As they are getting ready to drink/swim they get attacked by a male and female Sandtiger.  Del, who is swimming doesn’t see them.  Tiger kills the first one, and also kills the second even though Del has claimed it to be her kill.  There is obvious tension created when the beasts appear and attack, but that is only a tool to stimulate the greater character tension between Tiger at Del and boy the male/female level, and the cultural differences level.

Now, the character interactions serve more than one purpose than just tension of course. She keeps foreshadowing like the devil with it as her characters reveal things about themselves, their magic, their swords, their swords names...etc.  For example:

But I was alone in the world, as I have always been, and the realization of such familiar loyalty is not very easy to deal with.

Such binding, powerful kinship, as alien to me as the sword she bore.  And the woman herself.

Yes, yes, the we can easily see where these guys will be in the future and the kinship theme.  But it wouldn’t be possible without that character action.  Ah but now I’m going to start rambling and off topic.

Not all tension has to be derived from character interactions.  It just seems to be Roberson’s preferred method, and that honestly works for her.  The relationship between the characters of Tiger and Del will magnify and make all other sources of tension that affect them much stronger because of the ripple effect caused by the multilayering within their own interactions.

Güt gemacht, Jennifer Roberson, güt gemacht.