Ink-Stained Scribe

George Lucas - The Phantom Audience

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:23:00 +0000

I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a little girl. In middle school, one of my walls was a collage of posters, pictures, and fan-art, I had a one-foot model of the Millenium Falcon suspended from my ceiling, and enough extended universe books to build a desk.

Recently, George Lucas announced that he was stepping back from making feature films because of the negative reaction he continues to receive from fans about alterations he's made to the Star Wars films. The Guardian cited a NY Times interview with Lucas, in which he said the following:

"On the internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I'm saying: 'Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.'"

"Why would I make any more," Lucas says, "when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?"

[Insert appropriate joke about going to the Toshi station to pick up power converters here]

After my initial eye-roll, I had two reactions:

1. Lucas, as the creator, has the power to do whatever he wants with his franchise, but should have been prepared for a negative backlash.

2. Lucas's reaction to audience backlash suggests that he views his audience as witnesses rather than collaborators.

As a creator, I find Lucas's reaction both understandable and problematic. I understand the desire to go back, to tweak things and try to make them more like what you see in your head, but once a work has made an impact on society, the time to make changes has passed.

I'm a firm subscriber to the belief that art belongs to the audience, not the creator. It's is going to be true no matter how much the author wants to control, revise, or retract the original work, because experiencing art is personal, and what we come to understand through that experience weaves itself into our ideas of who we are and where we fit into the world. Both parties come out of it changed, having created the experience inside their heads as something meaningful and indicative of self, even if it's as simple as "Anakin is way more annoying than Luke -- I didn't think that was possible".

While a work of art reflects the audience more than the artist, it is also important not to take the artist entirely out of the equation. Art is the product of the ideas and values of the artist, and an audience resonates with the evidence of those ideas and values, even if their interpretations are completely different. Intention has nothing to do with it. They may want to know what the artist "meant", but only because they have already decided what the work means to them, and want to find out how they compare, and where that places them in the scheme of society/morality/the bright center of the universe.

Whether the intention and interpretation turn out to be the same is irrelevant. For example, no matter how many times Tolkein stated that The Lord of the Rings was not meant as a Christian allegory, the audience member who interprets it that way isn't wrong. He sees the parallels in his own minds, and those parallels become part of the meaning of The Lord of the Rings for him, part of his experience. It has somehow strengthened or created pathways of thinking about the world in relation to something that matters to him.

Respect of an audience's reaction is valuable to an artist as well, because it allows her to grow and reevaluate herself. By deciding whether the interpretation of the audience is or isn't what she intended, an artist can create her own meaning and understanding of self through the reaction.

Unfortunately, Lucas didn't get the chance to visit the Vader-cave on Dagobah for a little self-reflection. In a 2004 interview, he said:

[T]o me, [the original version of the trilogy] doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it.

Whoa. Stop the Bantha.

Deriding fans for falling in love with something you created, even if you see it as incomplete, is rude enough to inspire Force-lightning. If there's anything Lucas should try to take back, it's that. Let's pretend the fans shot first.

To claim that the original version of the trilogy no longer exists is to say that this whole collaborative sub-culture built around the works, and the meanings derived from the experience of it, are invalid. To Lucas, the film may have been "half completed", but it was released to the public - with or without his permission - and millions fell in love.

He often claimed to have been disappointed, and yet something kept him going after A New Hope, and I doubt it was the desire to keep producing "half completed" films.

Image from nakedglitter on tumblr

When John Green wrote Looking for Alaska, I'm sure he was proud of it. Later on, however, he stated that he no longer agreed with what he'd set out to write in that book, particularly because some fans pointed out the unfair treatment of a female character. Rather than going back and making changes, however, Green used that change in philosophy to grow as an artist. He wrote another book -- Paper Towns -- in order to reexamine the parts of Looking for Alaska he no longer agreed with.

And that, in my opinion, is how it should be done.

Once a work of art has moved into the public view, it ceases to belong to the artist because each member of the audience develops his or her own unique version -- it becomes a collaboration. The audience gives the work meaning, rates its significance, and uses it to make more art and more communication and facilitate more development of self. Art doesn't just reflect one or the other, artist or audience -- it's a set of facing mirrors that reflect each other indefinitely.

Rather than treating his audience as collaborators, involved in an ongoing process of development, and allowing the original Star Wars trilogy to remain as it originally was, he treated his audience as witnesses to his inability to move on.

Further reading: Flavorwire's Open Thread on George Lucas.

AND TO PROVE that art inspires collaboration and dialoge and change and art, I've written the following song, using the music of YouTuber gunnarolla, as a tribute to George Lucas.

How Do You Balance Your Life?

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:48:00 +0000

How do you choose to spend your time?

My life has six categories of time expenditure:

Work
Health
Writing
Entertainment
Social Life
Sleep

I'm awesome enough to balance all six.

You hated me for about a second, didn't you? OK, stop now. I'm pretty sure it's difficult to balance more than three at once. Maybe that's just me, but let's go with it. The three I've been operating under recently are work, health, and social life. I really want to be writing, but when life gives you best friends' birthdays, you buy cake. And a round of shots. Anyway, the major difference hasn't been two nights of reckless abandon and carousing...

I've recently started back at the gym, and pretty soon, I'll be starting up a fitness podcast with a pair of really awesome guys...but there's one thing I've noticed about trying to get back in shape: it takes up a lot of time. On days when I work out, I've got less than an hour of writing time if I decide to entirely ignore my roommate. I'm not a sprint-writer, so this has been a bit tough on me. I like to binge.

Friday, I have plans in the evening, but my plans on saturday are to crawl back into my cocoon and work on my short story for Pendragon.

Which of the three are you prioritizing at the moment? Which three do you want to prioritize?

photo by patriziasoliani

Hot Mess

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:22:00 +0000

The oft-spoken platitude "things always get worse before they get better" is especially apt when it comes to housework and writing.

You know that moment where you look around at your house/bedroom/apartment/etc. and decide you need to rearrange so that everything is more accessible, more organized, and more of a reflection of you? Well, my roommate and I did just that last weekend. Our living room was okay - we'd painted a wall and hung pictures and barn stars, but it just seemed weird to walk into our apartment and not see...books. I mean, she's a librarian and I'm, you know, a writer. Books are sort of what we do.

It would have been awesome if we could just Mary Poppins (<--honorary verb) our apartment, but just like in writing, there's no easy button. Before we could move anything, we had to PULL OUT ALL THE THINGS. By Sunday night, we'd rearranged the living room to our liking: books and knick-knacks and pictures and posters signed by Neil Gaiman and John Green...

...and the rest of the house had descended into chaos. We blamed the cats, and ignored it until Friday, by which point the kitchen...

Anyway, you get the idea. Right now, HELLHOUND is at the same point as my apartment. I've gutted it, chopped it up, and spread out the pieces. I've added characters and cut others, done away with subplots and worked in better ones. But as I fix one part of the story, another part falls off into jumbled, irreparable madness. I've hit that moment where I think everything is as messy as it's going to be, and I just need to figure out where everything goes, and what I need to fix it.

So I'm note-carding again, looking at the characters and subplots, filling up the giveaway box and making room for only what's good and necessary, only what accurately represents the story I want to tell.

Unfortunately, there are no cats to blame for this madness. Fortunately, no one else has to see it until it's ready.

As for the apartment, it's Sunday evening, and things have gotten better. I've rearranged my room, Skrybbi has built her desk, and we've done approximately 5 loads of laundry. The kitchen is no longer a war-zone, and even though my cat knocked a bottle of Kahlua onto the floor at 3AM last night, we're feeling good about how everything is shaping up.

Pendragon Variety Call for Submissions!

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:25:00 +0000

The first issue of Pendragon Variety Literary Magazine is scheduled for release in May, and we need YOUR contributions to make it happen! This will release first as the Audio Literary Magazine, and later as an e-book.

The theme for Issue # 1 is "DRAGONS". This issue will be dedicated to the life and memory of Anne McCaffrey, so every story should include dragons in some significant way. Cyber dragons, genetically-engineered dragons, dragon mech-warriors–use your imagination. But they must be pivotal.

Deadline: March 5th

ART:

If you would like to contribute insert art Pendragon Variety Issue #1, please email PendragonVariety@gmail.com with the subject “ART SUBMISSION – Your Name” with relevant links and/or attachments.

FICTION:

Length: 100 – 5,000 words. If you have something longer, please query first – we will consider it.

What we want: From Sci-Fi to Steampunk to Sword and Sorcery, anything speculative! Reprints accepted.

What we don’t want: Anything you would be ashamed to read in front of a random selection of people from a Dragon*Con hotel lobby, including at least one person dressed as Darth Vader.

Format: A properly-formatted .doc or .rtf file

Send it to: PendragonVariety@gmail.com; with “SUBMISSION – Your Title” as the subject header.

We will discuss preferences for audio production after the acceptance of your story. At the moment, we regret that we are unable to pay our authors. If you would like to help us pay our authors, please go to the site and click on the DONATE button.

Two Flash Fictions

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:02:00 +0000

So, my friend and fellow writing club member, Elyse, made me write flash fiction stories today. I thought, since I've been caught up in a billion projects recently and haven't had time to write a post, I'd inflict these stories upon you all! They're inspired by randomly-selected song lyrics.

Flash Fiction Piece 1

Xan slid through the dingy crowd packed between the facades of every shop on main street, carefully keeping his face covered by the high collar of his coat. The curious, milling crowd was little more than a forest of feet. Some were shod, others not, but they all scuffed over the mud-veined cobbles, trouser hems and petticoats sucking up the muck as the people in them sucked up the lies of the Benefactor.

Xan had had enough of lies, and his answer to them was in a single word, burning in his mind, on his tongue, from his pen.

Revolution.

It had taken only one word, whispered in the dark of gas-lamps, coded into the articles he wrote to extoll the Benefactor's virtue, to amass an army of bodies. It would take many thousand more to convince them to fight.

Xan made his way to the monument of the City Benefactor and took the watch from his pocket. The chain spilled out in a silky tumble of delicate gold links, tugging lightly on the clip in his waistcoat. He clicked it open, glanced at its backwards-ticking hands, and checked it against the enormous clock-tower casting a knife of shadow over the courtyard. The hands would match up in less than a minute.

The journalist lifted his head then, eyes scanning the crowd he would soon arm with the greatest weapons: words.

(I am an arms dealer/ Fitting you with weapons in the form of words.)

Flash Fiction Piece 2

The fool’s voice was a low, grating crumble of a sound, like the earth around a gravestone. The throne room was cold, soundless but for the minor lullaby he hummed under his breath. The planks were smooth on his bare feet--worn soft as velvet by the many feet dragged to and fro across them every day.

“At your pleasure, my liege,” he mocked, bowing to the throne he knew was empty. “Shall I slit his throat, my liege? Burn his family before his eyes till he begs for blinding, my liege?” He cackled, raising two spidery, knuckley hands to his own face--to the hollow sockets--and prying wide the gaps in his face, tipping forward as though staring at some tortured soul.

He cackled, danced forward with steps too practiced to need counting, and leapt onto the dais, collapsing lazily across the throne. “The king of fools sayeth…” He turned his head, slow as an owl, and stared sightlessly.

“Give him riches, ten stones in measure, and chuck him in the moat.”

(Are you blind when you’re born? Can you see in the dark? / Dare you look at a king? Would you sit on his throne?)

Specific Motivation for Characters

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:15:00 +0000

You may be surprised at the changes...

While doing the outlining workshop, a few of the folks tried to pass off "to be happy" as a character motivation. Sorry, folks - no dice.

It's not that "to be happy" isn't a motivation, but it's sort of the quintessential motivation, and that's the problem. When you're setting up what your character wants, it needs to be as specific as possible, because that specificity will help your character seem unique.

"To be happy" is not unique. Just like we can trace all life back to the sun (well, as far as I know), everyone is motivated by the pursuit of happiness. Does your villain want to destroy the world? Why? Because on some level, world-destruction makes that character happy, or at least satisfied.

And satisfied is like happy. For sociopaths.

Anyway.

Motivation needs to be specific, and if it's not, all the cool shit they can do doesn't matter, because we don't know why it's important. A while back, I saw a youtube video about how Disney princesses always have their "motivation establishing song." I can't find that video now, but here are some of the relevant songs:

Belle: I want adventure in the great wide somewhere...

Ariel: I want to be where the people are...

Mulan: When will my reflection show who I am inside...

Snow White: Someday my prince will come...(barf.)

Ignoring the gag-inducing passivity of the Snow White motivation (If you haven't read the "YA Cover Trends" [aka, Dead Girls on Covers] essays over on Rachel Stark's blog, Trac Changes, I command thee go read.) you can see that all four of these chicks at least know what they want, and we learn that before they have to start fighting to make it happen or, in Snow White's case, before she is rudely taken advantage of by her step mother, and then randomly sexually assaulted by some chump with a white horse and a crown, and then circumstances allow everyone else to make her dream happen.

But how does one go about figuring out a specific motivation for a character?

The way I've decided to define specific motivation is by breaking it down into two parts:

DESIRE + METHOD

Desire is whatever it is your character wants. This should be the thing that pulls them toward the ending, the thing that they want to fight for. For example, the two main characters of HELLHOUND:

Helena: to gain true freedom and peace for herself and her pack.

Jaesung: to take care of the people he cares about (the way his father didn't).

Method is the course of action your character plans, must, or eventually decides to take in order to achieve their goals. To know this, you must know first what is keeping them from achieving their desires. Again, I'm going to use the cast of HELLHOUND as an example.

What stands between desire and:

Helena: Gwydhain is hunting the Hellhounds, the Sorcerers Guild is hunting her, and Jaesung's attention/suspicion puts her in danger of revealing her secret.

Jaesung: Helena won't tell him what's going on, so he can't protect her from it. He's still in school and doesn't make enough money yet to help resolve his father's debt.

So, what's their course of action, given these obstacles?

Helena: protect the book with the Hellhound creation spell, learn enough magic to defeat Gwydhain, keep her autonomy from the Sorcerers Guild, and keep her true nature hidden from her roommates.

Jaesung: find out what's going on with Helena so he can support her...and to make sure she's not endangering anyone else he cares about; finish his degree in applied mathematics and get a good job so he can take care of his family financially.

From these pieces of information, we can decide what each character's specific motivation is. For now, I'm just going to pick the most important obstacle.

THIS IS WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Helena: wants to gain true freedom and peace for herself and her pack BY protecting the book with the Hellhound creation spell and learning enough Magic to defeat Gwydhain.

Jaesung: wants to take care of the people he cares about (the way his father didn't) BY finding out what's going on with Helena so he can support her, or at least make sure she's not endangering anyone else.

CHARACTER wants to achieve DESIRE by taking a COURSE OF ACTION.

I don't think your characters' initial courses of action need to be successful - Helena fails both to protect the book and to learn enough Magic to defeat Gwydhain, and so must come up with an alternate solution. I'm not going to tell you if Jaesung is successful or not. You'll just have to wait and see...

What is your main character's specific motivation? Is their initial course of action successful? What's their next course of action?

Why Flaws and Motivations Matter More

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:14:00 +0000

What's that? I can't hear you over my AWESOME!

Have you ever created a character so sublimely kickass you can't believe they somehow rocketed straight from your subconscious?

He's a white-haired elf who doesn't realize he's a half-demon, and comes back to save the undeserving village that ran him off, only to die a slow and painful death (with an epic death-speech that would make Mercutio weep in a fit of jealous awe) to teach us all a lesson in tolerance. Speaking of tolerance, he's gay! With a demon. Isn't he awesome?

No. He's not. Maybe the above description intrigues you, and that's not a bad thing. Most likely, you're rolling your eyes. How do I know? Because I haven't given you a reason to care. It isn't that there's anything wrong with being a soliloquizing half-elf-half-demon still fighting to protect the ones that would have him killed (and getting some action on the side), but as it stands he's boring.

Here's the deal: anyone can heap awesome skills and powers onto a character. Anyone can throw a sad back-story and a tragic ending at a character. Anyone can give their character a controversial trait. (May I add, here, that making a character gay is not a quirk, flaw, or free-pass on making your character unique?) I can't embolden, underline, italicize, and capitalize the following enough: NONE OF THIS MATTERS WITHOUT FLAWS OR MOTIVATION.

Stories aren't about how awesome a character is. It's about the problems--internal and external--those characters overcome, and why they overcome them. Sure, how they overcome those problems is an important aspect of the plot, but it's in the "why" that we readers find a reason to care.

Looking for even more tips on writing? Go check out freelance editor CA Marshall's blog for her special Editing Advent contest - you could win a free 10 page critique from someone who knows what she's talking about.

Writing Romance - What About MY Needs!?

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:31:00 +0000

Writing Podcasts seem to have a certain synchronicity for me--when I'm struggling with something in my own writing, I hear it discussed in a podcast soon thereafter. It's not even that I seek out the episodes so much as I work my way though them, and the episode I need just happens to be there. That's happened to me with all three of my favorite writing podcasts: The Dead Robots Society, I Should Be Writing, and Writing Excuses. That's what I hope my own podcast, Pendragon Variety, can do for other aspiring writers.

The other day, I was listening to the Writing Excuses podcast, and heard something that seemed like common sense, but which I sometimes lose track of when writing romance between two characters. I'm not talking about romance novels (not that there's anything wrong with them). I'm talking about every romance you write, and what keeps it from feeling forced--what draws your characters to each other, by proxy drawing your readers to the relationship: knowing the needs the two characters satisfy for each other.

In "The Mark of Flight", Shiro and Arianna were pretty simple to figure out. Shiro fills Arianna's need to be seen, appreciated, and loved for who she is and not because she's a princess. Arianna fills Shiro's need to be believed in, and his need to be valued as a person. Funny enough, they satisfy a very similar needs for each other, though they come from completely different backgrounds. Their romance was never really an issue for me, so when I started writing HELLHOUND, I imagined everything would fall perfectly into place.

Not so. Part of this was my fault in writing without any idea who my characters were, what motivated them, or what they even wanted. But I feel like I should have figured it out by the end of the first draft. Something wasn't quite working--it was totally unbalanced. They went from 0 to 40...then back to 10...then to 80...and then piddled along to the end. It's not because they're not both likable, interesting, developed characters. It's not because there wasn't plenty of attraction on both sides.

I knew that Jaesung was a good influence on Helena...but I couldn't quite figure out what it was about HER that made him stick around. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about when I say that, sometimes, I don't think one protagonist quite has as much to offer as the other. "Because he loves her" might be valid, but sometimes I still want a little more.

What does Bella have to offer Edward (besides the feeling that he's a horrible monster for wanting to eat her all the time)?

What does Ron give to Hermione (besides at least three reasons to cry in every book)?

What is it about Clary that makes Jace willing to brave even the possibility of incest for her? (*squick*)

Jaesung gives me that problem. When you're a 23-year-old grad student juggling lots of goslings, what's going to draw you to a girl whose most likely background is "drug mule in witness protection"? Okay. Her hot legs. At first. But when shit starts going down, there's got to be something more.

Helena tries to do everything herself. She truly believes she has something that only she can do, and that she's got to do it alone. Unfortunately, her character flaw is in her inability to look past the moment and see consequences. Because she's too afraid to think about a future she thinks is hopeless, she gets herself into a lot of trouble for making decisions that don't seem to have any foresight.

Jaesung, on the other hand, has effectively killed his ability to live in the moment by always thinking about the past, and trying to figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes as his father. He works hard at something at which he's rather mediocre to make sure he can support his mother and his future family, while relegating his passions into the "hobby" box. Of course, he enjoys them...but he's not the type of person who can let himself disappoint people.

Helena never thinks about the future. Jaesung always does. This causes tension in their relationship, to be sure, but it also gives each of them something to contribute to the other. In a way, their flaws when it comes to life in general become their strengths for each other. Helena's lack of foresight gives Jaesung the opportunity to help her find her "light at the end of the tunnel" (Oh hai, theme). Her recklessness forces him to admit what he truly cares about, whether that lets people down or not.

Because I think flaws are so important, I have to make sure they grow, but don't fix each other, because the story isn't about overcoming flaws. Like many good stories, it's about overcoming adversity despite a thousand things that are in the way, including those flaws. Helena will probably never be able to plan ahead the way Jaesung does, and I know he will always feel duty-bound to take care of everyone around him.

She'll drag him out to play in the snow at 4AM. He'll remember anniversaries. She'll remind him to take a break from doing taxes. He'll make sure they get done later. She'll hunt demons for the safety of the world. He'll make sure she doesn't do it alone.

Yeah. They're a good match.

The Four Temperaments (for You and Your Characters) - Part II - Sensing/Perceiving

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:58:00 +0000

Last week, I discussed how to use the sensing and intuitive distinction in characters in description and exposition. As I mentioned in that post, the largest division of temperament occurs in the method of gathering and processing information (Keirsey). The next division is within the sensing and intuitive types.

This next bit goes into the background of the distinctions, so if you’re just interested in the behavior of the SP temperament types, skip everything between the camels.

In Please Understand Me, Keirsey describes the reasoning behind the division:

The Ns...opt either for...spirituality (self actualization) or...science (powers). ... The Ss...choose either...joy (freedom to act) or...duty (social status). ...[F]eeling now distinguishes the...self-actualization motive from the thinking...power motive. ...[J]udgement (J) distinguishes the...duty motive from the...freedom motive (P).

Because intuitive (N) types experience the world in a more metaphysical way, it makes sense for the distinction to rest on whether they are thinking or feeling types, or--as Keirsey states--whether they persue self-actualization or powers (which he defines as knowledge or skills). This gives us two of the four temperaments:

NF & NT

There seems to be some disagreement over how the distinctions are made when it comes to the sensing types. In the first post in this series, there was a graphic that split up both Intuitive and Sensing types by whether they’re thinking or feeling. Considering the sensing types are mostly concerned with the facts, the experience, and the present it makes more sense to me to distinguish Sensing types based on their need (or lack of need) to make conclusions and create deadlines, or the pursuit of duty versus the pursuit of freedom.

So for the purpose of this blog series, I’m going to be using Keirsey’s distinction. Thus, the sensing temperaments are:

SP & SJ

Temperament of the Day

SP
(Sensing / Perceiving)

Dionysian

(Joy/Aesthetic)

Dionysus riding a leopard.
Like a boss.

Sensing/Perceiving types are best embodied by the idea of the free-roller. Dionysus, the Greek God of wine and general debauchery, is a great example of the independent, fun-seeking SP.

They are independent, and rather than a work ethic, these types have a play ethic.They are optimists with a strong belief in and desire for equality. SPs are impulsive, and like being impulsive. They are the heart-breakers, the epicurians, and the easily bored.

SPs don't tend to pursue goals. They may have them, but the goal itself tends to be arbitrary. They run because they feel like running, not because they want to reach a finish line. This often means they have an inexhaustable endurance in comparison to more goal-driven types, because SPs aren't looking for a finish-line. It's all about the experience. As soon as the experience stops being fun, the SP can cast aside the goal like a banana peel (which also sometimes leaves the people around them in...slippery situations).

SPs go along with rules and regulations until a crisis strikes, or until they feel their autonomy is being challenged, at which point they break for the exit like Kim Kardashian in a wedding dress.

Despite their flaws, SPs are generally well-liked for their optimism, sponteneity, and the sense of adventure they bring to every day life.

Some Suspiciously SP Characters in Fiction Are:

Falstaff (Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor)
Sirius Black (Harry Potter)
Ron Weasley (Harry Potter)
Howl/Howell (Howl's Moving Castle)
Menolly (Harper Hall Trilogy)

The Four Temperaments (for You and Your Characters) - Part I

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:58:00 +0000

Before I get into specifics of each type of temperament, it's necessary to explain a little bit about each letter combination in MTBI. If you've done Myers-Briggs before, you're probably familiar with what's known as the four dichotomies:

Extroverted / Introverted - [E / I]

Sensing / Intuitive - [S / N]

Thinking / Feeling [T / F]

Perceiving / Judging [P / J]

If you're not familiar with these, or need a refresher, there is a very concise and (as far as I'm concerned) reliable break-down available here on Wikipedia. Each person has a tendency toward one side of each dichotomy, and in the end, his or her personality type is based on the combination of those four tendencies. For example, Raven and I are both INTPs, meaning we are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

There are sixteen possible combinations, and of these sixteen, they are split into four major temperaments.

According to "Please Understand Me" by David Keirsey, the widest gap in temperament actually comes into play with Sensing versus Intuitive, because this deals with how information is gathered, understood, and interpreted. Considering the overwhelming significance of perception in shaping who we are, it's no surprise that the four temperaments are first divided between Sensing and Intuitive types.

S / N

The Intuitive vs. The Sensing

Within the Four Temperaments, two of the temperaments are "Sensing" types and two are "Intuitive" types. I'll break these down further later on, but I'd like to point out something I find useful for writers in terms of "sensing" versus "intuitive" characters. We can apply the information-gathering and processing methods to characters through the way we use them to show our readers information.

Description and Exposition are two of the major ways in which we give our readers information about the milieu of our story, and ideally this will all come through the lense of character. The type of things our characters notice, think about, and draw conclusions from can give us as much information about them as it does setting.

The best part? It's not something that is likely to register consciously in a reader's mind, but we as writers can utilize it to help differentiate voice.

Sensing Characters

Sensing characters are grounded in the tangible reality and will be much more in tune with their five senses. Bring your powers of descriptiveness to bear on these characters--let them be the eyes, ears, and noses of your world.
When a sensing character walks into a room, they observe everything, giving a more integrated "big picture" view. They might be more likely to notice color-schemes or mismatched furniture
Though everyone gets "hunches" about things, the sensing character is more likely to squash hunches and draw conclusions from what they can see. A sensing character might walk into a room and observe that it is quiet, that everyone is frowning, and that another character has red-rimmed eyes. From these details, the sensing character will deduce that something is rotten in Denmark. They might reference history rather than possibility.

Intuitive Characters

Intuitive characters live in the realm of thought. The are far more likely to get so caught up in a train of thought that they lose track of their surroundings.While less likely to wax eloquent about a sunset or mountain vista, the intuitive character is your ticket into the less-tangible elements of your world. You can use these characters to describe the thought processes of culture, the theory behind your magic system, or to ponder the fate of the universe and their place in it.
When an intuitive character walks into a room, he will focus his attention on a few small details, often missing the forest for the trees.
The intuitive character will "sense that something is wrong" as soon as they enter the room. They will make broader assumptions about the situation based on what is possible, and may have already come up with several theories by the time they get around to gathering the "sensing" clues.

Of course, it's not totally black and white. Sensing characters also get hunches, and intuitive characters also make observations. At least in terms of writing, I think it's fair to say that order is important.

A sensing character would notice what is present and tangible first, possibly referencing history, the things he knows:

The first thing I noticed was the silence, like someone had sucked all the usual chatter from the steel barracks. It wasn't completely unprecedented, of course--we did spend at least some of our time studying--but none of my classmates had books out, and none of them were smiling. Even Amber, whose perpetually-upturned lips gave her the mischievous look of a cat about to pounce, looked pale and grave. What the hell had happened? I scanned quickly, counting. Five. Where was Sean? My stomach turned over, and I placed my hand on the doorframe to steady myself. "Hey," I said, and though I was dreading the answer, forced myself to ask the question hanging in the air. "Where's Sean?"

Contrast that with the same scene, written from the perspective of an intuitive character:

I stopped in the doorway, repelled by the sudden, solid tension that made the air inside the room hard as a titanium slab. My friends sat trapped by that unspoken emotion, suspended in the solidity of it. Frozen. I didn't have to wait for Shannon to turn her red-rimmed eyes on me to feel the static of panic start in the back of my mind. Something awful had happened. Someone from our class, sent to the brig. Or expelled. Or dead. My stomach turned over, and I placed my hand on the doorframe to steady myself. "What happened?" I said, and only as they turned familiar faces on me did I realize who was missing. My voice barely escaped. "Where's Sean?"

Does your idea of the characters come off differently in these two exerpts? What about your feeling about what role the narrator plays in this group? Do these narrators come across as vastly different types of people?

Middle-Ground

Here's a funny anecdote for you: when Adryn first took the test in high school, she came out as an "N". However, in reading the break-down in temperaments, I had the very strong sense that, while Adryn did exhibit a lot of N traits (imaginative, and a lover of fantasy, the theoretical, and the possible), she was also very S.

Adryn's father is about as S as I am N, meaning we rest at opposite ends of the spectrum. Adryn and her father love driving around in the moutnains, seeing gorgeous scenery, eating wonderful food, and getting knee-deep in whatever present, physical experience. They seem to feel closest to each other when sharing experiences. In contrast, I feel closest to Adryn when we are imagining the possible, creating worlds and characters and concepts together, letting our minds spiral out of the realm of what is.

So I read the type descriptions for ESFP and ENFP to try to decide which one she is, to no avail. BOTH types describe her perfectly.

Frustrated, I had Adryn take the test again last week, and she scored:

S: 49%
N: 51%

"I see myself easily in both of these. It's sort of like I have two modes, and I can switch into whichever one suits me better at the time."

Moral of the anecdote: remember that your characters don't have to be completely sensing or completely intuitive. We're all a blend of both, and some of us just have split personalities.

Are you an S or N? How about your characters? How does this affect your writing?

No Fiction? No Problem!

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:38:00 +0000

Right now, Raven and I are sitting in my apartment with our respective linguistics books, listening to Vivaldi.

Yesterday, I bought an entire opera album on iTunes.

We just made a pact not to become douche-bags about our newfound culture. (I say that in the German sense of the word. Wait, did I just break that non-douche-baggery pact? Fine. We promise not to buy matching mini-coopers.)

If you're still reading, I guess now is a good time to explain how a pair of globe-trotting fantasy writers staggered into the cultural scene. Actually, I guess you could say we've always straddled the line, and recent events have just tipped us over it like a frat boy at a co-ed twister game. (I never said the culture had to extend to my metaphors.)

Raven and I have both been oddly absorbed in the non-fiction section of the bookstore recently, most notably in the linguistics, psychology, history, and literary criticism. We've both read non-fiction before, but never this avidly. There's something about being out of school for a few years that makes your brain feel like it's beginning to atrophy, and Raven and I seemed to reach this point almost simultaneously.

In truth, it was researching for our own fiction that lead us to the non-fiction section, which would have been less of a shock were we not both writing contemporary fantasy. Raven--who decided her heroine would be both Chinese and interested in philosophy--started looking into linguistics and philosophy. My non-fiction list is a bit more eclectic (shocker).

Raven's Reading List
1. Through the Language Glass
2. Little Book of Language
3. The Unfolding of Language
4. The Stuff of Thought
5. You Are What You Speak
6. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
7. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sarte
8. The Problems of Philosophy

Scribe's Reading List
1. Please Understand Me (Psych)
2. Guns, Germs, and Steel (Hist)
3. Dreaming in Chinese (Linguistics)
4. A Truth Universally Acknowledged (Literary Criticism)
5. Through the Language Glass (Linguistics)
6. Please Understand Me II (Psych)
7. (Everything on Raven's list...)

Also, this just happened:

Raven: That's why you don't argue with the Asian. It's okay. I still love you. I just won't tell anyone else.
Scribe: Just don't tell anyone I said that, and you won't have to make excuses for loving me despite my ineptitude.

If You Don't Read Fantasy and Science Fiction...

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:02:00 +0000

This will hep you figure out where to start...(click me)

Also, parents, please teach your children to read; according to Business Week, schools aren't doing it anymore because they're more concerned with raising the math scores.

Parents, please also teach your children math. I don't want state schools to water down their tests in order to meet federal score standards (and therefore get federal funding), especially when they're already shuffling reading comprehension out of the curriculum.

The Four Temperaments for You and Your Characters.

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:12:00 +0000

Lately, I've been thinking more and more structurally in terms of character and story--in part because it requires great effort for me to take the undisciplined, malignant mass of "creation" and put it all together in a coherent form, and in part because I have to take shit apart and figure out how it works before I fully appreciate what it does. Thus all the meta-writing.

You might have noticed recently how often I reference Myers-Briggs personality types. Though we first discovered this personality and temperament test in high school, it's more recently wiggled its way into all of my character development rituals.

Raven and I have spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out which of the Myers-Briggs personality types most resemble our characters. As you may or may not be aware, Wikipedia isn't the only source of information. Frustrated with the lack of cogent explanation of the temperament pairings and detailed analysis, I purchased this book: Please Understand Me - Character & Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates.

I might have gone overboard with this, to the point where I babbled about the difference between "Sensing" types and "Intuiting" types for an entire hour when my dad took me out for sushi.

Overzealousness aside, studying this has helped me understand and focus some of my more difficult characters, particularly in terms of behavior, and also gives me a way to predict how characters whose types are different from my own might react in given situations.

Here's an example of how it works:

I couldn't figure out how Shiro (INFJ) might react when he meets the man whose disappearance caused his friend a lot of pain. I kept trying to have him get angry, because I get angry when people mess with my friends, but it wasn't working. It wasn't jiving with his character, and I couldn't move on with the scene. Then I realized something: Shiro belongs to the NF (Idealist) temperament, and they probably wouldn't react the same way as me, an NT (Rational).

...and sitting across from me was a real-life, bonafide NF. Skrybbi.

My emotional
North Star *

WHAT WOULD AN NF DO?

"He should be confused at first--why would Alukale have disappeared? Did he not realize how much it would hurt Bay? We (NF's) look for the reason, and we always assume there must be a good one. And if there isn't, we totally judge you, and probably feel bad for judging."

Whereas my NT (Rational) reaction upon confirming the dude's identity was:

"You hurt my friend, therefore you are a douche-nozzle."

...and the NF (Idealist) reaction was:

"You hurt my friend. Did you know you hurt my friend? But why did you hurt my friend? There must have been a reason! No? Okay. You're a douche-nozzle! ...but I feel kind of bad for saying that."

How did this help me in the scene?

"Why?" turned out to be the appropriate response. Suddenly there was a lot more tension in the scene as Shiro tried to pry information out of this man because he wanted to assume the best of him, and the man (who has his own motivations) refused to explain, leaving a character that is generally temperate both confused and angry. I finished the scene in the next half hour, and because of that one shift, was able to reveal a lot more about the other characters.

...I kind of hadn't expected it to work that well.

In the next few posts, I'll be explaining my take on the four temperaments and how you can use each of them to help you deepen your characters, differentiate them from yourselves, and keep them behaving the way they should (or shouldn't). Though the full-blown Myers-Briggs 16-type test is super interesting and helpful, I'm going to focus on the four temperaments as my starting point.

Do you like personality tests? Have you ever tested yourself? Your characters? What other methods (psychology, astrology, dice rolls) do you use to try to focus your characters' personalities?

A Brief Note on the Hollywood Formula

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:09:00 +0000

Ever get to an ending that makes you go:

I think I might have stumbled face first into the holy-grail of endings.

I left my iPhone in the car while I was at work today, so instead of listening to the playlists for Mark of Flight and Hellhound, I've been listening to the Writing Excuses Podcast. I highly recommend this podcast, which includes the lovely Mary Robinette Kowal, whom I met in person this year at Dragon*Con, while hanging out with David Coe, AJ Hartley, and John Mertz.

Now that I'm done shamelessly name-dropping, I guess I should explain that, in two recent episodes, the cast of Writing Excuses discussed something called "The Hollywood Method". I've been doing a lot of work recently on figuring out structure as it pertains to character and motivation, and I found this episode very helpful.

GO HERE to listen to the actual break-down of the formula as described by Lou Anders. I'm going to give a protracted explanation here, and then explain how it's helping me in terms of focusing my characters and helping me to figure out my endings in terms of emotional payoff.

Protagonist is obviously the hero(ine), and obviously needs a motivation more specific than "to be happy".

Antagonist which is the person in DIRECT opposition to the protagonist's needs. IE, the one getting in his or her way. The antagonist may not be the most obvious choice.

Relationship Character: This is the character who accompanies the protagonist on their journey and has some sort of wisdom that helps cement the theme, which is revisited later, during the reconciliation with the antagonist. In film, there is a moment during which the protagonist has a discussion with the relationship character that articulates the theme of the story. This might be too heavy-handed for fiction.

According to the Hollywood method, to create an ending with the maximum emotional payoff the protagonist must achieve their goals, reconcile their differences with the antagonist (in whatever manner the story calls for), and reprise the theme. The closer together the three can happen, the more intense the emotional payoff.

I was having problems with the endings of both The Mark of Flight and Hellhound. I knew there was something wrong, but it was difficult to pinpoint, since I couldn't articulate what was wrong with either ending. This method didn't exactly bring up anything earth-shattering, but it gave me the lexicon (and therefore the structure) to understand whether certain elements of my story were weak, strong, or present at all.

Because MoF is the first in a trilogy, it was a little more difficult--I had to have Arianna start on the path toward reconciling the problems caused by the antagonist getting in her way, but still leave something of a cliff-hanger. I also had to consider both the theme of the trilogy as a whole and the theme of the first book by itself.

Arianna's motivation is to prove her worth by serving her coutnry as a good queen. This is going just fine until Tashda gets in her way by first undermining her to the council, then by kidnapping her and removing her from the possibility of power. Shiro, the slave that helped her escape from Tashda and who in essence represents her relationship to her own country, is the relationship character because he not only accompanies her along her journey, he has wisdom and maturity she doesn't, and is also the catalyst for her making her Big Decision.

My problem was that Tashda's impact on Arianna had disappeared at the end--he was off terrorizing another character, preparing for a war that will surface in the next book. Arianna had to deal with the after-effects only partially. I never actually forced her to deal directly with the issues Tashda caused, and I didn't turn her head in the direction of her path to reconciling those issues. Couple of emotional plot-threads there, flapping in the breeze, and I could see how tying them off would make a better ending.

I've written a new ending scene, and in terms of keeping my MC on track with her motivations (and poised to act in the next book), this new ending is much more powerful. Thanks to the cast of Writing Excuses, Lou Anders, and his film teacher for giving me a way to focus my story.

What are the Protagonist, Antagonist, and Relationship Characters in your WIP? Does your ending add up? If not, can you think of any ways to change this? What do you think of "formulas"? Are they great help with structure, or do you think they hinder creativity and variety?

Does Talking About Writing Affect My Relationships?

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:18:00 +0000

I talk a lot about my stories. I mentioned in my post the other day that I have been completely unable to get my mind tethered into the real world for the past week or so. Whether I'm at work or at home, my brain is floating like a Huxley without a mooring rope. I can't seem to get it to grab onto anything tangible. Now, if this all stayed in my head, it wouldn't be so much of a problem, but I find myself wandering out of my room at random moments, going up to Skrybbi whether she's cooking, watching TV, knitting, cleaning, or doing homework, and spilling out some random idea I've just come up with for whatever book I'm working on at the moment.

Sometimes I'm trying to feel out whether or not this idea works. Is it funny? Is there an inherent problem? Does it read like something out of a Twilight fanfic? I don't always know what I'm looking for when I share my ideas, but I do this constantly. Lately, it's all I really do besides ask "How was your day?" I feel really bad about that, because I want to be a considerate friend and roommate, and not just that girl who sequesters herself in a room and appears only when she needs something.

And I worry about how this affects my relationships. It may not seem like I do, because I often keep concerns like this to myself until I have a clear way to express it.

When I brought up this concern to Skrybbi last night, she said:

This is what I'm afraid folks are really thinking...

"To be fair, I knew this would happen when I decided to move in with you. I really don't mind, as long as I can make teriyaki chicken with one hand, fend off kitties with another, and respond to you with 'Mhmm! Hahaha. Mhmm,' It's not that I'm not paying attention, but if I don't see an inherent problem, I'm probably just going to thumbs up."

Now, Skrybbi is probably one of the nicest people I know. I don't think she would even really tell me it bothered her as long as it was merely annoying, rather than a serious asshole move. She's an INFP, which http://www.personalitypage.com/ tells us exhibits the following traits:

"Generally thoughtful and considerate, INFPs are good listeners and put people at ease. Although they may be reserved in expressing emotion, they have a very deep well of caring and are genuinely interested in understanding people. This sincerity is sensed by others, making the INFP a valued friend and confidante. An INFP can be quite warm with people he or she knows well. INFPs do not like conflict, and go to great lengths to avoid it. If they must face it, they will always approach it from the perspective of their feelings. In conflict situations, INFPs place little importance on who is right and who is wrong. They focus on the way that the conflict makes them feel, and indeed don't really care whether or not they're right. They don't want to feel badly."

In other words, I worry that, wheras an INFP like Skrybbi would say "I don't mind, as long as I don't have to give it my undivided attention", anyone else would be like:

Which is probably why I'm rooming with Skrybbi and not, say, the next Sith Lord Who Must Not Be Named.

To be honest, Skryb's ability to ignore, feed, pet, and quietly euthenize the plot bunnies scampering aorund me all the time is probably the reason she's one of my closest friends. Still, I worry. I know I fangirl my own world and characters--I think that's good. I love what I write.

But does loving something and thinking about something all the time really give me leave to talk about it constantly? Sometimes I feel like a fangirl in my own world, blabbing about possibilities and theories and plot-bunnies to roommates who aren't in the fandom. I feel bad for not being able to talk about other things. Even when I try.

I'm an INTP, which means that I will talk and talk until I feel that I have adequately and completely expressed what I want to say without any misunderstandings. I would honestly rather say nothing than misrepresent something. Because it's so important to me that every pertinent piece of information is given (otherwise, how can I expect someone to fully understand it?), I find myself either talking too much, or clamming up and making excuses.

My mom used to get on me about my ability to filibuster on certain subjects, and though I'm apparently not as bad about it as certain other family members (who will not be named, but know who they are ;) ), she worried that it would affect me socially. Granted, this was not usually about my writing, but about things I enjoyed. And yes, it probably did affect me socially. I became more sensitive to when people were starting to lose interest, but rather than causing me to figure out how to put everything more succinctly, I just truncate the entire conversation without closing off any threads the second I pick up on the slightest boredom.

People who don't know me very well often ask what my stories are about. I've come up with a few short responses thanks to all the query-letter writing and motivation-sentence work I've done. But I've started prefacing my explanations with a warning: "If your eyes glaze over, just slap me and tell me to shut up."

Maybe that's a poor way to begin explaining a story, since it will automatically put someone on edge, but I'm really sensitive to the feeling that I'm boring people. I don't want to waste anyone's time. I know there are plenty of people who enjoy hearing everything detail of a story, including the "meanwhile" and "let me back up a bit"s, but I know most people aren't like that.

What do you think about how talking too much about your stories affects your relationships? Have you had anyone bring this up to you as a problem? Do you think it's a problem? Do I need to STFU or GTFO?

NaNoWriMo Outlining Workshop - Part III: Finishing the Frame

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:03:00 +0000

MAKE SURE YOU'VE DONE PART I & PART II

I. BEGINNING - MIDDLE - END

Once you have at least 30 notecards, organize them into beginning scenes, middle scenes, and end scenes. More than likely, you’ve got tons of notecards for the beginning, and are lacking in either the middle or the end (or both). That’s fine.

Lay out your notecards in rough chronological order and see where there are gaps in the story, and brainstorm some ways your characters can get between them. Ask yourself questions like “what if...” Before you move on to the next step, see if what you've already got can spark ideas. Go back to your notes about motivations, conflicts, and subplots and try to imagine what kinds of scenes would help you exacerbate (middle) or resolve (middle/end) these issues; try to figure out what needs to happen between the scenes you've got, and decide whether that's something you can create a compelling scene for, or something that deserves only a sentence or two of exposition.

Many people say that a story is comprised of a catalyst, three disasters, and a resolution. If it helps you to think of it that way, try to identify your three disasters as happening this way: one in the beginning of your story, which may or may not be your character’s fault. Two in the middle of the story, which are direct results of your character attempting to fix the first problem and failing. The resolution comes when your main characters solve the final problem.

After Disaster 1: heroine commits to the story goal (glues beginning to middle).
After Disaster 2: the story direction changes (middle of the middle).
After Disaster 3: heroine confronts the main conflict of the story (glues middle to the end).

Yes, it’s formulaic as the five-paragraph essay, but it might be enough to get you thinking. You can read more about this theory HERE, from "The Snowflake Guy".

I would highly recommend you go through your notecards and see if you can identify the three disasters (it's okay if you have more, just identify the three that serve the purposes above). This should show you either where you need to emphasize (if you have too many) or create (if you have too few) areas of tension, and the sort of reactions that your hero(ine) should probably have to these hardships.

Endings are always the hardest, and you may not even want to decide your ending until you’ve written a good bit of your first draft. If you know your ending, that’s great. If not, keep brainstorming.

II. MORPHING MOTIVATION

This bit is somewhat tedious, but will help you focus your novel and your characters feelings about what’s going on. In the last step, you should have organized your note-cards into a rough chronological order. Now, try organizing them a bit more strictly.

Go through each note-card and write down the characters involved and what each of them is trying to accomplish in that scene. This can be an abstract motivation or a concrete goal, but there should be something each character wants. Using the characters' motivations as a guide, try to identify the conflict in the scene--IE, what is preventing the characters from getting what they want in that scene. Is the conflict between characters? Is it between a character and a situation?

Now try to pinpoint whether this scene feeds into the plot, or one of the subplots you identified before. If it doesn’t fit into any of them, try to figure out why you want that scene in the story. Does it satisfy a subplot you have in your head that somehow isn’t connected to character motivations? You may want to choose a color for each plot and subplot, and highlight it to keep that in mind.

Okay, let's go back to the three disasters bit. Now that you've identified both your three big disasters and the associated scenes, pull them out and look at your characters' motivations. How do your characters' motivations change from the beginning, and after each of the disasters. Do any of these present a choice, or a big change in your main character or antagonist's defining motivation? What does this tell you about the choices of your characters, and the theme of your story?

Using the original character motivation cards, write down:

Original Motivation -> Motivation after First Disaster -> Motivation after Second Disaster -> Motivation after Third Disaster -> Motivation At the End.

By "the end" I mean after the bad guy is defeated -- in that last scene, what do you see your MC wanting out of his or her life. Ideally, this would be either an entirely new goal based out of the life-altering events and choices of the story, or their original motivation with a new perspective.

Jot down any new ideas for scenes or characterization this exercise gives you.

Now post your notecards somewhere.

I have a pair of cork-boards I posted mine on last year. You may choose to tape your notecards to the wall, or rewrite them on sticky-notes and post them above your computer.

III. THE SENTENCE

I can't tell you exactly how to do this next part, because this is where you take that steaming pile of subordinate clauses you constructed in Part I and fashion it into a single sentence that describes your story.

Example:

Shapeshifting "Hellhound" Helena Martin has only one chance to keep her pack and her new human friends safe from the magical war she brought to their doorstep: make peace with the sorcerers who killed her mother.

Example:

In a world where the nobility and their servants live in a society built into the second and third stories of their city-state, where women are forbidden from using magic, and a commoner can face death for touching a noble, a talented street girl with a rare magical gift is being given a chance at power for the first time, and she is determined to use her talent to bring down the system that killed her brother and made her an outcast.

There you have it! Whittling down your entire story to a single sentence is really hard, but with the information you've given yourself, you can definitely assemble a working-story-sentence to get your through the month!

If you're having trouble, hit up the NaNoWriMo forums and ask for help! There are lots of threads for workshopping summaries of various lengths and in various genres. And if there isn't one, start it! They can be a lot of fun, and give you a quick in on the community.

IV. FINAL TIPS

Some extra things I found helpful last year were multicolored mini sticky-notes with different plot points I wasn't sure where to include written on them, which I would move around depending on how things were going in my draft.

Also, I made a list of expository elements--the things I would need to reveal or explain about background, worldbuilding, and magic systems, and divvied them up on the sticky notes to move around my note-carded outline as I saw fit. As I wrote, I also added new things, just to make sure I wasn't overloading any one scene with exposition.

Eat.

Take breaks.

START WRITING! (Well, wait till November 1st...;) )

My Plans for NaNoWriMo

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Part III of the Outlining Workshop is on its way! But now for a brief word from your hostess...

Earlier this year, I announced that I was going to be writing a story with a working title of "The Beggar's Twin" for NaNoWriMo. Well, I'm not. Don't worry--I'm still planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month! But rather than working on a new project, I'm hoping to get through the extensive rewrites necessary for my NaNo project from last year, HELLHOUND.

Part of my reasons for this are learning from last year's mistakes--I had a completed draft of The Mark of Flight rewritten, and I wanted to give myself some time before polishing it. I started in on HELLHOUND with very little background, zero character sketches, and a notecarded outline I ended up discarding roughly half of in favor of a single point of view and fewer story-threads. I made the 50,000 words mark, took a break for the holidays, and finished the book in February.

I was feeling pretty self-congratulatory until I raised my head, meercat-like, and scented revision on the wind.

And not just one revision, either. Two of them--great hulking homunculi of mismatched parts, dripping with adverbs, plot threads dragging where the sword of my authorial mind cut them in the belly (see picture above). Their shambling structure was so terrifying, I wanted to dive back into my warm little warren of creation and ignore the monsters I'd already released onto the page.

I knew editorial sword was strong enough for one of them...but two?

No, I was writer. I was warrior. I would not give up. I leapt from the ground with sword in hand and hacked at one, then the other, gouging out insignificant characters and slicing through the vestigal remnants of obsolete plots, scraping to the bone in some places, ruthlessly filleting in others.

The older, heavily wounded monster of The Mark of Flight sank to its knees and lifted its head, bleating for mercy, and I dealt the death-blow. The first beast was down, and I delivered its taxidermied carcass to the judging ring.

Before I could turn my eyes to the second beast, the first one burst into flame and was reborn...with promises and offers from a greater power. It could be something--it could really, possibly fly. I just had to fix the structural problems my untrained eye had not seen. I nodded my head, seeing the rightness of it. If I just moved that limb a little higher, excised the malignant growth around the middle...

And here I am, my surgery almost complete. What once was a hulking, ugly beast is now something a bit closer to stepping into the light of day without eliciting screams. But pawing at the ground not far off is the second homunculus--the second tormented story-creature I've already started hacking away at. Half its flesh is missing, and I've got an adamantium skeleton waiting for it in the basement, scalpels glistening.

It's tempting to give myself a rest, to ignore the snorts and cries of the second creature in favor of new creation. After all, having fixed one creature and hacked at the problems of another, I know more about creating them. I have a better idea of the process. I want to see how that goes.

But the hideous monster produced by last year's NaNoWriMo is huffing at the back of my neck, and my new story-creature deserves my full attention, and I still don't have the image of it fully realized in my head.

Okay, time to end that metaphor.

What I'm saying is this: The Mark of Flight is almost done, and I've got a lot of hope for it. HELLHOUND is fully realized, re-oulined, cut, and shaped in my head and all I need to do is write the new scenes and do a little cosmetic work.

When I send MoF back into the world, I would rather have HELLHOUND completely ready to go, just in case something happens with MoF and I've got to dive into the second book of The Markmasters Trilogy. If The Mark of Flight turns out to be not quite ready to leave the nest, I will have another manuscript ready to submit.

Picture by DaveAllsop of Deviant Art.

NaNoWriMo Outlining Workshop Part II - Plot, Subplots, & Scenes

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:30:00 +0000

DID YOU MISS PART I?

Last post was focused on getting your characters, conflicts, and motivations solid. This post is all about the nitty-gritty plotty-wotty stuff. Before you start, you're going to need some supplies:

Note-cards (preferably the lined variety, in several colors)

Writing utensils

A notebook (if you like to keep brainstorming materials all together)

scratch paper (if you need to spread it out)

your character/motivation/conflict notes from the last workshop.

THE BIG PICTURE

Using the information you’ve come up with, write a one-sentence description of your story’s main conflict that includes:

MC (Motivation) + conflict + Antagonist (Motivation) + Action + Consequences

Action in this case means the course of action your character must take in order to overcome the conflict. The consequences are, predictably, what will happen if they fail.

Don’t worry--this sentence will suck, and it’s not your back-cover summary; it’s a way to boil down the conflict between your most important characters. It will sound disgustingly vague until later in the process, when we will modify it a bit. You may find that you have to reach into a later part of the story, when your characters have a bit more information to form motivations that are more directly in opposition with the antagonists, to do this part. That's fine! Just make sure that their motivations from the beginning have a bearing on how the story plays out.

Example:

A headstrong princess who wants to be a great queen is kidnapped by a charismatic general who wants to use her against her kingdom, and she must find her way home in time to warn them of approaching war.

If you can actually boil down your character's course of action to a set of choices, the sentence will be a lot stronger. In my case, I'm certain this was the difference in my query letter between getting and not getting a request.

A headstrong princess who wants to be a great queen is kidnapped by a charismatic general who wants to use her against her kingdom, and she must make a choice: break her promise to her rescuer and rush home to prepare her kingdom for war, or risk her life to free the brave slave-boy who gave up everything to save her.

Both of those sentences sort of sound like crap, but you can see where I'm going with this--I know the major conflict between my protagonist, my antagonist, and the issues that she's going to have to resolve in order to get her happily-ever-after. I can keep this in mind as I work through the rest of the story.

SUBPLOTS

Now that you have the sentence for your main conflict, go back through your characters’ motivations and try to spot desires that might produce conflict. You don’t have to know anything specific yet about how that will translate into scenes, but it’s good to have in mind where characters will have tension with each other.

Once you’ve identified a couple of possible conflicts, write down each conflict on its own sheet of paper and start brainstorming. This is a great time to employ mind-maps, spidergraphs, or stream-of-consciousness brainstorming methods. You may find yourself adding characters and desires to the conflict sheet as you brainstorm. I recommend starting with what the characters want, what is getting in their way, and what other characters have desires that conflict or hold them back.

All of these conflicts are potential subplots. Keep them in mind through the next step of the process, especially when you start to get stuck.

NOTE-CARDING

Note-carding is a method I learned from writer and writing teacher Holly Lisle. I've touted this method before, and I highly recommend you visit Lisle's post describing note-carding and learn the method from her, but I will give a brief overview here.

Figure out roughly how long you want your novel to be. This is a fantasy blog, and since most fantasy books are roughly 100,000 words long, we’ll go with that. The average scene is 1,750 words, so divide your projected word count by your scene-length, and you’ll get a rough estimate of the number of scenes you should have in your novel--in this case 57. This isn’t a perfect estimate--just something to get you thinking in the arena of what you’ll need.

Now divvy up your scenes between narrators and start writing down every scene idea that comes to you, and try to distill it into a single sentence.

This was my outline for last year's NaNoWriMo.
You can see my five character motivation cards,
my scene notecards, and the little post-its
with reminders of subplots and exposition info!

Now, I didn't know about the notecarding method when I wrote The Mark of Flight (and it shows), but I used it for HELLHOUND. At first, I decided I wanted to write between two narrators, so I gave 60% of the scenes to Helena (my MC) and 40% to her godfather, Eamon. Well, by about a third of the way through writing, I changed my mind and gave 100% of the scenes to Helena, which resulted in me chucking a bunch of my notecards. The beauty of it was, the notecarding method made it easy to toss those notecards, and fill them back in with the cool new stuff I'd come up with.

Notecarding is the most guilt-free, changeable form of outlining I've yet found. Don’t censor yourself, don’t worry about how a scene might or might not fit. You should end up with something like this:

“On a yacht off the Miami coast, Helena uses the distraction of the sorcerers battle with her master to break the spell holding her pack captive, and then she steals the book the sorcerers are after and escapes by swimming to shore”

It doesn't have to be that set-out. This is the first scene in the new version of the book, so I knew what needed to happen. You may end up with "set-up set-up set-up...and then something happens that I haven't figured out yet." That's fine. The process of note-carding alone might help you figure out what that "something" needs to be. If not, you'll probably come up with some ideas while writing. Make sure you’ve got about 30 notecards before you move on to the next section. If you start having trouble or getting stuck, go back to your characters' motivations and start trying to figure out how best you can get in their way. This part is FUN, but can be somewhat time-consuming, so give yourself the time you think you'll need.

If it helps, a good way to organize your scene-card is:

Setting + MC (Motivation) + Conflict + Course of Action + Cliffhanger or Resolution

You don't have to stick to that at all, but it's a short and sweet kind of way to set up what happens or needs to happen in your scene. I'll write a few more examples below from my NaNoWriMo project from last year, HELLHOUND.

"In the kitchen, Jaesung asks Helena about her fake military school and catches her in her lie, putting their trust in each other on thin ice. As he leaves, she spots the mark of the sorcerer's guild on their doorstep and realizes she's been found, and her roommates could be in danger."

"In Eamon's basement, Helena--enraged at Rodolfo's murder--fights for her right to join the hunt and take revenge, but then Morgan tells her (the enemy) found Rodolfo because of Helena's inability to lay low."

"In the blacked-out house, Helena fights the influence of the magic glyph as she sets wards, and then passes out just as the first spell pings off her protection."

If you're having trouble at this point, try writing some stream-of-consciousness pages about what you're having trouble with. I've been known to start out entries like this with "I don't have a villain :(" or "What should the MC be doing between plot-points A and Q?"

ON TO PART III

What discoveries have you made while plotting your story? Have you ever done note-carding before? What are some of your preferred methods of creating the scenes for your story? ARE YOU HAVING FUN?

NaNoWriMo Outlining Workshop - Part I : The Groundwork

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 05:25:00 +0000

Character – Motivation- Conflict

This workshop is intended for those who already have a pretty good idea of their story, characters, and at least a vague notion of where they want their story to go. Feel free to be like "It's Magic, I ain't gotta explain shit!" at this point. That's stuff for later. If you've got a rough sketch of a scene here, a plot twist there, this is definitely going to help. Sit tight. But before you sit tight, make a pot of coffee and grab a notebook, a pack of notecards, and a pen. We're going to be doing this old-school.

This section focuses on the most important part of story: characters. It's aimed at organizing your characters on paper--their descriptions, desires, and disagreements--before you start writing your outline. You may find subplots, new twists, and new scenes springing to mind as you work through this section. Take note of them--you'll use that in part II of the workshop.

I. CHARACTER

Write your characters’ names on separate notecards, or spread out on notebook paper—you’ll be writing quite a bit under each character’s name.

1. Write a description of each major character (including your antagonist[1] or antagonistic force) that includes:

DECRIPTOR + NOUN

Descriptor - an adjective or adjectival phrase such as magic-weilding, willful, out-of-work.

Noun that helps you define your character, such as mercenary, werewolf, teenager.

Examples:
A. headstrong princess
B. stuttering slave
C. itinerant mage
D. charismatic general

*It is also acceptable to write NOUN who DESCRIPTIVE ACTION

Example: A girl who recently lost her job / a boy who survived the killing curse / a girl who hates her fairy-godmother.

2. Once you have that list, try to add another descriptor you’d like the readers to discover about the character as they go through the book. You may not know this yet, and if not, you’ll probably figure it out while you’re writing. I call these “Shadow Descriptions”
Examples:
A. compassionate
B. brave
C. lonely
D. manipulative

So, throughout the story the reader will learn that the “headstrong princess” is also compassionate, the “stuttering slave” is also brave, the “itinerant mage” is also lonely, and the “charismatic general is manipulative. These traits don’t have to be surprising, but are how you might describe your characters’ personalities. These are the things you want to show your reader through your characters’ actions.

II. MOTIVATION

Ever felt like this while writing? I know I have...

1. Primary Desires

Write down what each character wants at the start of the story. Pick the most important motivation—the one thing they’re most concerned about. Try to make this more specific than “to be happy” or “to survive”. If you find yourself being too general, ask yourself questions. What would make them happy? What are they trying to survive, or is there something they are trying to survive for?

Examples:
A. To be a great queen.
B. To be in control of his own life.
C. To find the master that left him behind
D. To run a combined (and therefore peaceful) Rizellen and Centoren—his way.

Remember to note what their desires are at the BEGINNING of the story. These are usually the motivations we see right out in the open, the very first time we meet that character. You may find that your feelings about these goals change as you write, or even throughout the workshop. That’s fine!

2. Secondary Desires

No one wants just one thing. In fact, people often want two different things that don’t go together, or that create some kind of internal conflict. Below your characters’ primary desires, write at least one more thing that character wants. I recommend you have two or three secondary desires for each character.

Examples:
A. To be seen and loved for who she is / to get home / to stop the war
B. To remain under the radar (and therefore safe) / to protect the people he cares about
C. To learn and teach magic by writing his book / to prevent war / NOT to be the only one trying to fix Rizellen’s problems
D. To be respected and revered for ending the war (by either conquering or combining) / to use the kidnapped princess as a means to get (primary desire) / to destabilize Rizellen

If your characters’ own desires conflict with one another, that’s a great source of tension, which gives you plenty of internal conflict.

Example:

Stuttering (but brave) slave boy wants to stay safely under the radar, but can’t because he also wants to protect those he cares about.

III. CONFLICT

Write down next to each primary desire at least two things preventing the character from getting what he wants in the beginning chapters of your story. At least one of these should be related to your antagonist’s goals. If it’s not, you probably need to do some thinking on what makes those characters your protagonists and antagonists, and see if you can nudge them into more direct opposition.

` Example:

The headstrong and compassionate princess wants to be a great queen. The things getting in her way are:

1. The council wants her cousin to be queen

2. She’s been kidnapped and can’t get home

3. She has no confidence in herself

4. She doesn’t know what her people need

The angagonist’s primary goal is to rule both of their countries, which conflicts with her goal of someday being a great queen. Further, the antagonist plans to use her against her kingdom, which also conflicts with her desire to be a great queen, as does his desire to destabilize her kingdom.

Often, the protagonist and antagonist will have something in common. In this cast, both characters want peace, but not only do they have different visions of a peaceful future, they have different ideas about the methods. These similarities and differences between your pro-and-antagonists will help you.

The main plot of your story should be rooted in this conflict of desires. Of course, there will be much more to the story than just your main character and antagonist’s conflict, but that conflict should always have a bearing on the story—like Voldemort and Harry Potter’s conflicting desires shaped the overall narrative arc of the series (and each book) without being the most important part of every scene.

DONE? HEAD ON OVER TO PART II

Was this helpful? Did you make any discoveries? Having trouble? Let me know in the comments!

[1] If you don’t have an antagonist, go listen to Adryn’s villain workshop and come back when you’ve got a little more idea of your bad guy or antagonistic force. Check it out on Pendragon Variety Podcast. This is VERY IMPORTANT.

Writing Racial Diversity in Y.A.

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:06:00 +0000

Issue

I'm not surprised the discussion on racial diversity in YA came up (again) this year. Re-addressing the topic, Zoe Mariott wrote this post about it. I also found a few articles here and here addressing the need for not only more non-white characters represented in YA, but for them to be represented diversely within those groups in a non-stereotypical, non-token way, and more often as POV characters.

I find a great deal of the pictures dealing with diversity
either trite or seriously ambiguous. Here, for example.
The message is "Diversity is more than race", but what
I'm seing in the picture are racially-diverse hands.
Either I'm caffeine-deprived, or there's an element
missing like the MORE THAN RACE element.

Let's get personal for a sec: I am clearly a white girl. Not so clearly, I'm also Cherokee, though that has had so little bearing on my life that it's more like a "fun fact about me", ranking slightly higher than my insanely-accurate Gollum impression. I went through obsessions as a kid. I read everything I could about Native Americans, the Holocaust, and Greek Mythology. I immersed myself in the stories of slaves escaping on the underground railroad, and those they left behind. Some time in middle school, I discovered Japan. By the time I had graduated high school, I'd consumed such a vast amount of Japanese media that every other character I created was Japanese, or had some connection to Japan. Then I lived in Japan, and my interest deepened (and cringed, at times) and expanded. It continues to spiral out.

I've never had an issue with not having racial diversity in my stories. In fact, Raven had to tell me that I needed to dial back a bit in HELLHOUND, because it was starting to look like an insurance commercial. This isn't meant as a "bragging" statement, or as a kind of desperate claim against people who might say I'm trying to jump on a bandwagon and seem like I'm not racist. I recognize I'm probably going out on a limb with this post, and what I say is not going to be universally agreed upon. What if the bough breaks...? Well, without a unified consensus anywhere on what's right and who's allowed to talk about diversity, I guess it will break for some people. I'm willing to risk it.

As John Green so eloquently states: "The truth resists simplicity."

Fear

On YAtopia, Sarah Nicholas pointed out the following:

I'm comfortable with all these different cultures, it seems natural to me - especially in a country as diverse as the US. But I do still worry about getting something wrong. I'm doing tremendous amounts of research on cultures, but I fear that I'll make one mistake and be accused of being "ignorant" or "insensitive."

Like Morgan discussed last week with her post on LGBTQ characters in fiction, race seems to be one of those issues that the "straight-white" writers either shy away from because "no one wants to be on the wrong side of a civil rights issue" or dive into with either an open mind (good), or the hammer of PC (baaaad).

Awareness

I never really thought about diversity in my own writing until these posts. Writing characters who aren't "like me" (read: straight white female) seems natural, and very few of my stories or ideas have white-washed (or straight-washed) casts. Those that do have geographical and/or temporal limitations that preclude all but a single phenotype. It's never been an intentional choice on my part, but I feel that, by the very fact that it is unintentional, the characters aren't also being defined by their non-white ethnicity.

HELLHOUND is a good example. The love interest is Korean, and several other supporting characters are non-white. Not every race is represented, and I've still got a higher ratio of white characters to any other race, but I didn't make this cast in order to prove a point. If I were to change one of them just to satisfy a desire to make my book's cast seem diverse, I feel like it would not only be disingenuous, it would also tip me over the edge into "insurance ad" world, where we must include everyone and have equal representation so that we may beat the masses over the head with the hammer of our political correctness (see figure below).

THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS NOT POSED AT ALL!
Look, we even got a Leprechaun (left)!
And the boy on the right is bi-curious!

Sometimes the characters just step out of our subconscious a certain way and there's nothing we writers can do to change it. If we try to force our subconscious to accept something we can't properly imagine or envision, it's never going to come across as believable. Like the doctor who blinks a little too much when handing you a prescription, writers who aren't true to their characters are handing out a pill most people aren't going to be cool with swallowing.

In this interview on the Diversity in YA Fiction website, Holly Black answered the inquiry about how she assembled her diverse casts:

I wish I could say that it was a conscious decision on my part, but it really wasn’t. My husband’s not white, both my critique partners for Tithe weren’t straight, and my editor was neither white nor straight, so I think my default was a world full of the people I knew and cared about.

I agree with most of what she says, though I'm actually glad it wasn't a conscious decision. As she points out, the characters that leap to a writer's mind are usually the product of composted experience. When casts populated entirely by white characters leap onto the page, it's probably for exactly the same reason. This could be completely unintentional, or it could be mostly coincidence or location, but--for example--if a white girl that hangs out primarily with other white girls, consumes books and television shows and other media about primarily white girls...her compost heap is probably going to have a hard time producing a non-white character who doesn't wear race like a costume.

Friendship is Magic

Action

So what can this hypothetical white-bread writer girl do if she wants to break out of that?

Note: it's probably a bad idea to walk up to someone and be like, "Hi. You're black, and I need to diversify my friend-group so I can write books that satisfy the market's need for more books with non-white characters. Will you be my friend?"

Probably not the best criteria for friendship. Like characters, I think friends need to be genuine and not made because one or the other of you has an agenda. I have lots of friends from lots of backgrounds, but I honestly can barely remember how I made friends with all of them. Also, I'm not here to dole out advice on having diverse friends. In fact, that thought sort of horrifies me because it assumes a process. There is no "process" for people.

But I think the first step is to care. As Black said, she populated her world with the people she cares about. Well, maybe this hypothetical writer doesn't have friends or family or close colleagues who are non-white or non-straight. Lucky for her, there are books, blogs, vlogs, and countless other resources where we can learn about people who are different from us. The beauty of books is being able to take a journey without having to pack our bags and go--experiencing new and wonderful things vicariously through the characters. It may not be first hand, but it's still experience. It's still another scoop of coffee-grounds on the compost heap.

At the end of her interview, Black responds to the request for advice with the following:

I think that we as writers have an obligation to tell the truth about the world — and diverse world is a true world. I also think that we have to be conscious of which stories are ours to tell, which stories we have points of identification with and which stories we need to do more work if we want tell responsibly. There is a very well respected workshop on “writing the other,” run by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward; resources exist to bridge those gaps in our knowledge and experience. We have to be thoughtful, but we have to try.

Is this a commentary on what these
two individuals are seeing (or looking for)
when they look at each other, or are
they trying to get us to take off our
tops, then buy denim and face-paint?
I mean. Either way. Topless face-paint.
Almost can't go wrong.

Experience

After graduating from university, I lived in Japan for three years. Living in Asia is an experience unlike any I had ever imagined, and it opened windows in my head I had never known were there. I learned not only about Japanese culture, but about the influences from China, Korea, and many places they differ. I learned some truly awesome and some truly cringe-worthy things about Japanese culture and mind-set.

I also found out first-hand what it's like to be a racial minority in a society that is not only homogeneous, but also very insular. I learned what it's like to date someone who not only isn't from your culture, but speaks exactly zero of your native language. I learned what it's like to feel isolated because of the assumption I couldn't speak Japanese, or because many people refused to take the time to understand what I was trying to say. I know what it's like to be sought out simply because of my race. I've witnessed what it's like for Raven, a non-Japanese Asian, to get dismissed entirely as neither "Japanese enough" nor "foreign enough". No, I'm not bashing Japan--I miss living there so much sometimes it makes me ill--but with the positive comes a lot of negative, and all of that goes into the compost heap. All of that is experience to draw from.

I also learned that tossing a different set of features at a character is not enough--there's so much that fills that skin, so much history that is grafted into someone's blood. So much that's beautiful and wonderful and weird about a cultural history that is so vastly different from my own.

More importantly, I learned that people don't walk around with these differences constantly pinging around the inside of their skulls. I doubt Raven wakes up every morning and obsessively sweeps the floor, thinking, "I'm obsessively sweeping the floor because I'm Chinese, and that's what we do, because in the motherland we slept on the floor for thousands of years." I'm pretty sure she wakes up every morning and obsessively sweeps the floor thinking, "OMFG, my cat got litter on the floor how did my hair get there this is so disgusting must clean ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW."

Just the same, while I was in Tokyo, I didn't think "I'm drinking a lot of coffee right now because I'm a white American, so I went straight from breast-feeding to Folgers." It was more like "I'm so fucking tired right now I could sleep for a year."

If your character's race is not the point of the story, over-emphasis only highlights their race as "other" or "different", like a neon sign above that character's head, blinking off and on with the words "TOKEN OTHER TO MAKE THIS BOOK LOOK DIVERSE".

Costume and Stereotype

Earlier, I mentioned characters that "wear race like a costume". I don't have any examples of this, because when that happens, there are usually other fundamental issues with the book that, combined, result in a swift trip to the nearest wall, but I'm sure most people have encountered this at one time or another. While I think it's perfectly fine to say "I'm going to make my heroine Asian", I think coming from the standpoint of: "I need my character to be cool and different, so I'm going to make her Asian" is using the superficial "other-ness" of ethnicity as a short-cut for making them unique. And that's not okay with me.

I think Holly Black's "points of identification"suggestion is a good guideline. For example, in HELLHOUND I have as the main love interest a Korean guy named Jaesung Park. I'm not Korean, but I've lived in Asia for three years, consumed a lot of Korean media, done quite a bit of research, and have a best friend who can give me perspective on the dynamics of the Asian-American community and what a person like Jaesung, who came to the U.S. at the age of 11, might face. Jaesung has a little bit of Raven, and a little bit of my friend Mac, who lived in Germany for several years before returning home in the 7th grade, and struggling to fit back into a world he no longer belonged (at possibly the most difficult age). Points of identification. Check.

The book isn't from Jaesung's POV, and the parts concerning him aren't about him being Korean, but neither do they shy away from the fact that he is Korean. That has an impact on who he is. Let's look at the stereotypes he follows: he's a neat-freak who does Martial Arts, is an Applied Math Major, and plays Starcraft.

Where the stereotypes fall apart: first off, he recognizes those aspects of himself that are "Korean Poster-Child"-ish. But recognition is not a get-out-of-jail-free pass for an author. Let's go a little deeper. Unlike many (or most) Asian characters in U.S. fiction, Jaesung is not Asian American. He moved to the U.S. at 11, and ~~after memorizing a bunch of inane facts about the US that most people born here don't even know~~ naturalized at 18 so he didn't have to pay idiotic prices for college tuition.

Martial Arts: Jaesung's parents are separated--which is still extremely unusual in Asian countries--and his rocky relationship with his father, a Chinese Martial Arts instructor, complicate his relationship to both Martial Arts, and his own sense of masculine responsibility. Also, the heroine is an ass-kicking girl who not only grew up in a gang of shape-shifting hounds, but also controls magic. A guy's got to have something to keep some hair on his chest. Oh, wait.

No, but seriously. My particular heroine (and most girls, whether some of us will admit it or not), wants to be able to feel protected in some sense, by her guy. This wasn't in the first draft, and all my beta-readers agreed that--in the face of her magic, shapeshifting, badass background, he needed a bit more than was already there. Again, though: the martial arts are not the point of his character. They're just a facet.

Math: His relationship to math is a product of moving to the US at 11, and speaking virtually no English. He'd never particularly cared for math before, but when it was suddenly the only class he was good at? You bet he started to like it more. Even when he caught up to (and surpassed) many of his age group linguistically, math was the subject where he'd become notable, so that's what he stuck with.

Remember that "masculine responsibility" thing I mentioned earlier? Jaesung has a lot of resentment built up for his dad, particularly because his father didn't provide for their family in the way he should have. Though Jaesung is--like his mother--a gifted musician, out of a (possibly misplaced) sense of responsibility, he turns his energy toward something he things will help him provide better for his future family, even if he's somewhat mediocre at it. I'm still waffling over having him let go of that a bit by the end.

Till I decide, he will continue to wear his "Dat Asymptote" tee shirt.

So, what first-glance seems like a stereotype develops layers as the reader begins to understand his background and character flaws. Jaesung struggles between who he is and who he thinks people expect him to be, and that struggle extends beyond race--it's a universal concept I think everyone can understand.

The most important parts of Jaesung's character, however, have nothing to do with the fact that he's Korean. He's manic, hilarious, loyal, and takes responsibility for his actions. Though guilt-ridden for parts of the book, it's the fact that he doesn't sit still and do nothing, and that he is willing to throw his own neck on the line to protect the people he cares about which ultimately makes him the person and the character I love.

I really have no excuse for Starcraft.

(More fun facts about Jaesung: is 6'1"; INFJ; has a YouTube channel where he composes background music for other people's lyrics; is terrified of rats; insists on coasters.)

What about representation of interracial couples?

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISSUE

White writers are being encouraged to step outside their skin-tones and write characters of other ethnicities, because there is and honest lack of diversity in fiction, but let's focus for a moment on the non-white YA authors. Skrybbi, as I've said, is a teen librarian, so I plumbed her big librarian brain for a couple of names:

An Na - A Step from Heaven
Gene Lee Yang - American-Born Chinese
Sharon Draper - Copper Sun
Isabelle Allende - City of the Beasts
Malinda Lo - Ash, Huntress (Also Lesbian fiction!)
Walter Dean Meyers - Monster, Lockdown
Pam Munoz Ryan - Esperanza Rising

These are all award-winning, multiple book Young Adult authors who write primarily about characters of their own ethnicity/sexual orientation. They write a good deal of the non-white main characters represented in YA, but most of them never write outside their own ethnicity, down to the last character in the book. Of course, they are making up for a huge gap in the market. They are representing the underrepresented characters in Young Adult fiction, and giving their audience characters they can identify with--people who are like them.

Personally, I never worried about whether or not the characters in what I was reading looked like me. The character's interests and struggles and stories were what I was interested in, but then again, I never had to look very far for a character with my exact description. They were everywhere.

But if, as Black states, "we as writers have an obligation to tell the truth about the world — and diverse world is a true world", at what point do we begin to ask minority Y.A. authors to diversify? Is it okay to expect non-minority writers to present diverse and truthful character casts, but give minority writers a free pass on that expectation because their ethnicity is underrepresented in fiction? I don't have an answer for that.

I do have an example from adult fiction, when, in 2006, African American author Millenia Black sued when her publisher insisted she change her all white cast to an all black cast, because her niche was--after a single book--African American. That spawned a huge discussion on constraining authors within a niche. And a lot of people weighed in on the issue. Hint: she's not the only one this happened to. Also, bookstore segregation of books by race is an issue a lot of people are talking about.

And don't even get us started on white-washing book covers. We'll be here a while.

Ten Things I Learned At Dragon Con

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 03:33:00 +0000

(Right to left: Raven, Scribe, Natalie, Bish, and Janae)

Dragon*Con 2011 was excellent. True, we ended up going through the same hurricane three times, but fighting the forces of nature, the crowds, and the clock were all worth those fabulous four days of science-fiction and fantasy fandom overload! It was our first time going to D*C, and by the time it was over, I think we had finally worked out all the twists and turns and directions.

I was rather disappointed in the Writing Track, but that post is for another time. Without further ado:

Ten Things I Learned At Dragon Con

1. "Bollocks" may be similar to "bullshit" in usage, but it means "balls" by definition. Is it sad that I knew the latter, but not the former? Also, it is not pronounced: "bullocks", which brings to mind the following image:

2. Starlings are awesome and freakish, like sky-bound sea creatures.

3. No one bats an eye if you change in a parking lot (no photo available)

4. Raven, Skrybbi, and I are predictable.

You see, this is the first big convention we've been to where the main hotel had a really, really big bar. On Saturday evening, we hung out there with David B Coe, AJ Hartley, and Edmund Schubert of Magical Words Blog and "How to Write Magical Words" renown. On Sunday night, we had invited David and AJ (and the lovely Faith Hunter and Misty Massey) to join us at the Yule Ball...

...which turned out to be a complete waste of time. We dressed up, we stood in line, we got in, and there was nothing but bad music and people standing around. Also: no booze, which is a necessity if we're going to A) Enjoy our vacation time properly B) Get Skrybbi to dance and C) ENJOY OUR VACATION TIME PROPERLY.

So we left.

Unfortunately, cell phone reception kind of sucks, and poor AJ also found himself at the Yule Ball. Yeah, we accidentally stood him up. Somehow, with his "character analysis senses" tingling, or perhaps with a tip of the hat to writer-tropes, AJ went to the same bar we'd been at the night before. Not only the same bar, however--he went to the same table. And guess who was there.

Oh yes.

Us.

5. Never trust the dealing of playing cards to AJ Hartley

You will end up with an entire hand comprised of sevens and twos. *shakes fist*

As well as being skilled with
hilarious text messages, Ed
is awesome at putting up with
drunken short people.

6. Always trust your cell-phone to Edmund Schubert
When your friend wants to know when he needs to come find you to go back to the place you're all staying, Ed's responses will be much funnier (and probably more coherent) than your own.

7. Battlestar Galactica people fracking ROCK

8. Fezzes are cool

9. SOUP SAVES

Skrybbi made FOUR containers of frozen soup before we left for Dragon*Con (two chicken, two lentil), and they stayed frozen at my feet for all seven hours it took us to drive to Atlanta. After all the time at the bar, hot soup and hand-torn chunks of Stuart's beer-bread was the perfect dinner...and breakfast.

10. Cargo pants can fit 2 sodas, an apple, 2 bottles of beer, a wallet, a cell phone, keys, and a camera. Seriously, why can't ALL my costumes have military-issue cargo pants?

REPORT: What are some things you learned at conventions? What advice do YOU have for con-goers? What are some of your hilarious stories from con?

Guest Post: The Best Way to Write a Trans Character

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:39:00 +0000

Around the YA Literary blogosphere, the current buzz is all about YA Authors being asked to straighten gay characters. Publisher's Weekly published an article by two Young Adult authors who, without naming names, revealed that they had been asked (and not just once) to remove a gay character's viewpoint, or at least all reference to his sexuality. Well, the agent stepped forward with a totally different story...You can read about the whole mess here and form your own opinion.

The positive thing about the whole mess is that it started a dialog about LGBTQ characters in fiction with all the right people. Just after responses to this started cropping up, I was hanging out with my friend Morgan--a transsexual woman--and asked her not just what she thought about the notion of "straightwashing" fiction, but of the treatment by authors, agents, editors, etc of LGBTQ (which she refers to under the umbrella-term "trans") characters in general. Also a writer, Morgan agreed to share her thoughts on the matter in a guest post.

***

The Best Way To Write A Trans Character

Morgan can be found HERE and HERE

There isn't one.

Gosh, that sounded disappointing. Let me give specificity a whirl, for giggles. There's a lot of discourse (not to mention monocourse and meta soliloquies, when no one is around) going on about how to tackle LGBT characters in fiction. Some say burn any hopes of it, because there's that background radiation of fear that says “bigoted people will use words like 'decency' as a beating stick against me.” Some caution against the flip side, where you slap in FABULOUS characters sitcom-style willy, even nilly, out of a desire to be topically hip. Or hiply topical, it's hard to keep up (or is it down?). Some say your characters should be out and proud. Some say it should be so subtle it's barely there.

This Some person sure gabs, don't they? But I've been massaging my little lesbian transsexual noodle to conjure an answer, and I don't think there is one. We're still at the 1939 stage of the next great lexicon war as we try to excise terms like hermaphrodite, tranny and transvestite. It's still news worthy when a trans character is in a television show, even moreso when they're actually played by a trans person. I would argue that it's too soon for there to be a right way. Every form of media follows its own set of rules, and almost every form of media is transgender-free, or at least trans-lite, which may be low fat but it means the knowledge fat per serving goes with it.

For instance, take trans memoir “Conundrum” by British travel writer Jan Morris. It was written in the 70's when, if you thought bloody no one was trans now, there was practically negative trans mass in the universe in that dark, bygone era. (Can you tell I'm young and cocksure? Vaginasure?) There being a dearth of edumication about L, G, B and T during her personal coming out, Jan writes her story through the lens of a spiritual rebirth rather than through the more recent socio-medical view. So instead of a story about drawing strength from a community, it's more of a story about trusting yourself even when you're a solitary anomaly. It's a radical approach time-locked to that era, and a microcosm of a community that often prefers to stay hidden.

Because a truly globally connected trans community is something only recently realized, “Conundrum” is part of a heritage of stories on gender defiance. After all, transgender isn't just transsexuals, who pursue “transition” through medical or surgical means. There's bigender and trigender, who by choice spend part of their life as a male, another as female, perhaps still another as androgynous or even as a wholly separate personality. There are crossdressers (formerly known as transvestites) who change their dress and behavior for a certain degree of emotional or sexual satisfaction, while still retaining their assigned gender's identity. There are genderqueer people who blend or cast off the window dress (and duds) of both sides of the divide but don't identify either way.

Take the Japanese animation (anime) fairy tale mind screw series, Revolutionary Girl Utena. It's about the titular Utena who longs to become a prince so she can save the princess. She wears an outfit akin to the other males in the series, she kisses the princess to release the Sword of Dios, and she's weakened into a state of submission later in the series when she forces herself to adopt "feminine" traits and roles. Is she trans? Who knows? We didn't have that precise a language back then, so there's no convenient labeling to pin. All we can say is that the show built a foundation on the corpses of subverted gender norms. We can't say that she was male-identified because that hyphenated word didn't really exist, but we can say that the series revolved around a relationship between two women with opposing social roles. And opposing shades of purple hair.

Now look at the “Sofia Lopez” episodes of Nip/Tuck season one. Here we have a transsexual character seeking surgery, and her doctor, Sean (one of the show's leads), coming to grips with his discomfort, and disgust, with people who change genders. Not that Sean has a moral leg to stand on, since he fed the literal legs Silvio stood on to an alligator three episodes before. But in a sympathetic way he releases the bonds of old guard masculinity and comes to terms with his judgmental nature, and by turn the audience learns a little more about what it means to be trans.

Color bomb pretty and fascinatingly cynical show Paradise Kiss ends with lead guy George leaving the lead gal, George's final scene showing him on a boat alongside none other than his trans best friendgirl. It's platonic love that's in the air, as the show suggests that he needs a partner in crime more than a star-crossed love. While this Casablanca-esque ending doesn't teach you much about being trans, it never has transphobic sentiments, either, instead syncing its tone to the character's. She doesn't dwell on it, and the show leaves her alone about it.

Now “Sex Changes,” by the Dresden Dolls off their album Yes, Virginia.... The song can be read as a cautionary tale about your first sexual experience (“sex changes you”), a condemnation of people who change their sex, or the exact opposite: a condemnation of the way people talk about trans people as victims of a sickness. That said, it's a razor line to walk and should only be performed by professionally calloused razor walking feet.

Finally, the American version of Ugly Betty. The first soapy season involves a trans character who is played both as evil and ethical, as shock value and as a nuanced human being. Halfway through the season she announces she's a main character's supposedly dead brother whose come back from beyond the grave to exact corporate revenge. And in the same breath, admits to faking her death just so she could transition without the scrutiny of her family and peers. She has sex at one point in the series, and it's built up as this “ooh, how different” thing, and yet she and her lover never address it. They just admire each other's beauty and don't sweat what sex with her could be viewed as. Instead they sweat the regular, prescribed amount of sex sweat.

Quiz time: which one of those was the right way to write a trans character?

All of them. The thing is, there's no right way at the moment. Any interpretation is going to cheese someone off, because the community is made of a million pie slices of various thicknesses and crust integrity. Now this may be a scary prospect, because who wants to land on the wrong side of a civil rights issue, now or in the retrospect of history? Safer to just pretend trans people don't exist, because that makes everyone happy. But the thing is, for there to be a standard, there has to be a model. Everyone of you who has even imagined writing a trans character are forging that foot path, here and now. Any interpretation not born out of judgment is going to fit one of those models above, or millions of potential others, because the big secret is out. Trans people are as varied, diverse, strange, good, bad, beautiful, manic, womanic, wild and firework-laced as everyone else.

Further Reading: Writing Gay Characters, The Top 25 Gay TV Characters, Writing a Trans Character

***

You can find more of Morgan's writing at: TRANSLABRYNTH

And her YouTube Channel: Translabrynth on YouTube

A Manuscript's Journey - Part II

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:44:00 +0000

In case you missed the first part, this is where I tell the story of completing my first book...

GET A LIFE

6-inch platforms, books, chair...still, I
could barely reach the ceiling.

My freshman year in university, my roommate, Jennifer and I had a whiteboard on the front of our door. When it wasn't covered in acidic orange Halloween cobwebs, people often left messages there. We wrote down some of the things we'd be doing that day, as well as giving updates on some of our projects.

Jennifer was an interior architecture major, and usually noted when she'd be in the studio (which was usually). I was usually in the coffeeshop, but kept a running word-count for my book. Occasionally, people would comment on the word-count, though usually it was just how I kept myself honest with progress.

Then one day, after a particularly productive weekend, someone wrote "Get a life!" on the board, with an arrow pointing to my word-count.

I didn't take it seriously, of course, but "getting a life" did halt me in my writing progress somewhat, and probably in a good way. I was making new friends, getting involved in different activities, riding my bike to the park on campus, and spending more time talking at the coffeeshop than writing. The girls across the hall and I had costume tea parties in the middle of the hall. I got second-place in Dormitory Survivor. I completed my Undergraduate Honors.

It was a great time for me, socially, but my relative progress on word-count suffered.

I wrote a lot that year, but it wasn't always on The Mark of Flight. I wrote a lot for school (both fiction and schoolwork), was heavily involved in an online RP forum, and wrote quite a bit of fanfiction. It wasn't until the following summer that I actually made real progress.

THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER

Rural, but comfy!

The Summer between my freshman and sophomore years was miserable. My parents had moved from the city where I'd spent most of my life to the rural county about an hour and a half east, where we had a family farm. I'd never lived there, but my parents had spent the previous three years renovating a tobacco barn into a livable (and quite comfortable) home, so it was obviously where I would be spending my summer.

I knew no one.

It felt a lot like I was the princess in the tower, stuck without a way to get back to everything that was familiar. Occasionally, my knight in shining armor (read: Adryn) would come rescue me from isolation, but not quite often enough to keep me sane. Also, my trusty Gateway desktop was dying a slow and terrible death, and I wanted something more portable, so that I could take it with me to the coffeeshop. I managed to get a job as a server at a local sports bar, where I wore cheerleading shorts and wasn't allowed to write anything down. I was 19, which meant I also didn't know the first thing about alcohol.

Imagine my surprise the first time some guy asked me for a blow job in front of his date. Pro tip: it's a type of shot.

So, because of my bad memory and relative lack of expertise, I was relegated to the afternoon shifts. This meant I made crappy tips...but I had a lot of time to write. At first I wrote on napkins. I have about three chapters (original chapters 9, 10, and 11) all written out on napkins, receipts, and tiny note-pads.

Photographic evidence!

By the time the summer was over, I had a new laptop, 75,000-ish words, and a healing cut near my ear from where a drunken Good Ol' Boy chucked his shot-glass into my full bus bin from about 10 feet away.

Awesome aim, to be sure. Awesome judgement? Not so much. It shattered a martini glass, which flew up and cut my face. Small town - no one got in trouble.

THE WORD-COUNT WAGER

Sophomore year went much the same as my freshman year, except I didn't manage to take the writing workshop classes. After a disastrous attempt to double major in music and English, I had a lot of credits to make up for. My GPA was limping off the honor-roll, which irritated the crap out of me. Also, I had to take a math class (just shoot me).

Some time the previous year, I had bowed to the undeniable fact that the single-book-of-epic-proportions I had at first envisioned was going to need splitting up. I'd immediately decided on a duology, but after a few more months, I was slowly beginning to understand my own ratio of plot-point to word-count. Two books wasn't going to be enough; I was going to have to write a trilogy.

Luckily, there were natural breaks in the story arc for three books...and one of them wasn't too far off. Maybe it was suddenly, maybe it was totally by accident, and maybe it didn't really count in my head...but I was really close to finishing a book.

That's when Skrybbi made me a deal: if I could finish the first book of what I was now calling The Markmasters Trilogy by the end of the summer, she'd buy me Indian food. If I couldn't, I'd treat her.

So I drove myself toward the end of my book. For the first time, I didn't let myself look back, I didn't let myself edit. I didn't let myself post the chapters onto the online forum and then sit there, not writing another word until I got a response. I wrote like a madwoman, and by the end of summer, I wrote the last line:

"The last thing Shiro saw when he glanced over his shoulder was the painting of the Apprentice, whose green eyes followed him until the great maw snapped shut, closing him into darkness."

Then I got my Indian food.

My Five Costumes for Dragon Con

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 20:05:00 +0000

Blondie from Suckerpunch
Thanks to Soulfire Photography for both of these!

My HOT-TASKIC Suckerpunch Group!
Raven, me, Natalie, Bish, and Janae

11th Doctor, Lady Version (and Skrybbi, my Tardis!)
This guy had a REAL DALEK!

Andromeda Black-Tonks (Getting schooled by her sisters, Bellatrix and Narcissa)
Picture from the Dragon*Con 2011 Yule Ball!

Dr. Barlow, from Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan

Detail view of my Dr. Barlow Bowler hat

Detail view of my hand-made bee brooch!

Cally fro Battlestar Galactica

We're at Dragon*Con!

sakurazawa@gmail.com (Lauren "Scribe" Harris) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 04:48:00 +0000

For the first time, none of us got carded. Our lives? Fracking over.