This is Awesome

So I had this one character I wanted to show up at some point, and I wasn't sure where to put him in.

He showed up last night, right where I didn't know I wanted him.

Like I literally wasn't sure where he was going to pop up, and now that he's there, I also have more of a direction for a part I was getting increasingly nervous about approaching. And now it's working out.

I love this.

In other news, there's some more (non-fiction) writing work opening up for me, which will hopefully allow me to make some changes. I'm excited. It's a little stressful to think about, but hey. At least working for myself means I spend little to nothing on gas.

I really hope I'm as inspired as I feel, because I seriously have some wedding stuff to do.

Also Doctor Who is on tonight.

Believability

Just kidding on the bad excerpts thing. I didn't bring my old manuscript to work with me, so I think I will save that for tomorrow or the weekend. Not entirely sure...

So anyway.

I'm pretty good at dialogue between characters. In fact, I had that noted at least once in a creative writing class I took for my minor. In writing, it is the thing that comes most natural for me. That's the part that ends up the most believable, and that is helpful because dialogue reveals a lot about characters whose heads you can't get into.

My four characters have helped loads in making my story more believable. When a character is lifelike, it's easier to see their world as real.

I started thinking of this the other day when my brother was watching the Lord of the Rings movies. I seriously have seen the first one no less than twelve times.

Personally, I blame the work that went into the making of the movies.

Those three films weren't slapped together hastily in front of a green screen. The filmmakers took their time to make Middle-Earth as real as it could possibly be. Tolkien did them a favor when he made up an insane history for Middle-Earth.

I had never thought about that before my brother said it.

And I realized it applies very heavily to writing.

I wonder if I lost that for a little bit. Did I believe my story? Am I trying to copy anything? I mean, the book has in no way lost its roots. I worry a little that I tried to put too much grittiness in it and lost...something. I've sometimes described the story as "this, plus this, with a little of that."

I tried to make it too small. Problem is, we live in a very big universe.

I believe my stories now. I believe the world in which they're set.

That doesn't mean the story's perfect yet. But it's really close to being good enough for me.

I think now I've recaptured what I lost, the honesty of wonder.

Keeping Up with Me (And a Preview!)

Okay, this 30 posts thing is harder than I thought it would be. I did write a chapter yesterday, and now I'm frustrated as to where it should go, because I don't like it much. It's literally hard to visualize, which usually means nothing good. Once a scene become tedious and boring to write, or a character stops speaking for long periods of time, when they started off well, I know that's just about the end for that scene or character. I recently dropped a character and I feel a little relieved.

I also feel a little spooked.

It's not a superstition thing. This character was just too easy to replace. Dropping her tightened the story up. Thankfully, none of my other characters have been able to shut up for the time being, so I'm happy. I now know where this chapter is going.

But writing this novel was so much easier when the whole thing was terrible.

Speaking of which, I think I'll post another excerpt tomorrow.

I need a good laugh.

Edward Cullen, Man-Child

Upon a mental analysis of the Twilight novels, it has become apparent to me that Edward Cullen, one of the male leads, is an 80 year old man-child.*

I have a few facts to back up this observation.

1. Edward has no job, only hobbies. He spends most of his time playing piano and hunting. Now, true, his adopted father is a doctor, which in any family is a well-paying occupation that sometimes does allow one's offspring to live a life of comparable leisure. But, uh, Ed? You still don't have a job 'cause your dad's rich. That's just as bad.

2. If the book and the movie are to be believed, at the time of his marriage to Bella, Edward has lived an honorable life and kept his virtue intact. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make him the 80 year old virgin. Steve Carell will be playing him in the sequel to Breaking Dawn, which I understand has a working title of The Cullens Take Manhattan.

3. Edward stares. And I don't mean that he stares at Bella while's she's sleeping. (The horse is dead. Put the whip down, step away, and go on with your life.) I mean he stares at people in general. Now, he is a vampire, but you sorta get the feeling that he did this as a human. Since he was 17 at the time of his transformation, this plants Edward firmly in the realm of awkward guy. If he had lived to head over to Europe with the rest of the dough-boys (because his "death" was during the first World War, and from Spanish flu), he probably would have been "that guy."

4. He demands to be taken seriously, at all times. No joking. It's mean. Stop it now. (Sorta like how little kids react when you laugh at their indignation.)

One consolation is that, given his love of hunting things that involve blood, he'd probably be fun to play Halo with. Or maybe Left 4 Dead.**




*This is not a Twi-hate post, and if you don't get in touch with the real world and realize that the Twilight series is not going to result in severe damage to the world as we know it, then I'll have to accuse you of being a secret fan.

**Hurr hurr. Get it?

Good Fictional Characters

I'm taking a break from Sentience for today and presenting the characters who I think are pretty awesome. I'll be fair and you already know my tastes are eclectic (and since I haven't read Pride and Prejudice, I'll be excluding Mr. Darcy. Though I did like the movie version. I could include him, but that, my friends, would be a bandwagon, and they tend to be uncomfortable rides.) So here goes with the coolest fictional characters.

Obi-Wan Kenobi
The classic English gentleman who always manages to politely beat someone's face in. I can't say much more. His actions speak for themselves.

The Doctor
I believe just his title is sufficient to convey the awesomeness.

Mina Harker
Unlike her needy, clingy, oft-swooning friend Lucy, Mina is an actual useful character, both in the hunt for Dracula and in helping her husband with something other than getting his shepherd's pie on the table.

Esme Cullen
Yep, another Twilight reference. But this character is particularly fascinating because she's a great (if quite worried) mom, a really nice mother-in-law, and an interior decorator. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, finds Edward and Bella married and expecting a child. At some point between the couple's honeymoon and their child's birth, Esme fixes up and impeccably decorates a small cabin in the woods for the little family, giving the reader the impression that she enjoys publications such as House Beautiful and Southern Living when she's not being a faithful wife and a hunter/gatherer. Granted, one of her adopted daughters is also quite the fashionista, and another just simply wants to be a mom. Despite the fact that they're vampires, women will still be women. (And I can say that, because I'm one. A woman, not a vampire. The latter is fictional.)

Donna Noble
One of the Doctor's companions. It's noted that she didn't fall in love with him, but they were really good friends and the girl had some sass. The best part of watching any of the Donna Noble episodes is that she and the Doctor often have awesome verbal sparring matches. A definite improvement over the annoyingly clingy Martha Jones.

River Song
I'm at a loss as to who she actually is (or will be...or was...my head hurts a little.) Regardless, this is an awesome character because she's a little complex, and you don't really know why. There are hints that she is attempting to atone for something she did (or will do...or...I give up) and that gives the character a dynamic that draws the audience to her while keeping the mystery element high.

Abraham Van Helsing
Seriously, he is quite the hardcore old dude. How did he find out all this vampire slaying stuff? Where did he come from, and what is his motivation? He goes all "tack up the garlic and roll up your sleeves, man, we got a transfusion to do." See? Cool.

Han Solo
I think I learned sarcasm from watching the Old Trilogy. He's normal. He's everyman in the Star Wars universe. He's awesome because we can relate.

Indiana Jones
Sue me, Harrison Ford's cool. Anyway, coolest history teacher ever. I mean, he fights Nazis and evil psychic Ukrainians! And the refrigerator move? Brilliant.

Samwise Gamgee
This guy puts up with a lot of Frodo's ring-induced PMS. That's not all, though. He's a family man above all. Sam never gets to wear the shiny armor or grow to a freakish (for Hobbits) height, but he never needs all that. He's the one who wants to settle down and marry the girl next door, but he's willing to go off and help save the world first, not even sure that he'll come back to his home again. Despite the movie versions being quite abridged compared to the books (and leaving stuff out because otherwise the films would have been about 10 hours each and it's not logical or possible to include every little picky thing), Sean Astin did a good job of portraying the inner character of Sam. Nicely done.

Raoden and Sarene
The hero and heroine, respectively, of Brandon Sanderson's outstanding novel Elantris. Though they don't meet until a good ways into the book, as written, the characters have enough chemistry (even apart!) to really take you on a wild ride and keep you entertained and hooked until the mystery is solved at the end. They're never perfect characters, but they are likeable and easy for the reader to relate to, despite both of them being royal.

Every Muppet Ever
If you're not sure who I'm talking about, look up the Muppet Show on Youtube. They're amazing.

Saphira
The dragon from Eragon. I was a little sad that she lost some of her sarcastic bite in the third book.

Jack Sparrow
Bandwagon, no. I've actually seen the movies. The beauty of this character? You have no idea what his back story is beyond his dad playing for the Rolling Stones and his mom being a shrunken head. I still have no idea what he's referring to in the first one when the scene picks up with him saying "...and then they made me their king..." or what "and really bad eggs" could possibly refer to, but that's the charm. He's sort of like a pirate Indiana Jones, only without the tenure at a college. Best part? He's based on a real guy, Calico Jack Rackham, who actually had a cameo in the first Pirates film. Blink, and you might miss him hanging around Port Royal. *snerk*

So there's today's post, hope you enjoyed it. Short and sweet. If this list seems quite short, it is. The good characters in fiction vastly outnumber the absolutely annoying ones, but I'm finding that I may need to do an Annoying Characters Part 2. Anyway, stay tuned for the third part of Sentience and thanks for dropping by.

Characters: Putting Yourself in Your Work (Part One of a Series)

Let me start by confessing that when I write a story, I tend to make cameos within the narrative.  I don't always function as the main character, but I am there, keeping an eye on the inhabitants of my mini universes.  I could be anyone from the work-stressed sister on the other end of the phone to the blue-haired (yep, my a hair's been that color more than once) background character who's actions are a catalyst of sorts, but it's a habit now for me to be there in some capacity.  I believe that there is nothing wrong with that in the least bit.  In one of my current projects, my main character basically is me, tweaked of course, and with several differences, but she is me, exploring a world I made up.  I'll restate that there's nothing wrong with this.

Until.

Oh yes, until.  This word just makes me giddy with anticipation, because it means I'm about to fully analyze and critique something.  (Favorite hobby, seriously.)  Okay, I'm back now.

It's fine to stick yourself in your story.  If you want your main character to be a variant of you, that's fine, but watch out for Mary Sues and Gary Stus.  They tend to be rampant in fanfiction, but I have also caught them lurking in books that I've purchased.  (Yes, there are different degrees of Sue and Stu, and the pair is quite sneaky.  They're like glamor ninjas.)  The most blatant type of Mary Sue tends to occur when the author inserts herself as the powerful and extremely beautiful main character.  Gary over here shows up in the same way.  Usually, they're pretty average height (a 21st century type of average, regardless of the era they live in) and either have something inexplicable about them (abilities or appearance), and they never live an average life.  If they are not a princess/prince, then they are a beggar who is really a princess/prince and life is hard.  Abuse is common for Mary and Gary.  Sobsob, crycry.  Writers, avoid this at all costs.

When you decide to make your main character a version of you, do so in personality.  If he or she looks like you, fine.  Having a picture of a character in your head for reference is a great idea.  It helps you visualize actions that they or other characters make, see someone's face as they speak, and understand how the character would move if they walk, run, swing a sword, or drive a car.  But a mistake that some writers make is going out of their way to describe the character, pointing out Mary or Gary's eye color or hair sheen or unblemished skin constantly.  Usually, when you flip to the author's picture, you'll find that they are the spitting image of their perfect main character.  (Feather, which I reviewed earlier, has the dubious honor of being exactly like this.  I do not exaggerate when I say that Estella describes herself every few pages.  It gets old reading about someone being perfect in looks.)  I know that as far as the Twilight Saga goes, many people either love it to obsession or hate it with a passion, but the lack of self-description was actually something that impressed me.  There's a little bit of description, but it's in context as to where the character lives at the beginning of the story.  Actually, you never get a clear grasp on what Bella looks like until the fourth book, when one of the Cullen sisters remarks on the color of Bella's eyes when she was human.  Nicely done.  Yeah, she looks like the author, but does not ever come across as "I'm perfect in every external way."  Also, if you have an evil character, please refrain from making them look like the slightly petty, mean, and popular girl in your school.  Female villains tend to be slightly perfect as well, and that's just as annoying.

Give your character flaws.  And I don't mean "they're a worrier" or "they get stressed easily."  I mean give them real flaws.  They're scared, or they have acne.  (Glasses, by the way, are hardly a cosmetic problem.  Yeah, I wear contacts now, but mostly out of convenience.  For me, they're easier to maintain.  If they were harder to own, I'd totally have glasses.)  Maybe they're mean sometimes, even to their best friend, or *gasp* they can't use a sword with any competence whatsoever.  You have to be careful, though, of making your main character unlikeable.  Let them have flaws, but normal, human, every day flaws.  Characters who are unpopular in school because "popular kids are mean" are not realistic.  (I went to private school for 13 years.  I wasn't exactly Homecoming Queen, but I wasn't ridiculed for stupid stuff like having curly hair or wearing knee socks with my skirts.  Actually, high school was rather nice.)  That's one of the things I liked in the Harry Potter series.  Harry can be an awkward guy, but he has friends.  Yeah, he has enemies, and he's not super popular at Hogwarts, but he has a good circle of people who like him, and with whom he hangs out.  Most of the ones who don't like him feel that way because they are actual foes with an agenda.  (Poor Snape and his unrequited love for Lily, though.)  Without the list of mortal enemies, it's a convincing story of adolescence.  Okay, J.K. Rowling hardly put herself into that story, but you see the point.  Don't make your story into a pity party about your life if your life is pretty average and pretty good.  (Okay, the Dursleys were mean, but jealousy fueled it, and the 90s were a grungier time anyway.)

You don't always have to be the main character.  Remember, there is an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Let yourself be an observer, or a background character.  You could be the main character's best friend, helping them decide stuff.  But most writers will choose to make the main character another version of themselves, and that's fine as long as the character is convincingly imperfect, just like you.  It can be hard to build a character that everyone can relate to, but if you're willing to actually work on a character instead of taking the lazy route and making them perfect/powerful/the Chosen One, you and your readers will be rewarded.

How to Annoy Your Audience: Stereotypes and Generalizations

The typical fictional New York City will usually be characterized by a few things. First, fictional NYC citizens are rude and soulless.  Old people and children will always be roughly shoved out of the way of tough city folk, and money and success define a fictional NYC citizen's life. Second, in the fictional NYC, soulful, green-haired, spontaneous, and poor artists populate Greenwich Village or any of the nicest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Third, you have to use a specific lingo in order to receive food from any eating establishment.  Topping it all off, the negative vibes in fictional NYC are enough to cause a river of Pepto pink slime to run under the city and bring back the soul of Dracula's rival-in-meanness neighbor.

Uh-huh.

See how annoying all that is? Not only that, it's pretty insulting to make all those generalizations.  (Except for the last part.  Ghostbusters, you get an exemption.)  New York City, to the average tourist, is quite fast-paced, but the people are awesome and the city is amazing.  Okay, my second point was first made in my creative writing textbook, but it is true.  People tend to put poverty stricken, fictional artists in a lovely loft apartment in Greenwich Village.  Only thing is, Greenwich is a beautiful neighborhood and it's pretty expensive to live there.  (Also, I don't know too many artists, but I do know that most of them are fun people who are focused on their work rather than doing random and typical free-spirited things.)  Also, since most New Yorkers speak English, they understand perfectly when you say "I'd like a cheeseburger and an iced tea, please."

Now we can move on to the stereotypical South.

In the stereotypical South, everyone everywhere drawls everything.  Sentences take five minutes to finish. Cotton is still king, and football is the life of everyone who's anyone.  Southern belles always have an air of treachery about them, and every upstanding woman wears pearls.  There is also lots of background music, usually consisting of a harmonica or some slow, methodical picking of random guitar strings.  The stereotypical South, Louisiana especially, also tends to be a choice residential area for vampires.  They like the football programs, I suppose.

While music and vampires aren't necessarily stereotypes, everything else is.  How do I know this?  Well, I live in the South.  Fiction that includes Southern locations and a Gone with the Wind accent permeating all the speech is, quite frankly, annoying.  (No, I didn't intend that Rhett Butler allusion there.  That's just a bonus.)

Granted, I do live in North Carolina.  Cotton wasn't king here so much as tobacco.  Being more of a vaguely British/pirate persuasion, we don't speak all that slowly.  True, there are certain people who insist on the haughty, Southern blue-blood, old money thing, but even that has a different flavor than somewhere like, say...Georgia.  There aren't old plantation houses on every block.  (In truth, only about 4% of the antebellum Southern population actually lived on a plantation.)  Recently, I've read somewhere that North Carolinians speak more of a "proper English" than other states, stemming from the many English settlers in the state.  North Carolina is pretty unique, actually.

It's not the only unique place though.  When a character is described as having a "Southern" accent, and when that accent is the only defining feature of that character, the writer is cheating both herself and the readers.  For one thing, every state has a different accent, or two different, or three.  (North Carolina has at least three regional differences in accents, spanning from the Coastal Plains, which I have, and the Western North Carolina accent.)  "Southern" characters who are Southern in accent only are annoying, flat, and less than they could be.

British accents can be the same way.  There are many different accents in the British isles, and saying that someone has a "slight British" accent (as Abra Ebner does in Feather) is a little bit lazy. Not only is it lazy, it also means that you're cheating yourself out of some character development and dialogue, and this goes for any accent.  Instead of your main character observing that another character has a British/Southern/whatever accent, have them make conversation.  It might look something like this:  "The boy had an accent, but Susie couldn't place it.  'Where are you from?'  Louis looked up from his book.  'I'm from....'"  This conversation establishes characterization.  If your main character doesn't want to be embarrassed by asking such a question, imply that and let them find out later.


If you're unsure about a location, and you want to write about it, please do your research.  My complaint with many books is that the author simply does not do research in key areas.  If you set your stories in a real life location, but get things blatantly wrong (you'll see more of this in my analysis of Feather) about the area, then someone is bound to notice.  (Spoiler alert:  Feather mentions the "hillsides of London" once...but London is a metropolitan area.  Ravines of New York?  Crashing waves in Oklahoma?  I've never been to London, but Doctor Who is sometimes set there and 28 Days Later was a great story partly set in London...I have a good idea of what it looks like.)  When you don't bother to get details right because you assume that no one will know or care, you insult your readers.

Also, there's generalizations about people that you never want to make.  Many times, I am assumed to be Goth, and I am not.  I do wear a lot of darker colors, for various reasons.  Mostly taste.  I do like dark red lipstick (classy!) and lace.  (I even wear pearls, but I swear I stay away from the hoop skirts.)  Also, I tend to be seen as a pessimist.  (I'm not.)  While I realize that I probably invite these generalizations (unintentionally...), they're not fair in writing.  Again, defining a character solely by appearance, dress, or accent is a bad idea.  You end up with flat characters who cannot grow or change because they have no substance to change from.  The same applies to places.  Defining New York City, the South, Southern California, or anywhere based on what you've read in books or seen in movies is going to prove problematic.  That's why it's important to write what you know.  If you want to do differently, then at least research what and where you are writing about.  Your story will make more sense and will seem more real.

Check back for my next post.  Right now, I'm reading through Guardian, the sequel to Feather.  I hope to have a review of that up soon, and an analysis of Feather that can help you see where a story can go wrong.  I'll also be writing about characters next.  Stay tuned, and thanks for stopping by.