An Afternoon Trip with Rushdie and a Note for Next Week

I don’t know what it is about my trip home that always makes me think of blog topics.  Maybe it’s because I just have so much to let my mind wander.  Especially when people are doing blasting on the side of the road and I’m sitting in traffic for an hour.  Hooray!

Anyways, this time though, I got to listen to this fantastic interview with Salman Rushdie  It’s a long interview, mainly about his new young adult book, but absolutely worth it.  If you’ve got the time while you’re doing dishes or chores, listen. 

There are a couple of things in this wonderful interview I’m going to save for blog posts for later, but there are two I want to highlight now.

When discussing children’s literature, he said something that I believe wholehearitly, and hearing Rushdie say it in his own smooth eloquent way just made me feel all fuzzy and go ‘YES EXACTLY’ in my car.  He said:  You need to write up to children, not down.  And can write the same themes for adults and children, but children may enter these ideas through different doors than adults.  Another point touched on in the interview which makes me adore this man was that children are attracted to heavier, more serious topics, which is a point I mentioned before 

It’s so true and I think this mentality is what helps separate good children’s literature from forgettable children’s literature.

Another thing Rushdie said that I believe was completely on point was that we, as writers, don’t follow a linear path when we come to writing.  Our writing and imagination can follow twists and turns, writing adult one moment, children the next.  Again, I think this is true.  We are, to an extent, swayed by whatever our muses are saying to us at the time.

I bring this up because it leads me to what I really wanted to say today.  It’s important to follow that muse and try to write different things, different kinds of things, and experiment with styles and writing forms.  It’s an essential part of discovering yourself as a writer.  In my writing life so far, I’ve written all sorts of things, from straight fiction, to mystery, to horror, but I’ve settled on fantasy because it feels right.  It’s my niche.  It’s the genre and style and place I can express myself and my views most freely.  And I’m happy not spending time writing in the other genres.  Why?  Because I feel as if I’ve paid my dues.  I know I can write in these other capacities, but I choose not to and I can justify it.  Now, within this genre, I will follow different paths for sure but I choose to rarely stray outside of it.

Rarely.

Except for this coming week :)

Now when it comes to writing, besides fantasy, my writing usually consists of this blog, which is writing about fantasy and literature.  If I try to blog about anything else, I usually can’t keep it up—maybe again this is the result of straying from my genre.  Who knows. But notice I said usually.  The only other time I keep any sort of blog or journal is when I travel.

If you do not keep a blog or journal when you travel, you are missing out.  Seriously.  Keeping an account of traveling is not only good for writing skills, but it is a great resource, and a fantastic souvenir of a trip.  I’m leaving for Germany on Saturday and so I’m turning this into my temporary travel blog.  Thus look forward to a week of travel related post and random excitement about heading back to a place I consider another home!

Villains and Evil in Shades of Gray

Fantasy is one of those genres that can walk the line between incredibly good or incredibly cheesy.  I know I’ve read several fantasy novels where I close the book and think, “This is why some people mock this genre.”  Often these novel are, not only unrealistic when it comes to characters, but completely over the top when it comes to dialogue, plot, and conflict.

Oh conflict.

This, to me, is one of the main things that distinguishes more simplistic over the top dramatic fantasy, from fantasy that has a bit more depth and texture.

Often times, in fantasy, we have a battle, of some kind, of good versus evil.  That is no problem.  It’s easy for the reader to identify with. There is often an easily identifiable antagonist. However, when the sides are so black and white, so clearly good and so clearly evil, then we have a problem.

Most of the time, the issue is with the antagonist. When the antagonist is completely evil, and so evil that they possess no amount of humanity or characteristic other than ‘ooo let me be evil’ the story weakens. And I’m talking about evil to the point that it almost punches you in the face with how evil it is.  Yes, I’m looking at you Chris Evans.  You and your evil characters speaking in scary Halloween font.  Totally unnecessary. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this author, you’re lucky.  I made the unfortunate decision to read—or rather start reading—one of his books about a year ago.  I was turned off in the very first chapter mainly by how he introduced the antagonist / the evil in the book. Everything was black and dark, there was no discernable reason for the extent of over the top evilness.  In otherwords, no discernable reason for the evilness to be believable.

That’s the key isn’t it.  Believability.  Believability so the reader can truly feel as if the villain is a person and thus make the final battle more satisfying.

So how do we go about that?

With this book, it was as if the author had drawn a line down the paper and said this is evil, this is good. The thing is, in life, most things aren’t that black and white, as much as we try to make them.  Villains have a gray area, and should be defined beyond their ‘evilness’.  If the whole purpose of the story is to defeat this clear evilness—an evilness that is simply evil—that’s all well and good but…that’s it?

I know what you’re thinking, isn’t that the point of a story?  To defeat evil.  Well yes, but the path to defeat that evil is just as important to the plot as the defeat itself.  And that plot relies on characterization and tension.  Good villains aren’t 100% evil.  They usually have a motivation behind what they do, a deeper reason for why they chose the path they did.  In fact, the struggle of the villain with their own paths and their own choices adds an additional layer to what is being written and can feed in to the hero’s choices as well.

Look at Narim in Song of the Beast.  He was a fantastic character because his motivations were, for what he thought, the greater good.  So blinded was he by his own convictions that he made the wrong choices.  He was a villain, but he was more than simply evil.

Look at Darth Vadar.  The most fascinating thing about him is not that he’s a villain, but how he got to where he was.  His past.  His life.   Again, he’s more of a person than an evil stereotype.

Both of these characters fascinated readers, so they were more than just a stock antagonist.  Thus, when the protagonist and the antagonist meet, the battle and the defeat is much much more satisfying.  Why?  Because the battle is about more than just the clash of the swords, it’s about the two people who are fighting.  Who they are, what they have gone through, what they are both trying to achieve.  And if one person is a simple caricature of evil rather than a person, than the battle fails.

When the good and evil are so easily defined, and so clearly defined, a little piece of me dies.  The happy part.  Words coming out of those characters are hollow and, since the villain is an archtype the defeat of said villain is simply not as satisfying as it would be against what a reader would feel is a real villain.  A villain with a past and a history.  A villain that has reasons for what he does.  A villain where evil is not evil simply for evil’s sake.

Almost back but not quite

My posts have been sparse over the past few weeks, and I truly wish it hadn't been that way.  However, I've had to be on a writing hiatus of sorts until my thesis is finished.  I defend this Friday, so I should be able to get back to a regular posting schedule after that.  Hooray!

I feel really sorry for my poor neglected blog.  I can think of several topics I would like to talk about, but when it comes down to putting words on paper, my mind rebels.  'No!' it says, 'you've been using me all week!  And all weekend!  Do something mindless!' This usually doesn't include a well thought out blogpost.  In fact, my blog post on making the hero/villain relationship too black and white is sitting open on my desktop and I can't force myself to work through it.  It's a little depressing because I think its a very important thing to realize if you're writing fantasy, especially if you want your writing to be taken seriously.

As much as I want to write it though, I just can't force it, or it won't come out right.  That happens with my creative work too.  There are all sorts of writing/writers blogs all over the internet, and many say, just write!  Get something on the page!  The thing is, people and writers are diverse, and I know myself well enough that I know I just can't force something if it doesn't want to be written.  It ends up coming out wrong, and then it itches at the back of my mind and drives me crazy.  So, if I have to trust myself to be patient and not just force something just because I want it on the page.


This is why it is so important to know yourself as a writer.  There are a million books and writing sites and writing blogs and writing columns all giving advice on what to do, on how to write, how to use adjectives, or what to do about pacing and tone.  The thing is, not all this advice is the same, and it won't necessarily apply to you.  You won't know, however, which advice to take unless you know how you function as a writer, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are.  There is no great all-knowing panel that decides what is correct advice.  In the end, that choice belongs to you.

So here we are at the end of a sort of update post/rambling post.  I'll be back, in hopefully a more focused mind set after Friday!