Could You Survive in the World You Created?

Obviously, this is for fiction writers. I'd say breathing is proof enough that one can survive a non-fic environment. ;-)

Fiction isn't just about life; it's about drama. Drama means conflict, and conflict means inflicting pain on those we've created or at least making them struggle to reach the finish line on the last page. And, since this is a commercial endeavor, said conflict must be a bit over the top.

Your average reader doesn't want mundane situations or the kinds of problems they could solve themselves by dinner time, at least not in fantasy, they don't. They want something out of the ordinary that makes them wonder if maybe you're the kind of person who would kill off the character they've come to love (hopefully!) before the dust clears. They want a thrill. And, they're just a tad on the bloodthirsty side when it comes to characters that can't actually bleed.

So, we as writers, throw everything we can think of at our creations: monsters, plagues, battles of wits with forces beyond their control. Right at the point that it seems they've surrendered to the revelation that they can't escape this strange, literary, reality show, the tension breaks and they find the way out.

But the question is -- could you do it? Could you play Dorothy in your own Oz?

If you woke up tomorrow as a citizen of whatever world you've created, could you survive the things your characters do (or don't do)? Are your characters smarter than you? Braver? More resourceful? Do they have skills you don't possess?

Sure, it's easy to know what to do if you're the MC. The MC's destiny is written out for you; all you have to do is put yourself through the paces. But what about those faceless people in the background? The ones your MC is responsible for saving if it's a hero quest or the best friend of a best friend if it's more contemporary?

The world I've created is literally light and dark. It's insular and oppressive for the characters who live in an almost constant state of fear that at any moment their world could shatter at their feet and the one piece of "normal" they have left will die with them. I'm not sure how long I could live like that.

I think we've all heard at one time or another that "self-insert" characters in fiction are (generally) poorly drawn. Self-insert, of course, referring to the tendency for new writers to make a thinly veiled version of their own personality, stick butterfly wings on it (or elf ears, vampire fangs, a really bad perm, whatever works for their world building) and drop that character in as the story's MC. The author gets so caught up in the character being liked by everyone and able to do everything there's no need for a story because Mary Sue/Gary Stu single-handedly removed all chance of failure, and therefore all tension.

But, are real life, ordinary people equipped to handle the pitfalls of fiction? We're pretty conditioned by the mundane, so after the initial adrenaline buzz fades, how long would it take for you to wind up a quivering puddle of tears on the ground begging for those ruby slippers to take you home?

Just How Real Are "They"?

As I put my characters through their paces, I find they're getting mouthy. "Let's see you do it!" seems to be the rally-cry of choice at the moment. Maybe you've never had an overly opinionated character try and talk you out of inflicting some terrible fate on them, but I'd wager you know exactly what I'm talking about.

There comes a point, if you've drawn your characters realistically, that their voices become distinct. They develop their own personalities (much like children, those personalities aren't always what their progenitor expects and/or plans), and you can't help but care for them and what they've become.

Then it happens...

Also like children, they start to think they can manipulate you into getting their way.

They don't like the way they look, so they decide to dye their hair.

They come out of the closet or undergo complete gender re-assignment without notice. They switch nationalities like you'd change shoes.

They share secrets with each other that one will inevitably blurt out at the most inopportune (but dramatically perfect) moment.

Something's too hard, and they don't want to do it, so they whine and scream and cry and throw a full bodied temper tantrum, refusing to cooperate until you cave. (This is where their brilliant coup falls apart, because unlike children, no one else can hear them. Ha!)

Something's boring and they want to do something else. (This one you should probably listen to. If the characters are bored, the reader will be, too.)

Now you've come to the point where you have to decide if you want to keep going with the story you thought you were writing or do you want to let the characters "live" organically. You've given them the voice they use and the past that they draw from, so maybe you should trust that part of you that created them to know best.

It's strange, but exciting when characters come into their own. And the resulting words can be surprisingly perfect in a way you could never have planned on your own.

Elfin the Short

This picture's a couple of years old, but so far it's the only one I've been able to locate of me in costume. (Seriously, there are more photos on record for your average vampire than there are of me. I think I'm allergic to flash photography. ;-P) Anyway, since my memory cards have mysteriously vanished, I dug up a print copy and scanned it, so the quality stinks. But, Terry asked for it, so...

Without further stalling, I give you: Elfin the Short. (The person beside me is 8 years old under the "helmet", so yeah... I'm that short.)

I'm particularly proud of this costume because I made it myself out of a set of leather curtains. No, I didn't make the bow, but the duster, the braces, the shirt, etc... all me. :-) And yes, it does make me Geek Queen for actually making my own RenFest costume.

Why I Love the Renaissance Faire

I know, I know...

Ren Fests are those people that far more people attend than are willing to admit attending, but they're truly great places full of great people. (And some not so great people, at least one of which mutilated my favorite bridge troll by cutting it in half! GRRR!)

But, I'm not going to focus on the not-so-greats in this post.

The number one thing you learn when attending a Ren Fest is that - literally - everyone is welcome there. (Okay, so it's the 2nd thing you learn. The 1st is that ANYTHING can be fried and stuck on a stick.) Eclectic takes on a whole new meaning in that atmosphere.

The Faire I attended today is the one I worked a stint at when I was in high school (yes, folks, I'm an honorary carnie. Deal with it ;-P ) And because I'm used to it, I'm used to seeing the unusual. From the man who has spend the last ten or so years standing guard for hours on end in chain mail at the gate to guys who willingly wear tights and skirts (Skirt, kilt, potato, pottato) and suddenly lose the machismo that prevents them from hugging other men. (Apparently, in the Renaissance, it was no big deal.)

The shop matron of one of the long time costumers is a six and a half foot tall , two hundred pound man with a personality that makes even the hardest sell forget about his dress. Women who have nursing babies are free to feed them in the middle of the square and no one makes a scene or announces their displeasure. Couples that might draw strange looks elsewhere walk around like they're part of the family, and in a way that's what everyone there is. But I've never seen anything like the incident that made me decide that the world should be a little more like the bubble inside the gates of the Faire.

There was a little girl, maybe eight years old, who was more than slightly overweight. She was there with her mom and grandma, and this little girl wanted to dress in full costume for the day. She didn't go for the corsets and full skirts, she wanted to be a gypsy. For a moment, mom and granny (both of a similar body type to the child) looked unsure, but they went into the costumer.

A while later, I saw them again. And everyone of them was decked out in full gypsy regalia, veils, bare bellies and all. Yes, her probably eight-five year old grandmother was wearing what amounted to a gauze draped bikini. The amazing thing of it was - no one cared. NO ONE. Not one person whispered behind their backs or poked fun at this trio who would have elsewhere been shunned or pushed to dressed more "appropriate" for their physical appearance. No one suggested that the beaming little girl in pink and orange was anything other than the beautiful creature she believed herself to be.

Kudos to the kiddo that didn't let someone else steal her moment, kudos that mom and grandma for having the guts to go that far to support the little girl they loved, and kudos to everyone else for letting them be.

So, are you going to Scarborough Faire (yes, that's really its name)? If not, you ought to.

Write What You Know

Considering that I mainly write fantasy (and dark fantasy at that), this particular piece of advice may seem strange. But, I've found that it's more often true than not.

No, I'm not saying that I've actually met vampires, werewolves, or any other of the creatures that are fantasy world staples. And before you decide that my "eccentricity" just flipped the switch to "lock the doors, hide the knives, and break out the Thorazine" insanity, hear me out.

Even in pure fantasy, you can find a way to weave in things that actually can or have happened. Sure, the people in question might have to jump species for it to work in context, but the reality of the situation can make your story all the richer.

For example:

When I was about 14 or 15, I almost drowned. I was on a school trip to a local lake and the chaperones (who learned by the time we were 12, and ditched them en masse in downtown Dallas, that they were fighting a losing battle) were no where to be seen. A group of us waded out to the pier in the middle of the lake and were being typical teenagers. (Translation: we were being idiots.) We used the pier beams to shove ourselves down into deeper water and then bobbed back up... at least those of us who knew how to swim did.

I was not one of those who knew how to swim.

Sadly, when a group of teenagers gets together for the sole purpose of being stupid, they don't notice when one of said dummies doesn't surface with the rest of the group. Nor do they notice their non-swimming classmate has gone too far down to get back to the surface.

The strange thing is that when you're in that situation, you don't realize it, either. At least I didn't. Everything faded to black except the sun overhead and the oxygen that went with it. Since I'm still around to type this, you can assume I hauled by soggy backside out of the water before I passed out. (in fact, I never even told anyone there what happened).

This was the 2nd time I almost drowned while not being able to swim. The 1st was when I was 3 and found out the hard way that humans can't breathe water. Even that little, the same thing happened. I just focused on getting out of the water.

Those two incidents have found their way into my writing.

It doesn't matter that the book in question involves monsters that don't actually walk the earth (or swim beneath the oceans), the scene that resulted is one of the favorites of people who have read it, and I'm convinced that it's because personal experience comes through in the presentation.

I think most writers would agree that everything and everyone is potential novel-fodder. Listening and watching to the way people speak and move is a vital component to any story. If you get it right, no one's going to notice, but I guarantee that if you get it wrong, everyone will. Falling out of a natural cadence sticks out like someone stumbling through the pronunciation of a 2nd language - you might get your point across, but it's no fun for anyone involved.

So, go ahead and turn your most hated teacher into a Gorgon. Make your terrible neighbor into the life sucking zombie he's always acted like. And never underestimate the power of an unintentional punchline.

Someday, I'm going to find a place to use one of my grandmother's golden words. Upon meeting my cousin's fiance for the first time, Nanee sized her up and said: "But that wasn't her name the last time."

Off the cuff and both cringe and laugh worthy. Now, all I have to figure out is how to give that line to a werewolf...

;-P

The Name Game

Yes, another post on naming characters. A week full of headaches and pain killers has spawned a vivid storyline, but one set of characters is all "nicknames"

Blue
Fern
Torrent
Helo
Ruby

They're all easy enough to pronounce, so I think I'm okay there, but I'm wondering what others' thoughts are on the sound of them? Do they sound distinct? Can you get a feel for who's male and who's female? How about which ones sound like "good" guys vs. "bad" guys?


Early stages here, but I'd like to get some input on the ground work.

Driving Directions

This post was inspired by a conversation on another site. Think of it as MapQuest for novel writing.

Someone asked how to get a story from an idea. (This person is a self-declared non-curious individual, so writing fiction is a puzzle to him.) He wondered how someone could hear a line of dialogue in a movie or maybe a tidbit on the news and use that as a jump point for a new novel.

His line was : A boy found a five-legged frog in a pond.

He asked how something so short could possibly be enough to lead to a full length novel. So, with the qualification that I'm not yet published, so take my opinions for whatever they're worth, this was my answer.

The first thing I'd do is start with a loose bullet list. I'm not big on outlining, but this gives you a basic direction.


* boy finds 5-legged frog

So, now you have to decide how the frog got 5 legs? Do you want this to be a supernatural tale of magic? Or do you want to write a story about some big business industrial waste site? Or do you want a mad scientist running rogue experiments?

I'm going to go with the last one. Which means, I have to decide what kind of experiments.

* boy finds 5-legged frog
*frog was the result of scientific experiments
* experiments = growing cloned limbs for use in medical research

Now, you have to figure out how the frog got to the pond. Is it a super smart frog who led an amphibian rebellion against the experimenter? Or was it set free by someone?

Again, I'll go with the last one, which leaves the question of who the frog-freer is.

* boy finds 5-legged frog
*frog was the result of scientific experiments
* experiments = growing cloned limbs for use in medical research
*frog was freed by angry college student in protest of experimentation

Since the story started with the boy, it should probably involve him in some way other than as a catalyst. You can, of course, have throw away characters that only serve to set-up action for the main ones, but for the sake of this example, the boy's going to be a real part of the story.


* boy finds 5-legged frog
* frog was the result of scientific experiments
* experiments = growing cloned limbs for use in medical research
* frog was freed by angry college student in protest of experimentation
* college student = boyfriend of boy's sister
* sister was supposed to meet boyfriend for froggy-freeing protest, but she was late, so he went in without her.
* she didn't see him at the meeting place, so she assumed he went home
* boy brings frog home, tells sister where he found it, now she's worried because she knows the boyfriend went in without her

This is the point the story needs some tension. What happened to the boyfriend/froggy-liberator? He could be at home, spending his afternoon as a Night-Elf hunter on WoW. He could be at the store, grabbing groceries for his mom. Maybe he hooked up with whatever cute co-ed did manage to show up on time. But, I'm going for something a little more sinister that will set-up the main action of the story.

For my purposes, he was captured by the scientist in charge of growing limbs on frogs. Said scientist is not happy that his specimens have been freed (mainly because he was told NOT to experiment until they got their lab to sign off on it in the first place), and he's decided that since the college kid cost him his experiments, it's time to move on to human trials with the kid as patient zero.

* boy finds 5-legged frog
* frog was the result of scientific experiments
* experiments = growing cloned limbs for use in medical research
* frog was freed by angry college student in protest of experimentation
* college student = boyfriend of boy's sister
* sister was supposed to meet boyfriend for froggy-freeing protest, but she was late, so he went in without her.
* she didn't see him at the meeting place, so she assumed he went home
* boy brings frog home, tells sister where he found it, now she's worried because she knows the boyfriend went in without her
* boyfriend is now the prisoner of scientist using him for cloning experiments.

So, now there's a pretty solid set-up for the boy who found the frog, and his sister, to embark on an adventure to find and rescue the boyfriend while uncovering a sinister scientific cover-up. Depending on whose POV the story is told from, this could be YA or even MG (depending on the boy's age) or even mainstream adult.

It's all fair game at the brainstorming stage.