Tag: fiction

About Writing

The Chosen One

Autumn

A trope that I see every now and then that drives me absolutely batty goes something like this:

Congratulations hero! You are the CHOSEN ONE! You have special powers that no one else does!

The intro is all about letting the audience know how super awesome this character is, being the Chosen One and all, and you think that you’re in for some impressive ass-kicking all around, literally and/or figuratively.

Then, as the story progresses, it turns out that the character isn’t that awesome after all, because:

  • They don’t want to be the Chosen One.
  • A dozen other characters are introduced who also have special abilities.
  • Their power turns out to not be anywhere near as cool as it sounds.

Any one of those three would put my teeth on edge, but for whatever reason I usually see all three of these together. I used to try to finish stories that pulled this trope, but experience has taught me that the ending never gets better.

So, let’s break down my bullet points:

  • They don’t want to be the Chosen One

I suspect that the writer is trying to be subversive with this one, but societal context has changed to the point that aspiring to be a mediocre nobody is par for the course — you can even decorate your home with quotes about how you will never do, say, or think anything unique or special. Personally, I have been heavily criticized every time I’ve taken on a new responsibility, often because others treat it as some sort of enslavement.

You have four kids? How on Earth are you ever supposed to do anything?

Oh, I don’t know. Occasionally the kids take off the shackles and I’m allowed a bit of sunshine; just enough to keep me going. So tell me, what do you do with your freedom? Work all day, then veg out on the internet?

Anyway, it would be far more refreshing to see a character who actually wants to be the Chosen One and takes the responsibility seriously.

  • A dozen other characters are introduced who also have special abilities.

I wish I could say that this is due to a lack of imagination, but I can’t shake the suspicion that it’s wish fulfillment on the part of the writer. Usually, the main character is no longer set apart, instead belonging to a tight-knit group where everyone knows everyone else’s pain, and never has to face the possibility of loneliness.

After the cadre has been formed, the enemies start popping up with even stronger powers to justify it all, and the hero is looking less and less unique and interesting. But at least the writer vicariously has imaginary friends!

  • Their power turns out to not be anywhere near as cool as it sounds.

This is the natural consequence of the previous bullet points. Even if someone is uncertain at first, they’ll naturally be drawn into enjoying ULTIMATE POWER when they realize what they can do with it, so in order to keep up with the mediocre aspiration, the ULTIMATE POWER can’t actually be all that seductive or useful. You also can’t make your friends feel bad by being obviously better than them, and the battles need more suspense by dangling the question of whether or not the entire group has what it takes to defeat the single bad guy. Working alone. Against all of you.

Wait, who was supposed to be the Chosen One again?

It’s a terrible trope, which unfortunately plagues the fantasy genre, so I keep coming across it. Le sigh.

Maybe we could try something new?

About Writing

My current WIP

Autumn

I’ve been working on the rough draft of my WIP for about ten months now. I started it when my youngest was still a newborn, so progress was very slow in the beginning. I even lamented that my main characters had been on their first date for weeks, and I was ready for it to hurry up and be over with.

For the past three months, I’ve been working on it every day. My realistic goal is a mere 400 words, though occasionally everything works out nicely and I get down about 1000. Progress is progress.

This is also the longest I’ve ever spent on a rough draft.

I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. I like the extra time I’ve spent conversing with my characters, and the months spent day dreaming about their lives while washing dishes or folding laundry. I’ve grown very fond of these characters, and I haven’t become the slightest bit bored with the story yet. That’s a good sign.

I’m confident that the rewrite will go smoothly. Whenever I get to it. Ha ha.

About Writing

Sex Scenes

Autumn

Because I write romance, they’re inevitable.

As a reader, I tend to skip over sex scenes in books. Truth be told, I find them boring. Society has been so over-saturated with sex, that whenever another scene pops up, I can’t help but think of the quote from Yugioh Abridged, “Sex isn’t sexy anymore.” Most of the time, I’m not sure how those scenes contribute to the plot, and skipping them has no negative effects on my experience of the novel.

As a writer, my current WIP has a fair amount of sex in it, because marriage and babies are a huge part of the story.

I prefer to take an abstract view, and focus on the emotional aspect of it. Strangers meet on Tinder all the time, but deeply in love soulmates melding into one; now that’s something different. I don’t want to make my readers horny, but to fill them with butterflies and giggles; there are already more than enough resources for the latter.

Society has done a lot to divorce love from sex, to the point where a lot of people believe that the two not only have nothing to do with each other, but can be detrimental to each other as well.  I hope to illustrate that the two can be beautifully intertwined.

About Me

The practicality of popularity

Autumn

While mega popularity is a fun daydream, in practicality, I don’t think that I’d enjoy it at all.  Having people read my books just because everyone else is reading them feels rather antithetical to who I am as a person. It’d be a great way to be completely erased.

Then, of course, there are always the ones who feel obligated to create entire websites devoted to tearing apart your novels and proving that you are a bad writer after all. The harshest part is, those websites are usually right, too.

I’ve dedicated a lot of time to practice and research with my writing, and I try very hard to produce quality; but ultimately, I chose to be a wife and mother first. I still have plenty of sensitive feelings, and stumbling across the wrong criticism at the wrong time could hurt deeply. I’m just doing my thing to express my soul, and I just want to live my life with my husband and kids.

Obscurity is safe and comfortable.

About Me

Religion

Autumn

I’m what is called an eclectic Pagan, though I think of myself more as an obsessive cherry-picker.

Religion fascinates me. When I was 21, I made plans to move far away and get a degree in Religious Studies, but it turned out that I was destined for something else. Instead, I now have a large collection of books ranging from the Liber Null to Doreen Virtue.

I’ve dabbled in all sorts of magic, and I have a deck of Tarot cards that I consult regularly. If something doesn’t work, I move on to the next; if it does, I add it to the ‘eclectic’ part of my Pagan practice. All I really care about is finding what resonates with my soul, irregardless of what shape it takes.

I consider the religious beliefs of others to be sacrosanct, and while I will discuss why I do or don’t believe in a particular thing, I respect that everyone has their own path to follow. That’s also part of my beliefs.

All of my stories have an esoteric element to them, and they all happen in the same spiritual universe.

Light Eternal, for example, is pretty heavy on the spiritual stuff. So much so, honestly, that I don’t expect it to gain any sort of attention until after I’ve published a few novels. However, it was exactly what I needed to write at the time, and it’s a good foundation, so I went ahead and put it out there.

I’ve been a bit shy to say all of that right out. I’ve had very mixed reactions to this particular aspect of my personality, but considering that it’s an obvious part of my writing, it would be disingenuous of me to try to hide it.

So there you have it, I love religion. I’m just not picky about which one.

tree

About Writing

On Real People

Autumn

I don’t base any of my characters off of real people, because, frankly, everyone I know is either so normal that it isn’t worth it, or so out there that I wouldn’t know how.

The thing about normal is that once you’ve met one, you’ve met them all. I already know what normal people think about every subject, because they all think and do the same things (quite deliberately, too). Hence, the whole normal part. If I write a normal character, he’s going to be based on the conglomerate of normal behaviors, rather than any specific individual.

Then there are the weirdos, who have wild anecdotes and even wilder beliefs. These are the people who are fun to talk to, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. That unpredictable element also makes them impossible to write, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. Can’t write what I don’t know.

All of my fictional characters are just that: fictional. I draw heavily from my personal study of psychology, but I never have any specific people in mind.

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hqfsa

About Writing

Creating Dynamic Characters: Balancing Depth and Archetypes

Autumn

No one wants to read a novel where half of the characters could be replaced with cardboard cutouts and have no effect on the story, yet so many authors struggle with that very thing; even professional ones. We all know the criticisms of wooden and flat characters who never develop, but what to do about it is not so obvious.

I can tell you though, the answer is probably not found by playing 20 questions with character sheets. You’re writing a person, not a profile.

Me? I turn to nonfiction.

One of my favorite books is Chakras and Their Archetypes by Ambika Wauters, which I highly recommend. It gives a good breakdown of dysfunctional personality types, then contrasts it against what the strong, functional personality looks like. While a person may be weak in one area, they are likely going to be strong in another.

I think that something writers forget is to make their characters internally balanced in some way. Joe may be a maniac bent on power, but he fixes up injured birds in his backyard. Throw in some exposition about the bird bath owned by Mrs. Roberts, who always fed him cookies after his dad beat him up, and the characterization practically writes itself. Why is he bent on power? He hated being helpless and hurt, and thinks that it will protect him. Why does he help injured birds? Because he secretly relates to them, and thinks about the good that Mrs. Roberts had in his life, even if it was just a tiny part. Joe isn’t bad, he’s just badly damaged. Maybe he’ll find redemption, maybe not.

Hey, that wasn’t hard at all.

Archetypes are useful tools. Personally, I think they are a little too one-dimensional to base a character entirely off of one archetype, but combine a few in different areas (a rebel with people, but a caregiver to animals), and you can build some unique and dynamic characters.

 

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About Writing

Music and Writing

Autumn

For the past several months, I’ve been working on the rough draft of a new novel, and for the past several months, I’ve been listening to Kamelot on repeat. Specifically, the song, “The Last Day of Sunlight” (which as far as I can tell has not been posted YouTube).

When my husband commented on it, I muttered vaguely about how that particular song “kept the channel open” for writing my novel.

Music is a powerful tool for putting one in a specific mindset for writing. Each story has a different “feeling” about it, and finding a song that suits that “feeling” is often a powerful way of tuning in to inspiration and creativity. I don’t know if this is something I can explain accurately, but I’m certain that those who have experienced it know exactly what I’m talking about.

Often, the earliest stages of a novel involve also finding the music that fits the story, to compose the playlist that will sustain the channel of creativity for the duration of writing. Then, I will listen to that playlist on repeat, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

Even if it does start to wear on everyone I live with.

Thankfully, my husband understands.

 

About Writing

Improving Story Progression Through Handwritten Drafts

Autumn

I’ve mentioned before that I write all of my rough drafts by hand. One of the benefits of doing this is that ink is permanent, thus effectively neutralizing the urge to edit as I go. My main focus with my rough drafts is getting the story down on paper with as little critical thinking as possible.

I’m a firm believer in the power of editing and let quite a lot slide through in my rough drafts, but every now and then I do write something that’s so bad, it grinds the story to a halt. Sometimes it’s necessary to rewrite as I go, just to keep the story progressing. I average rewriting about five pages out of a hundred, which is more a testament to how forgiving I am than anything else.

Since transcribing onto the computer is an eventual necessity, that’s where I do the bulk of my rewriting. That’s when I start to think, “How can this be better?” I usually end up rewriting about 90%.

Ever since I started cleanly separating the steps of writing and rewriting, I’ve been able to finish books, rather than collecting files of unfinished beginnings.

Tiny frog
About Writing

Practical Writing Tips for Creative Success

Autumn

I majored in Creative Writing during my stint in college. In one of my regular English classes, that focused on teaching grammar of all things (who does that?), we had a published author come as a guest speaker one day. After class, offhandedly, he commented, “Majoring in Creative Writing is the worst thing you can do as a writer.” He advised me to switch majors immediately.

I can’t remember his name or the title of the book he wrote. Shame, really, because that was probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten.

If you’re on this journey, don’t read books or websites that teach creative writing. Just don’t.

Learn grammar. Learn what prepositions and interjections are. Watch School House Rock. Internalize it. Use it all the time, even when texting. Embrace being seen as snooty. Words are your medium, and you need to understand how to use them correctly. Just don’t turn into a “grammar nazi” who compulsively hyper corrects everyone else — people hate that. Part of the rich complexity of English is that it can, and often does, accommodate oddities and mishmashing, so learn how to use that effectively.

Read non-fiction. I particularly like self-help books, as they tend to be a rich reservoir of foibles and psychology, wrapped up in layman’s descriptions that are easy to understand. And hey, if I happen to also benefit from it, all the better. These sorts of books will give you a better understanding of how to create realistic characters than worksheets ever will.

And of course, research your genre. Don’t write a Highlander romance based entirely off of all the other Highlander romance novels you’ve read; find a history book about Scotland first. This is especially important if you are writing in one of the realistic genres; its easy to alienate those who could be your most loyal fanbase if you completely misrepresent their field.

Finally, practice. Write all the time. Write about everything. Write and rewrite. Write. Write. Write. Compose stories in your head while you’re at the dentist or driving in your car. Don’t start judging anything until the 2nd or 3rd drafts; instead, enjoy the flow of creativity. Just frickin’ write!

You’ll learn far more than Creative Writing classes will teach you.