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Twirl Dem Mustaches

4/30/2018

“All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true.”
-David Cronenberg

“A stereotype may be negative or positive, but even positive stereotypes present two problems: they are clichés, and they present a human being as far more simple and uniform than any human being actually is.”
-Nancy Kress

We had a guest pastor preaching at our church this last weekend, speaking on the subject of marriage. That’s a pretty big canvas for a 40-odd minute sketch to fill, but he gamely dipped his brush in the paint and slapped it on vigorously. (Although I was both surprised and a little crestfallen that he didn’t start by gazing across the congregation and solemnly intoning, “Mawwige… mawwige is wot bwings us togevver today” --- if the Impressive Clergyman of Princess Bride fame could do it with a straight face, I thought our guest pastor also could have --- but apparently my sense of humour is just a little too eclectic for a sermon.) It was a pretty good message all in all, but when my wife asked me afterwards what I thought of it, I expressed my disappointment that he employed the usual hoary old stereotypical image of all males as sex-crazed, sports obsessed morons. My wife has somehow managed to perfect the technique of rolling her eyes without really rolling them, favouring me with that sideways look of hers I’ve come to know very well over the years.

“Well,” she observed mildly, “that’s because so many of them are.”
“I’m not,” I retorted.
“Wouldn’t have married you if you were,” she informed me. “But that doesn’t change the truth about his ‘stereotypical’ image of men.”

Yeah, well. Game, set and match to my wife. (Is that a correct sports metaphor? I’m not completely sure. Because no, I’m not sports-obsessed. In fact, I tend to agree with Orwell’s famous dictum about organized sport… yeah, that one concerning sports being not about fair play, just war minus the shooting.) Because the thing about stereotypes is, neatly wrapped up in the two diverging points of view quoted at the head of this post, there’s a very simple reason why they exist and why we employ them all the time in literature and film: because real-life people make them true, even though they paint a very incomplete picture of the subtle realities behind those stereotypes. I suppose, on one level, stereotypes are a kind of Occam’s Razor in humanity’s endless preoccupation with navel-gazing. (William of Occam, a 14th century English cleric and philosopher, famously observed that, all else being equal, the simplest answer to a problem is usually the correct one.) Humans are simultaneously hideously complex --- witness the stereotype of males constantly and vainly attempting to understand the female --- and at times laughably simple --- witness the existence of stereotypes. So reducing human nature down to a few basic stereotypes is understandable.

Except…

As Nancy Kress observes, they only reveal a part of the whole. As writers, we need to be aware of that and make sure we don’t fall into the trap of making stereotypes of our characters. That laughing, sneering villain twirling his moustache as he ties the helpless maiden to the railway tracks? There needs to be a reason why he’s like that, and it would be very helpful for us to know, or at least suspect it --- or he’s just a caricature of a real human being, that is, a stereotype. Providing the reader some backstory why he is the way he is --- and just so you’re aware, we don’t necessarily need to know every last aching detail about it, just enough to tantalize and whet our appetites --- will add depth and richness and realism to him.

Sometimes it’s a relatively easy job to head character stereotypes off at the pass before they get a chance to become hoarily entrenched. Case in point: like many before him --- and, I’m sure, after --- Rhiss, the valiant (if slightly bemused and reluctant) protagonist of my novel Gryphon’s Heir has a mentor. When I began writing the novel, that mentor was an older man named Arias. But it wasn’t long (to my credit, he said modestly) before I realized I had fallen into the Stereotype Trap of Young Man Being Mentored By Older And Wiser Man… at which point Arias immediately and unceremoniously became Arian. Female. (Wham. She never knew what hit her, poor old gal.) Still older than Rhiss, but definitely female, which ultimately provided me with much richer grist for the literary mill, what with the difference in genders and strong female characters and all.

So… acknowledge the fact that stereotypes exist… but as a student of human nature, understand that they’re likely a front put up by people using simplicity to mask complexity. And as a writer, you need to rule stereotypes so they can’t rule your story. In other words… twirl dem mustaches… but let the reader see some of the angst behind that villainous laugh.

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All-Rounders

4/23/2018

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In my last post, I mused about what I called one-trick ponies: authors primarily known for one tale, regardless of whether the story exists in a single book or is spread over several. (It’s a funny thing, really, when you stop to think about it: a lot of authors, particularly modern ones --- although this phenomenon isn’t limited merely to modern authors, by any stretch of the imagination --- achieve their fame, fleeting or otherwise, from just one tale.)

But I also said at the end that there are plenty of authors who are not one-trick ponies… so I thought that today, I’d spare a few musings about them as well. (Hmm, I thought: what’s the antonym of ‘one-trick pony?’ My good friend, The Google --- a writer’s best friend these days, actually, although as many people have astutely noted, it does tend to give us very odd (to say the least) and occasionally sinister browsing histories --- informed me that the answer is, rather anticlimactically, an ‘all-rounder.’ Hmm. Okay.) And there are many all-rounders, both historical and modern. However, again, we need to place a caveat on this by saying that even authors known for multiple works whose characters and plots bear no relation to any of their others tend to stay one-trick ponies --- of a sort --- by remaining within a single genre.

Stephen King is arguably one of the most successful contemporary examples of this. In a career starting in the early 1970s and spanning the decades since, he’s written, so The Google tells me, 54 novels and over 200 short stories… but while he’s dabbled with science fiction/fantasy, the overwhelming majority of his work lies in the horror genre. (A few have nothing at all to do with either one --- Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, a gritty prison drama with no ghosts or ghouls or Things That Go Bump In The Night at all, comes to mind immediately, especially since it was made into an absolutely brilliant film by Frank Darabont --- but mention King’s name to people, and horror is the genre they’ll associate him with.) When asked why he writes horror, he has apparently asked why people think he has any choice in the matter.

There are many other well-known authors who have written multiple, independent stories and whose names are synonymous with one genre: Agatha Christie and mysteries, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke with science fiction, Zane Grey and westerns, the Bronte sisters and gothic romances… I could go on and on, as I’m sure you could, too.

Why is this? Why do many authors stay within the comforting confines of a single genre? Well, a couple of reasons: first, as the old cliché rather disingenuously says, you write what you know… or to be more accurate, because most of us have rather limited personal experience with dragons or missions to Mars or even Mafia hit men, you write what you can imagine, what you enjoy, and what inspires you. I like reading mysteries every once in a while, but I can’t imagine writing one, not an Elmore Leonard style mystery, anyway. Second, and much more importantly, as I mentioned in my last post, as a writer, you don’t choose the tale; it chooses you. It comes into your mind, you often know not from exactly where, and that’s the tale you write. You have to, in fact, because you really have very little say in the matter. I think it was Salman Rushdie who said that if you try to ignore the story, or if you don’t work on it, the story sulks, and I think in large measure that’s true. It certainly mirrors my own experience, anyway.

Now, it’s also possible to think of writers who have broken the barrier and published enduring works that span different genres. As an English teacher, Shakespeare comes to mind immediately – he wrote comedies, tragedies and histories (although in the best Hollywood tradition of never allowing the facts to get in the way of telling a good story, his ‘histories’ sometimes play pretty fast and loose with the established historical record), and while most of my high school students are completely incredulous at the idea of anything Will wrote actually being funny, many of his comedies are. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote two very different book series in his Tarzan and John Carter of Mars tales. C.S. Lewis was primarily a writer of Christian apologetics with works like Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, but is also known for one of the most famous children’s fantasy series in our times with his Chronicles of Narnia cycle.

Ultimately, all this is more a matter for benign, casual musing and less a matter for any particular existential angst: as writers, we write what we write, we tell the tales we’re given to tell, obeying a deep and almost primal imperative to get the story out of our heads and down on paper (or a screen in these latter days, of course). And if others can then find those stories entertaining or moving or absorbing… well, so much the better.

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One-Trick Ponies

4/16/2018

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“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
-Maya Angelou

I saw this quote the other day as I was pondering why some writers are one-trick ponies --- which I would define as being known primarily for one major tale (which may involve more than one book) and one major tale only. And I found myself asking, is what Ms. Angelou said true? Think on’t, as Will would say. It’s definitely not true for all authors (thank goodness), but for quite a few, it seems to be the case. Look at three modern examples that came to me off the top of my head: Salinger. Tolkien. Rowling. Given that the latter is still with us, I may be accused of being premature in my assessment… but stop and think about it for a moment.

In Catcher in the Rye, regardless of your personal feelings about its merits or lack thereof, J.D. Salinger wrote what is arguably one of the most influential coming-of-age stories of the 20th century. And then he never wrote anything on that scale again. Sure, he wrote other stuff… but he also made a whole other career of being a recluse and shunning the limelight.

J.R.R. Tolkien is primarily known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings --- really just one tale, since LOTR is a sequel to The Hobbit and was never intended as a trilogy by its author. Oh, sure, Tolkien’s son Christopher has made it a career to continue publishing his father’s writings ever since Professor T’s death in 1973 --- which really qualifies as a vocation of some sort. (I mean, think about it: you spend your entire adult life editing and getting someone else’s works ready for publication, instead of writing works of your own? Man, that’s dedication to the cause.) But all the stuff Christopher Tolkien has published has never ignited public imagination the way LOTR did (even before filmmaker Peter Jackson came along --- and as I am fond of telling my students, Jackson’s Middle Earth and Tolkien’s Middle Earth are two very, very different places).

J.K. Rowling is synonymous with Harry Potter. One tale, seven books. Yes, there’s The Casual Vacancy and the Cormoran Strike books… but again, those have not ignited public imagination as Harry did.

So, did these writers “use up” their creativity? Not necessarily. And I need to note that I certainly don’t mean to be insulting or dismissive of any of these authors; they’re all phenomenally successful on a scale most writers can only dream of. (Although given that, it’s perhaps a tad ironic all three reacted to fame and attention --- admittedly fame on a frenzied scale --- on a continuum ranging from discomfort to outright hostility.)

I think it’s certainly possible any given person has one story in them to tell. I’ve seen a quote out there (can’t remember the author, I’m afraid) to the effect that the tale chooses the writer, not the other way ‘round, and I think that’s true. C.S. Lewis said of his writing that, “I never exactly made a book. It’s rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say” and I think that’s very true as well.

There are other reasons why authors can be known mainly for one tale: for example, their canvas is so vast, one tale can occupy a lifetime of writing. This was certainly true of Tolkien. We’re talking about an entire world, created from scratch, and constructing the mythos that goes with it.

Or, for whatever reason, it takes a very long time to write the tale. Again, true of Tolkien: he was an Oxford don, married with four children, and I can personally attest, from my own writing, that all too often, coping with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune leaves very little time or creative energy for writing. And that’s without even talking about the creatively barren periods of time we quaintly call ‘writer’s block’ that I think every single writer ever born has encountered and struggled with.

And, you know, the public, bless its dark little capricious collective heart, particularly in these later days of instant gratification, can be ferociously fickle, addicted to the next new thing, and may neither like nor appreciate it when a writer tries something new. I think there’s something to the idea of catching literary lightning in a bottle. It happens rarely and for reasons nobody fully understands. Why do some works --- which are sometimes of frankly substandard writing --- become monster hits, while others that are far more creative and better written, languish unread? I repeat, nobody knows. And it causes many writers to tear out their hair in frustration.

Are there authors out there who are not one-trick ponies? Sure. Lots… but that’s a discussion for another day.

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The Magic of Failure

4/9/2018

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Every bursted bubble has a glory
Each abysmal failure makes a point
Every glowing path that goes astray
Shows you how to find a better way
So every time you stumble, never grumble
Next time you'll bumble even less
For up from the ashes, up from the ashes
Grow the roses of Success!

Chorus:
Grow the roses, grow the roses, grow the roses of Success (oh, yes!)
Grow the roses, those rosy roses
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of Success!

For every big mistake you make, be grateful (hear, hear!)
That mistake you'll never make again (no, sir!)
Every shining dream that fades and dies
Generates the steam for two more tries
Oh, there's magic in the wake of a fiasco (correct!)
It gives you that chance to second guess (oh yes!)
Then up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of Success!

Chorus

Disaster didn't stymie Louis Pasteur (no sir!)
Edison took years to see the light (right!)
Alexander Graham knew failure well
He took a lot of knocks to ring that bell
So when it gets depressing it's a blessing
Onwards and upwards you must press (yes, yes!)
Till up from the ashes, up from the ashes
Grow the roses of Success!

From the 1968 classic children’s film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, today’s musical poetry offering is brought to you by Grandpa Potts (superbly played by Lionel Jeffries), ably assisted by a hoary old cadre of eccentric prisoners/inventors, all warbling this fabulous little ditty together while attempting to encourage him in the face of impossible odds. Nil desperandum carborundum and all that (yes, I know the Latin is really not correct… but the sentiment is right on).

Anyway, thank you, Richard and Robert Sherman. This song of yours, The Roses of Success, reaffirms yet again why you are among the most brilliant songwriters in entertainment history. We hum and sing your catchy songs all the time. They’re always memorable, and as in this one, frequently offer up amazingly apropos and timeless philosophical nuggets of wisdom. Yes, indeed: up from the ashes grow the roses of success. Something to keep in mind when we’re writing, and in real life.

Except… except…

…ironically, fifty years later, this seems rather a subversive piece when set against the prevailing nanny state we have somehow managed to set up. Why? Because it promulgates a message that today seems very counter-cultural: failure is normal, an integral part of life, to be expected, and not feared.

Folks, we learn from failure… or, at least, that’s the natural order in nature. When you mess up, you need to find a different way to accomplish your goal… because if it exploded in spectacularly dismal fashion the first time you did it that way, chances are, all else being equal, it’s not going to work if you try doing it the same way a second time. Or the third. (Remember that old adage about the definition of insanity?) Animals seem remarkably good at rapidly learning this, and for good reason: if they don’t, they won’t just be a Disappointed Bear; they’ll very quickly also be dead. Nature is beautiful, but it’s also often quite unforgiving. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Not so with modern human society, but we appear to have corporately decided to outlaw failure. I was going to add the qualifier inasmuch as we are capable, but that flies in the face of that other modern myth --- you know, the one saying We Are In Control Of Everything Around Us, Including Ourselves.

Hmm. I’m not sure where or when this happened, exactly. Must have missed the memo on this one, and frankly, I’d kind of like to know, because it somehow seems to have occurred during my lifetime (although it sure as hell didn’t occur on my watch, because my wife and I didn’t raise our children that way, and over more than three decades, I’ve never run my secondary school classroom like that).

As an educator since Pontius was a Pilate, I see this all the time with children. We seem to have raised an entire generation of kids by trying our utmost to bubble wrap them and protect them from the slightest whiff of failure. And while that’s understandable on one level, it’s had the dubious and completely unintended result of producing a generation that has almost no coping skills and no ability to handle what Will terms the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune when --- not if --- life inevitably throws crap at them. And so they fold, they wilt, they curl up into fetal positions and give up and die… sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally. And it’s horrible to watch.

I get it: nobody likes experiencing failure. It sucks like a vacuum cleaner. It stinks on ice. Nobody --- well, I hope nobody --- leaves the house in the morning thinking to themselves: Hey! This would be a wonderful day to completely screw up my life! Yep, that’s my goal for the day! Personally, I hate it when I fail, hate it with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. And when it happens, I do not console myself by articulating that it’s a necessary part of learning to succeed. Nor do I particularly want some well-meaning idiot telling me that, either. But (sigh) it’s true, nonetheless.

Some time back, I wrote a post suggesting you should throw rocks at your protagonist (you can read that post here if you’re interested). On a literary level, it’s both interesting and enlightening, entertaining and edifying, to see characters dealing with Will’s slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And after all, characters have to learn those difficult but necessary life lessons, or they won’t make it to the sequel. Hell, they won’t make it to the end of the book.

And come to that, neither will we.

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D.R. RANSHAW

Twirl Dem Mustaches

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