• Home
  • Blog
  • News
  • Events
  • About the Author
  • About the Book
  • Bookstore
  • Reviews
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Blog
  • News
  • Events
  • About the Author
  • About the Book
  • Bookstore
  • Reviews
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
D.R. Ranshaw

D.R. RANSHAW

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

4/25/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
When I was in high school, lo, far too many decades ago (yikes!), one of the fair young lasses I was attracted to was a girl I’ll call Firian, after a character in the sequel I’m currently writing to Gryphon’s Heir. (Its working title? Gryphon’s Awakening. Thanks for asking.) The Firian of my real-life desires bore a number of similarities to the story character, although literary Firian wasn’t inspired or patterned on real Firian. At least, not as far as I know. (My subconscious provides all kinds of imagery that can be alternately wonderful and terrifying at different times, but it doesn’t always spell things out as to the whys and wherefores of said imagery.) Real Firian was a diminutive slip of a thing, strikingly pretty, blonde haired, blue eyed, highly intelligent and highly opinionated and just very attractively... effervescent. Ah, young love. (I took her to my high school grad --- still have the photograph her parents took of us --- and recall she was terrified to discover, moments before it was to happen, that as the valedictorian’s date, she had to lead the head table in to the banquet.) In short, she was a real little spitfire, and I was smitten more or less instantly. I had a love/hate relationship with her for several years, because unfortunately, while she liked me a great deal, the spark I felt for her wasn’t reciprocated, at least not to the same degree. We eventually fell out of touch --- I haven’t seen or heard from her in 28 years, although according to social media, she’s still with us, living in another part of the country. And what prompted the train of thought leading to today’s musings is... the fact that yesterday was her birthday.
 
(How do you know? I hear you ask incredulously. Ah, my mind is a veritable warehouse of useless information. Just ask my students, bless their long-suffering little hearts.)
 
Real-life Firian is in her late fifties now, and I imagine the diminutive spitfire of the photograph is long gone --- just like the too-intense young guy at her side, I hasten to add, lest you think I’m unfairly targeting her. Sic transit gloria mundi.
 
What happens with characters (or people) as they age? No, I’m not looking for you to take that literally and pontificate about mental and physical effects of aging, thanks very much. I’m just posing a mostly rhetorical question for reflection.
 
Like most people we meet in life, we tend to see story characters at one particular point in their lives --- story characters usually at times of extreme crisis --- a point that ranges anywhere from a day or less to several years, depending on the story. We don’t often tend to see people’s or characters’ lives extend over decades, and I’d say the results are mixed when we do.
 
The young Digory Kirke of C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew turns out to be the old Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but seeing as how he’s a pretty marginal character in LWW (more so in the book than Andrew Adamson’s film), it’s of no great consequence. In fact, there, it’s rather a comfortable closing of the loop. And from the beginning of The Hobbit to the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo ages by 80 years or so, but of course, by then, he, too is a pretty marginal character. More importantly, following Sauron’s downfall, Frodo lives in the Shire for a number of years, doing various things before he ditches Middle Earth, although the book goes into this in far more detail than the film; Jackson structures things so you might think Frodo only hung around long enough for his travel agent to book passage on Elven Cruise Lines. And am I the only person to think the ending of Harry Potter book 7 is vaguely unsatisfying at best, kind of creepily unsettling at worst? (Again, the film version of this really doesn’t help matters, as we view sort-of aged versions of Daniel, Rupert and Emma attempt to mimic much older people.) “And then they all grew up, settled down with mortgages, had kids and careers of varying interest” doesn’t really adequately substitute for “And they all lived happily ever after,” does it? Which is rather what Rowling gives us.
 
I think the reason why this is so is that, like most of the people we encounter in our real life story arcs, the characters we encounter in literature intersect our lives for but a few brief moments. (Of course, unlike real life, we can go back and relive our literary characters’ adventures in every exact detail over and over whenever we like.) For the real people we meet, it’s a one shot deal, and the passage of time blurs the details of those encounters --- which is not always necessarily a bad thing.
 
Ultimately, as writers, I guess it’s up to us to determine whether and in what manner our characters age. It needn’t be a melancholy process. While Will sometimes wrote things like “golden girls and lads all must, like chimney sweeps, come to dust,” he also said that “with mirth and
laughter let old wrinkles come.”
 
At least we have the power to choose for our characters.
 
(Okay, here’s your post-script on the question I know you want answered, constant reader: would I contemplate contacting real-life Firian now? Well... no... I don’t think so. Another friend of mine once said that memories unfrozen do not survive the thaw, and after one or two other real-life experiences along this vein, I regretfully think that’s true. After all this time... best we allow the lithe young real-life Firian to remain as she was, a perpetual testament to youth. Sic transit gloria mundi indeed.)

0 Comments

Zen and the Art of Blogging

4/18/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Before I Saw The Light, I used to quote a saying about blogging I’d heard somewhere: a blogger is someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do. Well, with some blogs, I still think that’s true. But, he added portentously, I hope not with mine. I do make some effort to move beyond the banal. (Do I succeed? The reader must decide.)
 
It could be argued I’ve only been blogging for a while, but that’s not really the case, because, really, a blog is just an essay. At least that’s how I regard it. It possesses a hook, an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. And I’ve been writing (and teaching) essays for a very long time. I’ve had a number of people ask me about this topic lately, and thought it was time I shared a few thoughts on the art of blogging in answer to their questions. So without further ado:
 
Who to write for? Well, that’s simple: anyone who will listen, and I try not to limit it to just the writing community.
 
How often? Once a week is optimum for me, and that’s tied to the fact it typically takes me a couple of hours or so to write a post. I start with an idea, and just kind of let it flow from there. So obviously with that kind of format, I can’t be blogging every day. It would kill my writing output altogether, and I’m busily working on the sequel to my first novel, which is where the purest essence of creative joy lies for me.
 
Where do you find ideas? Well, listen to people. They’re saying things to and around you all the time. Granted, some of it --- sometimes far too much of it --- is just sense-free random noise. Kind of like a great deal of social media tends to be. (Crap, what happened to the concept of thoughtful, intelligent conversation and discourse? On my gloomier days, my answer is: social media killed it.) But every once in a while, depending on the type of people you associate with, someone will let loose a little gem, sometimes completely unintentionally and without awareness of it. Because it may not be a gem to them, but to you... ah, it sparks that flash of divine creativity you’ve been seeking. And that spark can unleash an entire post. Or I look for something that happened to me during the week, or something I saw, or heard about, or watched. Regardless, I usually attempt to come up with something applicable both to writing stories and real life, because not everyone who reads my blog is really interested in the minutiae of the writing process. Widening the scope to stuff that’s relevant to as many people as possible is just common sense.
 
How much? I usually tend to shoot for something between 750 to 1000 words. Ish. Sometimes it’s more. Depends on what I want to say, and how loquacious I’m feeling on a given day. (Like most English teachers, I am sometimes guilty of why use one word when six will do?
 
How does one write an essay? Don’t feel you have to set thoughts down in perfectly logical, sequential order. I sure don’t. Whether we’re talking about a blog post or a speech to a group, I often start just putting thoughts down on paper. Order and coherency can come later. Of paramount importance is my need to catch those thoughts before they disappear forever into the ether. (Roald Dahl used to say the same thing about story ideas. When he came up with something, he had to write down at least a one-word reminder of the idea, no matter where he was, no matter what time of day it was. Otherwise, it could vanish like a candle flame. He related how an idea once came to him while he was out in his car. Having nothing to write with or on, he stopped the car and wrote a single word with his finger in the dust on the rear bumper. And it was enough.) Also, of course, with the advent of the computer for word processing, it’s become easier than ever to juggle blocks of text around. And while beginnings are critical, the main thing, as I constantly tell my students, is to start. Get some words down. You may hate what you’re writing, but as the creative juices get fired up, things will begin to flow, and you can always go back to what you started with and change it.
 
Why? This is really the penultimate question, isn’t it? Why blog? Well... there’s a couple of possible answers. The first is the most mercenary, so let’s dispose of it quickly: if you’re trying to market yourself and encourage people to visit your website and just possibly decide your writing is the most breathtaking stuff imaginable... so they might want to purchase your novel... you need to blog. You need to have content --- new content --- for them to look at on a regular basis. A reason to visit your website. But there’s more to it than that... has to be if you don’t want to look and feel like some huckster schmuck. (I really don’t like it when I follow someone on Twitter and almost instantly receive what is obviously an automated Direct Message tritely thanking me for following and then, in the next breath, suggesting I should buy their stuff. Um, wait a minute. I followed you because I was interested in something you said, or wrote, and I wanted to continue and build on that relationship.) The simple truth is that I actually kind of enjoy churning out a new essay once a week on diverse topics. As a career English teacher, I’m not short of opinions, and tend to have few qualms about expressing them.
 
Just ask my students, bless their little captive audience hearts.
 
 

0 Comments

Smart People, Stupid Acts

4/11/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
FADE IN on EXTERIOR shot of plainly deserted, ramshackle old two story house in the middle of nowhere. A solitary raven caws harshly. In the twilight, our heroes gingerly make their way up the front steps and onto the decaying porch. A rank odour of noisome decay pervades the stillness. The silence is absolute. And... oh yes... it’s about to rain. Not just a shower. Rainfall. Of biblical proportions. With plenty of thunder and lightning.
 
CUT TO close-up of our heroes deliberating their next move, speaking in hushed whispers. Summoning up their courage, they push open the front door. It gives reluctantly, long-rusted hinges squealing in protest and causing everyone to wince at the sudden noise, magnified in the stillness. Our heroes look nervously behind them, checking to see the driveway up to the house remains deserted, before proceeding inside.
 
PAN shot of INTERIOR. The darkness is relieved only by our heroes hastily switching on their flashlights. Bluish-white beams of light stab the stygian depths, revealing sparkling dust motes floating lazily above numerous items of white sheeted furniture, crouching like hidden beasts waiting to spring forth.
 
CUT TO our square-jawed protagonist. Looking around pensively at his nervous companions, he says in low, sepulchral tones: “Guys, we’d better split up. We can cover more ground that way...”
 
Okay, time out. Pop quiz, people:
 
Confronted by the terribly clichéd scenario above, as a member of the cast plopped into these hoary circumstances, you:
  1. Roll your eyes theatrically and mutter, sotto voce, “Ave, imperator, ”
  2. Nod enthusiastically, somehow oblivious to the ominous music being played by the orchestra in the next room, and reply, “That’s a great idea!”
  3. Frown worriedly, but reply gamely, “Okay, but I want the cute chick with the low-cut shirt to come with me, because she’ll get killed first.”
  4. Smack the protagonist upside the head, hissing, “Are you out of your freaking MIND? Haven’t ANY of you EVER seen ANY horror movies in your entire LIVES? If we do that, everyone except the plucky heroine will be chopped liver (literally) before we go to first commercial!”
     
    (I can’t seriously believe any reader wouldn’t know the correct answer... but in the remote possibility someone isn’t clear, it’s [d]... although writers of said shows would appear to want you to think it’s [b]. Now feel free to smack yourself upside the head.)
     
    My question today is simple: why do smart people --- fictional and non-fictional --- make such stupid decisions in the face of life situations that cry out for caution... or restraint... or maybe even just a few moments of calm, rational thought?
     
    Well, apart from the fact that, no, characters in horror films apparently haven’t watched any horror films in their soon-to-be-tragically-cut-short lives --- they’re nearly all ideal candidates for Darwin Awards, it would seem --- I think the answer boils down to: intellectual laziness, unbelievable arrogance, or a highly exaggerated and completely unjustified sense of self-worth.
     
    (Okay, maybe in crisis situations, in the heat of the moment, it’s a little more forgivable when our decision-making turns out shy of stellar. I’m willing to concede that. After all, when the bad guy is bearing down on you with frightening speed, bloody meat cleaver in upraised hand, it’s no time, to paraphrase what Han once said, to sit down and discuss the matter in committee. But much of the time, story characters --- and people in real life --- aren’t in crisis situations when they make their stupid decisions. Their decisions may be about to plunge them into crisis, yes, but that’s a completely different kettle of fish.)
     
    With fictional characters, we can add something else to that list of laziness, arrogance, or exaggerated self-worth, and it’s a biggie, third on my list of The Cardinal Sins of Writing: uninspired writing. (Gasp!)
     
    Now, look, I know we all do really stupid things from time to time. (I may have been known to make one or two questionable life decisions myself. Maybe.) That’s not what I’m talking about. We rely on characters doing things that turn out, in retrospect, not to have been particularly brilliant. After all, if everyone in stories did reasonable, sensible things that never got them or anyone else into trouble... we wouldn’t have any stories to write.
     
    No, what I’m talking about is writers who place characters into hackneyed situations and then use really, really silly, stale actions that are just plain irrational to move things along. Said writers should be placed in front of the blackboard and made to write “I will not insult the collective intelligence of my readers” 1000 times. Bestowing characters with unbelievable naiveté may work once in a while --- after all, as I just said, the sad truth about humans is we do unbelievably stupid things --- but not in situations where thousands of years of literature argue against a given course of action, and only someone totally illiterate (or someone who’s never watched film at all) would think the course of action is reasonable. Because once you start to make your readers roll their eyes and mutter (or scream) “Seriously?” at the actions of a character, you’re in Big Trouble. And deservedly so.
     
    So, come on Writer. Yeah, you. I’m talkin’ to you. Get off your metaphorical couch and do some work. Put your characters into creative crises, and then come up with creative ways to get them out. Yeah, it’s work. Hard work. I know.
     
    But you’ll be glad you did. And so will your readers.


0 Comments

What Makes a Classic?

4/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Pig: (making casual conversation) Hey, Goat, what does it take for a book to become known as great literature?
Rat: (interrupting) It has to both bore and confuse everyone.
Goat: (closing his eyes in either despair or disgust) NO.
Rat: (ignoring Goat completely) Except for high school English teachers. They have to like it.
Pig: (in his usual state of totally panicked, naive credulity) What’s WRONG with those people?
                -Pearls Before Swine, by Stephen Pastis
 
Ha ha! Thank you so much, Mr. Pastis, for perpetuating those hoary old high school English teacher stereotypes in your cartoon. Because yes, I am one --- teacher, to be clear, not hoary old stereotype (despite what some of my students might think) or cartoonist. Teaching is my day job, that is. Above my desk on the classroom wall, there’s a sign reading, ‘English teacher by day. Deadly English ninja writer by night.’ Sincere thanks to the young sycophant who gave it to me. Bless you.
 
However... truth be told, I found that particular Pearls Before Swine comic very funny (as usual) and also (as usual) perhaps more bang-on in its observations about life than we’d like to admit. But Mr. Pastis gives teachers too much credit for a power we don’t possess. Books don’t become great literature just because legions of English teachers, intent on torturing succeeding generations of students, decide the books in question are sufficiently tedious or confusing to make the grade.
 
So, then... what makes a classic? Why do some works last, while others fade into oblivion? For example, we teach Shakespeare in high school. Why is he still around, more than 400 years later? For that matter, why is Homer still around, all those thousands of years later? (No, no, no, he said wearily, closing his eyes in pain. Not Homer of The Simpsons. Homer of the Iliad. Homer of the Odyssey. That Homer. If you still have no idea whom I’m referencing... I’m sorry. We can’t talk anymore. Go away and find some Simpsons reruns to watch.)
 
I have this discussion with my students on a semi-regular basis, and I think there’s at least four things that take a well-written book and elevate it to the status of classic:
 
First, a classic needs to have widespread appeal (NOT just to English teachers, Mr. P). That means a great number of people have to like it, either because it appeals intellectually, or it touches some universal, popular chord within people.
 
Second, a classic needs to make some worthy comment or observation about the human condition, the journey we all share. Despite what some of my intrepid scholars think (at least before we start his plays) Will does that. The themes and ideas and issues he wrote about 400 years ago are still completely valid and relevant today.
 
Third, a classic needs to be enduring. We still love to read a story about a young girl being led through a fantastical world by a rabbit that is really, really concerned about being late... even though it was penned over a hundred years ago by a mathematics professor who was simply trying to amuse that girl and her sisters one lazy summer afternoon while they were all out on a picnic.
 
Finally (and related to the third), a classic needs to catch on --- somehow, in some mysterious alchemy, become self-sustaining. It needs to take hold of us so we love and cherish it and then want to transmit it on to our children, and they to theirs. This is rather like catching lightning in a bottle, and where the transformation from being just another book into something timelessly eternal (in literary terms, anyway) comes into play. It’s also the question that vexes every writer, I think: exactly how does that happen? Because we’d nearly all like to produce something that will live on long after we’re gone. The answer is... I have no idea. And I doubt anyone else does, either. (If I knew the answer --- well, my place besides Homer and Will would already be assured.) It really is one of those divine conundrums, right up there with why someone falls in love with someone else and is prepared to spend their life story entwined with the other. As I said, it’s a mystery.
 
Whither the future of classics? I have to say that I’m a little pessimistic here, because the ground rules have been shifting so monumentally in the last several decades. And it’s that damned technology stuff that’s responsible, he said in his best Luddite tone. We live in a world that seems to be losing its ability to focus for any appreciable length of time, and it’s getting worse and worse. Whether we’re talking of television or film or literature or just about anything in the creative realm, things have got to click with audiences right now or they’re discarded. There’s almost no opportunity for thoughtful reflection, for something to be given time to find its audience. And there’s so much information flow out there, filtering the trash from the worthwhile is becoming so hopelessly difficult that many people have just given up trying. Even when something achieves phenomenal success, our addiction to constant new stuff means the phenom’s lifespan is relatively brief before audiences move on, hungrily searching for The Next Big Thing.
 
I hope I’m wrong about this. I really do.
 
In the meantime, I shall go on reading about people with names like Ulysses... and Hamlet... and Frodo... as they navigate their ways through the slings and outrageous fortune, enthralling and terrifying readers as they have done since they first leapt from the page and into our imaginations.
 
Long may they continue to do so.

0 Comments

    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

    Copyright 2015-2025. All rights reserved.
    ​
    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly