• 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

The Accidental Novel

8/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
You know, the funny thing is, though I’ve always loved to write, I didn’t intend anything as grandiose as a novel when I began Gryphon’s Heir, my debut work. In fact, today’s torrid writing confession: Gryphon’s Heir wasn’t meant to happen, at least in the sense that I didn’t one day sit down at my laptop, crack my knuckles experimentally, and think to myself, I Will Now Proceed To Write My Magnum Opus. It was, as Pooh Bear might say, sort of an Accident.
 
Now, when I say I’ve always loved to write, I’m not kidding. I was one of those nerdy kids who loved to write in school --- in elementary, in junior high, and in high school. I was always excited whenever the English teacher would announce that the net assignment was to write a story. And I wrote for myself. At home. In my spare time. But I never made it out of short story country, much less into novella territory. And certainly not into novel country.
 
(What’s the difference? you ask. Well, I always used to tell my students that short stories tend to range from 2000 to 10,000 words, novellas 10,000 to 50,000 words, and novels anything over 50,000 words. But today’s attention-deficit/challenged youth and educators might say that’s too much. Pffft. I discard them.)
 
Flash forward thirty years or so. I was teaching English at the high school level and was deeply unhappy at the school where I taught. In the interest of trying to stay professional, let’s just say the school’s administration and I had fundamental, irreconcilable differences of opinion in terms of what constitutes good educational philosophy and good governance. One day after school, as I sat in my empty classroom, I was musing despairingly over how to get out of the toxic atmosphere of the place. I looked idly at the classroom’s exterior wall --- part of it had windows, but there was also a substantial part that was simply blank wall, and I began fantasizing what it would be like if a door suddenly materialized in the wall, a door that could take me away.
 
I’ve used writing as a self-therapeutic tool many times in my life, and that night I sat down and put that little scenario down on paper. I don’t really know why I was motivated to do that, other than to say that writing about things that trouble me often makes me feel better about them. So, the door appeared, and the teacher (I was writing in third person, not first) opened it. There were, I don’t know, maybe 500 words to the thing. And for some reason, I came back to it a number of times over the next several days. It was like a mental house guest who refused to leave, although even then, I had no sense I was writing a novel. It really wasn’t until my computer informed me my word count was in the neighbourhood of about 14,000 words that I took note and sat back and thought, “Whoa, what’s happening here?” 
 
I reread what I’d written and thought it was a pretty decent story --- and, more importantly, I wanted to find out where the whole thing was going. So, I continued. And it grew and grew and grew… (rather like Professor Tolkien’s remark at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Not, I hasten to add, that I am in any way trying to compare myself, a pathetically ordinary mortal, to a literary demigod like Professor T.)
 
Eventually, several years later (nobody will ever accuse me of writing in haste, but in my own defence, life kept getting in the way of writing), I finished the first draft, and it clocked in at a bloated 202,000 words. Except I didn’t realize at the time that it was bloated. My attitude was rather like a scene from Amadeus, the Oscar winning film about the life of Mozart. At one point in the film, the Austrian emperor tells Mozart there’s ‘too many notes’ in his opera i.e. it’s too long. And Mozart is genuinely bewildered, replying, “I don’t understand, Majesty. There are just as many notes as are required, neither more nor less.’ And I felt much the same about my book. But at the somewhat less than gentle prodding of my wife, I began to change my attitude. And therein began the hardest thing about making the novel (aside from finding the time and the creative energy to shoehorn the thing into my life, as I’ve said): editing it.
 
But I sat down and started going through it, and as I went, I realized that yes, dammit, there were things that could be trimmed, things that could be cut, things that could be tightened. And as Stephen King recommends, I wound up cutting 10% off that first draft. Then I went back and did some more. And even though I also added elements to the narrative, I eventually wound up with a story of about 186,000 words. A story that was much more tightly written, much less sloppy in its use of verbiage, much better overall.
 
Nowadays, I actually quite enjoy editing --- which seems a fairly contrarian view among writers, who mostly seem to moan about it. But my favourite part of writing --- then and now --- is watching the story unfold. I may have an idea about what’s going to happen next, but I’ve found it’s only very rarely that things wind up going the way I have planned or anticipated. Why? Because the characters are real people, and they frequently have their own ideas about how things or going to go, and they’re not shy about telling me that no, thanks, they’re not going to do things the way I’ve planned, because they’re doing it their way. C.S. Lewis once said he never actually wrote a book; he was given things to say. And I’d say that writing, at its best, is like that for me, also. It’s wondrous to watch things unfold on a page, not necessarily knowing how things are going to turn out. You feel a whole lot less like an omnipotent Creator, and a whole lot more like an interested observer who can’t wait to see how things wind up.
 
Which, frankly, sounds more interesting.
 

0 Comments

Origin Questions

8/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today’s origin story is brought to you courtesy of a friend who recently asked me what type of books I read growing up, whether I return to them, and if someone inspired me to write. A variation on the origin story, if you will. So…
Once upon a time, a very long time ago now (not last Friday, as A.A. Milne once wrote)… my parents read to me as a child. I think that’s a tremendously important thing, one of the most important things a parent can do. Because, as a result, from time immemorial, I have always loved to read. And later on, as a parent myself, I made sure I read to my own children. It was part of the nightly bedtime ritual after dinner, and even as they grew older, it remained a treasured part of the day for all concerned. And it was a sad day when that parenting time came to an inevitable conclusion, I can tell you.
 
As I began reading on my own, I grew up with the Tom Swift books --- loved all the gadgetry and incredible inventions, even back then, and was blissfully unaware of how formulaic they were. But I think it’s as famed psychiatrist B.F. Skinner said: “We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.” And my parents, God bless them, did that. I was also raised on a lot of the classics in children’s literature.
 
After I learned to read for myself --- and I can still vividly recall the day in grade one when I went dashing home, yelling to my mother that I could read, waving my first grade primer in one hand --- I read quite a lot of science fiction from the masters: Arthur C. Clarke was my first go-to author, probably because 2001: A Space Odyssey had just appeared in film and book versions. I saw the film first --- shanghaied my father, who had absolutely zippo interest in science fiction, to drive me up to the only cinema in town that was equipped to show 70 mm film, and we watched it together, which on reflection was a pretty tolerant act on his part. And because the film was, shall we say, a wee bit difficult to comprehend, regardless of whether you were 10 like me or much older, like my dad. I had to read the book to make some sense of it. So I did, and that was it, the fateful moment: I was hooked on the sci-fi bug. Irrevocably. And of course, the original Star Trek had surfaced at mostly the same time. And then, very quickly after that, came the first landing on the moon, which of course we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of this year.
 
As far as the fantasy genre is concerned, well, somewhere along the way, my mother bought me a copy of The Hobbit. I’m going to say I was 10 or 11 at the time, so right around the same moment I discovered science fiction, and I’m mortified now to say that I couldn’t really get into The Hobbit. Now, looking back five decades later, I’m not really sure why… the reasoning has vanished in the mists of time. So it languished. Then, in the summer when I turned 12, I came across a copy of The Lord of the Rings, the entire trilogy bound into one large volume. And I bought it. Again, I’m not quite sure why, all these years later. I’m embarrassed to say it might well have been something as shallow as that I was attracted by a big book. I took it with me when we went on our family camping holiday that summer, and was instantly, absolutely enthralled. Why? Because it was so different from anything I had read before. It was its own world, with endless vistas, completely formed cultures and languages --- it was real. I couldn’t put it down. Read it all the time. In the car. At the campsite, especially around the fire. Morning, noon, night. All the time, to the annoyance of my parents, who kept pointing out all the scenic wonders we were driving through. But all I cared about was whether the surrounding mountains and forests represented the vistas I was experiencing in Middle Earth. Sure, I return to Middle Earth and the science fiction of my youth from time to time --- still have the 95 cent copies I bought 50 years ago, and certainly still have that big book copy of LOTR, although, like me, it’s a little the worse for wear five decades later.
 
I would say LOTR was a seminal work for me. It certainly unlocked my fledgling writer’s mind, because, for some reason, it created within me this burning desire to write stuff like that. But not set in Middle Earth, no, no, no. I wanted to create my own world and write about it. The term fanfiction didn’t exist back then, but I’ve never been a fan of fanfiction. (My take on the matter is, yes, I know you obviously really, really like the world you use for your fanfiction. But don’t use someone else’s world… create your own. Draw from your own well. Taking from some other author’s well is at best creatively lazy, at worst creatively bankrupt. And who the hell are you to take an author’s characters and make them do stuff you want them to do? Anyway. Enough with the rant.)
 
So I wrote. Mostly fantasy, some science fiction. I still have some of those embryonic efforts, lo, these many years later, and every once in a while, I pull them out and smile fondly and indulgently at them. I don’t cringe at them --- although I very well could --- because we all have to start somewhere.
 
There you have it. From tiny acorns and all that…
 

0 Comments

When Bad Guys Win

8/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Imagine Sauron, Tolkien’s Dark Lord, regaining the One Ring and conquering Middle Earth, covering it eternally in a veil of black, choking despair. Or Jadis the White Witch doing likewise in Narnia. Or Voldemort triumphing, really murdering Harry, enslaving wizards and Muggles alike in a hellish world vision of his own choosing. Seems unthinkable, doesn’t it?
 
And yet, it happens --- more often than we probably realize: the story’s villain… wins. And not just in modern literature, either. Both of Orwell’s most famous and tremendously influential works, 1984 and Animal Farm, end with the bad guy on top. Big Brother triumphs over Winston Smith in the former, and the pigs under Comrade Napoleon ensure the inhabitants of Animal Farm exchange one dictatorship for an even worse one, just as the Russian people did in the wake of the 1917 Revolutions. And Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death is just one of his stories where evil triumphs. (Granted, Ed was never exactly what you’d call a glass-is-half-full kind of writer.) And quite a few of Stephen King’s tales --- novels and short stories alike --- end with badness triumphant. I could go on. It’s as though such stories are supervised by some dark conglomerate catchily named Evil Ascendant, Inc.
 
So why do it? Why not see every story end with the stock “they all lived happily ever after” kind of conclusion we were raised on in fairy tales? Well, probably because it’s still good for shock value. And it remains a very counter-cultural story concept. Generally, most of us want the good guys to win, so it’s something of a gut-wrenching moment when that doesn’t happen. Leaves us with rather a sick feeling. Especially in our so very broken world. (My wife gets on my case for following the news because, as she notes, it’s just a never-ending parade of murder, madness and mayhem. She has a point, but please don’t tell her that.)
 
I was thinking of this the other day… while mulling over a particular Stephen King story: titled Storm of the Century (SOTC), it actually wasn’t one of his novels… or novellas… or short stories. It was a screenplay, written as a TV miniseries back in 1999. And I found it chilling.
 
Set on the island of Little Tall, located off the coast of Maine, SOTC follows its inhabitants as they are hit by a paralyzing blizzard that knocks out power and all communication with the mainland. So, step #1 in the horror genre, our characters are isolated. Then they discover this… person… on the island (step #2: introduce the evil outsider, not one of the group). He commits a horrific murder, and then, inexplicably, waits to be taken into custody by Michael Anderson, the community’s sheriff… almost like he wants to be taken into custody. (Step #3: give the villain bizarrely inexplicable behaviours.) His name is Andre Linoge, and it’s kind of a tossup who --- Mike or the viewer --- will first figure out ‘Linoge’ is simply an anagram of Legion, the name of a bunch of demons Jesus cast out of a possessed person in the Gospels.
 
Being in prison doesn’t stop Linoge from committing other horrific acts, and eventually he just… walks out of jail. Into the storm. But he’s been leaving clues on walls (usually written in someone’s blood): “give me what I want, and I’ll go away.” (Step #4: provide cryptic hints that keep us guessing at the villain’s motivation.) His penultimate act is to “kidnap” all the young children, putting them in some sort of dream state/coma (kind of a nod to Freddy Kreuger, now I think of it) and threatening their parents he’ll murder the kids if not given what he wants.
 
And what does he want? Well, turns out it’s one of the kids: he’s a very old man and wants a successor. (Guess he hasn’t had much luck on Bumble or Tinder --- hardly surprising when we finally see his true appearance.) But, in one of those curious “rules” writers hang on their characters from time to time, he can’t simply take a kid; nope, the townspeople have to agree to it. (I’m not knocking Mr. King here… many writers craft similar constraints.) So, he wanders off for a pleasant stroll through the blizzard and leaves the townspeople to debate the issue, as though they’re discussing a recycling bylaw or something.
 
It’s a great scene, filled with plenty of anguish and raw emotion. Mike the sheriff wants the townspeople to unite and stand up to Linoge. (I like to call narrative times like this “brief moments of shining hope,” because Mike’s eloquent, passionate speech leads us to think, for just a few seconds, perhaps the people of Little Tall will rise above their terror and do something truly inspiring. That maybe they can unite and resist.)
 
Except, of course, they don’t, ‘cause this ain’t no fairy tale. No one will stand with Mike, not even his wife. They’re just too afraid. (Dammit.) So they overrule him. And, when Linoge returns and they do a kind of dark lottery (one Shirley Jackson would have approved of) to determine which kid Linoge takes, in a supremely ironic twist, guess whose kid wins the booby prize? Yep. Mike’s. And Linoge puts on a pretty good pyrotechnics display to ensure no one tries to stop him.
 
The denouement comes years later. Mike has divorced his wife and gone clear across the country to escape the events of that night. He’s a federal marshal in San Francisco and thinks he’s been able to make his peace… but one day, he spots his son with Linoge. There’s a brief moment of mutual recognition… but the son has bonded with Linoge, and they melt into the crowd as Mike stands there, paralyzed with shock. Evil triumphant, indeed. Fade to black. (Pun intended.)
 
It’s kind of a cautionary tale: bad stuff happens. And sometimes, the bad guy seems to win. Not in the long run, if you’re a person of faith, but the trouble with the long run, as John Maynard Keynes famously observed, is that in the long run, we all wind up dead.
 
It was a great story. Was it uplifting? No. But it was compelling. Would I allow my literary villain to win? Hmm. Don’t think I could. The consequences would be too horrendous. I think I’d want to see Sauron defeated and the Dark Tower cast down. Maybe at a price, because that’s legitimate, but I think most of us need to believe Light will triumph over Darkness.
 
Because if it doesn’t… well, that’s a pretty bleak life outlook, isn’t it?
 

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