• 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

Simmering

11/30/2015

0 Comments

 
Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, the Christian church season of preparation for Christmas. So, according to our family tradition, we were busy putting up Christmas decorations. As I did so, I found myself wondering absently just how Christmas would be celebrated in Arrinor, the fantasy world of my novel Gryphon’s Heir. I’ll return to that train of thought in a moment, but my little mental self-query highlights a couple of things I think are important/useful in writing.
 
First, I’m thinking of my story world as often as possible. This doesn’t mean it has to be front and center all the time; it shouldn’t be --- can’t be --- if I’m leading any kind of normally productive existence where I have to focus on things like, oh, driving, interacting with my nearest and dearest, earning a living, and things of that nature. But percolating away on the back burner of my consciousness... ah, now that’s a different matter. If thoughts of my world are left gently simmering on that back burner, deliciously thickening throughout the day like a fine soup whose flavours are melding together, there’s no telling what little gems my subconscious will occasionally throw out (up?) onto the shores of my conscious frontier for me to pick up. And while some of those gems will be lumps of carbon, some are sure to be diamonds. What would a major festival (religious or secular) look like in my world? What practices would it involve? And possibly most importantly, how could I weave it into the tapestry of my narrative? Would it just be some minor textural point for readers to admire in passing, or --- quite deliciously --- would it become a major plot point that influences the entire story?
 
Second, it’s details like that which make the difference in a story. Of course, you can tell a story in a terse, Spartan manner if you really want to... but for most readers, little details make the story. Stephen King calls this chrome; I call it texture. Either label is descriptive of what you’re trying to accomplish. Let me give you a very simple example from my novel. In Arrinor, people don’t eat breakfast, lunch and dinner; they have firstmeal, midmeal, and evenmeal. Why? Because I determined at some point that I wanted that little detail to be a little alien without being alienating. It reinforced that here was a place that was a little different in a realistic way. It added some spice. My editor certainly remarked on it. Now, while I enjoy vanilla, adding something else to it every once in a while is not a bad thing. If you can add small details that are interesting and different without being ostentatious and distracting, you add an enormous amount of interest to your story.
 
Let’s return to Christmas in Arrinor. At the moment, it’s a rather moot point, as, in my novel, my protagonist left England in May and arrived in Arrinor at some indeterminate time in the year... I was never really specific, other than it was plainly obvious from my writing that it wasn’t even winter, much less Christmas. But Christmas... mmmm. Omitting the insanely materialistic orgy of consumer spending that Christmas has regrettably become in the last 75 years or so --- especially in the last decade or two --- Christmas is a wondrous moment in the year. The Edwardians and Victorians got it, I think (Dickens’ descriptions of Christmas sound far more Christmassy than ours, frankly). So it got me to thinking... first of all, what would we call Christmas in Arrinor? Not Christmas. Lightmas? Hmm. Possibly... one of the things we celebrate about Christmas is the light in the darkness, both literally at that time of year in northern latitudes, and metaphorically. Anyway, that’s something I can tinker with when (not if) it comes up in book two... or three... or whatever. It will be fun to come up with something that is recognizable as something perhaps similar to Christmas, but with subtle --- or major --- differences.
 
In the meantime, back down here in mundane reality, if you’re looking for that perfect Christmas gift for the literate someone in your life... well, I happen to know a great novel available
here in either hard copy or digital version.

0 Comments

Writing Outlandishly

11/23/2015

0 Comments

 
                They hauled him to his feet. While one pinioned his arms, the other smiled nastily but said nothing as he drove his fist into Rhiss’ torso, followed by several quick punches to his face. Rhiss felt his lip and one cheek split open, and through a scarlet haze of pain, he heard a voice say hoarsely, “Let me.”
                It was Scarmouth. He had tottered to his feet and was still partly bent over, but he approached Rhiss, an animal glint in his eyes, waves of murderous rage radiating almost visibly from him. Rhiss suddenly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his life hung by a thread. The icy realization cleared the mists threatening to engulf his thoughts, but he had no time to say anything before Scarmouth was on him, hammering away mercilessly all over his body. Speech of any kind was quite impossible; in fact, he could barely get in a breath, and felt like his lungs were exploding.
                An indeterminate time later — seconds? minutes? hours? — the blows abruptly ceased, and Rhiss groggily heard a disembodied voice say from a great distance, “Sweet Light of the One, Malreck, that’s enough! You’ll kill him!”
                “No!” said Scarmouth triumphantly. “I’ll give him a taste of what he gave me!”
                Rhiss felt what seemed like a red hot bar of lead crash into his crotch, and screamed involuntarily, waves of agony arcing through his body like lightning. He felt his arms released, and he dropped like a stone into the mud, feebly curling into a ball.
                “Malreck, enough, I tell you! I think someone’s coming! Let’s away!”
                “Filthy Tavvy-lover!” he heard someone else say derisively. “Let’s find the other two.” There was the retreating sound of feet splashing through puddles, and he became aware of staring at something glittering a foot or two before him. An icicle? he thought hazily. The dancing dark spots in his vision grew larger and larger until they merged together, and awareness drifted away on waves of pain in a bright red sea.
                                -excerpted from Gryphon’s Heir by D.R. Ranshaw
 
I’ve made my (mostly negative) feelings very clear in the last couple of posts about how I don’t like explicit violence and sex in literature and film (thanks for triggering the whole rant, Ronald Moore and Diana Gabaldon). What I haven’t done is be constructive in how we should approach these twin issues. As I’ve already said, violence is (unfortunately) an everyday fact of life. As I’ve also said, conflict in stories is absolutely necessary... unless you just want to read about Little Bunny Foo Foo hopping through the forest, stopping to smell the flowers and kissing the other animals. Which, frankly, would get old very quickly to everyone except a toddler. Maybe even a toddler.
 
In addition, as all of us who can observe the world around us are also abundantly aware, sex is an everyday fact of life. So, let’s be clear: as regards sex and sexuality, I don’t think we need to pretend we’re all as blandly featureless as Barbie dolls. And as regards violence, there’s nothing to be gained by pretending that violence doesn’t occur. Are there violent images in my own work? Sure there are. As an example, I began this with an excerpt from my novel in which my protagonist is getting the crap beaten out of him.
 
(I’m not excerpting anything about sex, because, frankly, nothing very sexual goes on in my novel. Not because I’m particularly squeamish about the topic (I’m not), but because my protagonist is a little too busy to be engaging in a roll in the hay; he spends much of the book making his acquaintance with a world that is simultaneously quite hazardous but also very beautiful. Although he does find the time to fall in love.)
 
So... how should we approach the twin beasties of sex ‘n violence in writing? I have three suggestions:
 
  1. Don’t shy away from sex and violence just because it’s sex and violence. Sex happens. So does violence. All the time. It’s dishonest to pretend otherwise, unless you’re really intent on writing a relentlessly sanitized version of what life is like, and I can’t really imagine why you’d want to do that. I was going to say for younger children, perhaps, but even there, kids learn very early on that life is full of conflict, and as I’ve also mentioned, a lot of classic children’s lit is very violent.
  2. Don’t be gratuitous about including sex and violence. Unless you’re writing something like 50 Shades of Gray or something else as deliberately pornographic, it’s just as dishonest as a writer to be including sex and violence simply because you know audiences are likely going to be titillated by it.
  3. Don’t be unnecessarily detailed. This is the flipside to my first suggestion. Sure, don’t shy away from sex and violence, but there’s no need to get too graphic, either. What’s too graphic? It’s a very subjective thing, I know. Well, as I wrote here, the Outlander television sequences detailing Jamie Fraser’s rape and torture at the hands of Black Jack Randall definitely qualify, as far as I’m concerned. (I realize I’m speaking of film here; apparently, in the novel, we’re told what happens, which is quite different from being shown.) If you look at the excerpt where my protagonist gets beaten, I do include details, but not so much that we have to have every excruciating moment spelled out in nauseating detail.
     
    Remember my comment about the shower scene in Psycho? Sometimes, less is definitely more. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with allowing the reader’s imagination fill in the details to suit their own preferences. In fact, isn’t that what we should be doing as writers? Give our readers detail, sure, but let them fill in at least a few blanks with their own connotations. Caress their sensibilities --- in the vast majority of situations, there’s no need to hit them over the head with a 2 by 4.


0 Comments

Bread and Circuses

11/16/2015

0 Comments

 
When I was little, I loved Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner. There was a dry, clever wit to Bugs and Company sadly missing in most of today’s cartoons, and you just had to feel sorry for Wile E. Coyote. Admittedly, he was perpetually trying to kill the Roadrunner --- who was cheerfully, blithely indifferent to Wile E’s complicated, fruitless machinations --- but even so, when you saw that despairing realization dawn in the Coyote’s eyes that his latest plan had backfired and he was about to get creamed by exploding dynamite or falling anvils --- yeah, you felt sorry for him. This despite the fact his antics were, really, incredibly violent, in the same way a great deal of children’s lit is violent: cannibalism, being eaten by wild animals, physical/emotional abuse... and let’s not even start on how or why there seem to be so many murderously evil stepmothers in children’s lit.
 
But... there’s violence, and then there’s violence. I don’t think I was psychically scarred by the TV I watched, or the literature I read, as a child. And it did not inspire me to drop anvils on my little sister.
 
I well remember a 1979 film with a very clever screenplay by Nicholas Meyer. Time After Time relates the tale of a shy H.G. Wells using his (real) time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper, who takes it to escape justice by traveling to the present day. When Wells catches up with Jack, the killer memorably turns on the TV to show the carnage present every day in our broken world and utters a couple of lines I have never forgotten: “90 years ago, I was a freak. Today, I’m an amateur.” Kind of sums things up quite well. Strange, isn’t it? We keep adding coats to the thin veneer of civilization, but underneath that crust, I’m not sure our basic natures have changed very much.
 
So, yes, I know: violence is an unfortunate fact of life. And conflict is absolutely necessary for stories to unfold, because quite obviously, stories without conflict are generally damned dull. Are there violent images in my own novel? Of course. But nothing anywhere near what I objected to in Outlander’s TV incarnation in either tone or description. Do we watch/read to be entertained and titillated by acts of extreme physical/emotional/sexual violence? I sure hope not, although there’s depressing evidence suggesting some people do. To be horrified? Well, maybe, although I’m not sure that’s a good thing either. To be educated? Again, I sure hope not.
 
So here’s my central question: is it really necessary to portray violence in film and literature in full, febrile Technicolor and graphically overdetailed text?
 
I don’t think it is. The shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho is regarded by many as one of film’s most frightening scenes, and yet, when you actually look at it, very little is shown; most of the terror comes from things implied. But I think, as we’ve become more and more desensitized to violence, filmmakers and authors have resorted to ever more explicit imagery in a bid to keep the jaded masses interested and entertained. And I have to say that’s not a good thing, because the spiral becomes both self-sustaining and more and more violent. Or as the Roman poet Juvenal said, it becomes bread and circuses.
 
I was really offended watching Black Jack Randall’s sexual abuse of James Fraser in Outlander. I thought it gratuitous and horrific in the extreme. It was not entertaining in the slightest, and we really didn’t need it to establish what a despicable character Randall is. Let’s contrast it with something from my weekly obligatory reference to The Lord of the Rings. (Which, by the way, I didn’t make last week. Just so that you know I know.)
 
When Frodo is captured by orcs and held in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, they could have done similar things to him. Might well have done, actually. After all, they’re orcs. Way nastier than Black Jack Randall could ever aspire to be, even in the muddy cesspool of his own mind. But we didn’t need to read about that, and Tolkien, God bless him, didn’t see fit to saddle us with such images --- if they even occurred to him at all, which I doubt. And I don’t think his story is any the less for it. Quite the contrary, in fact.
 
Now, to be clear, I’m not advocating state censorship. But perhaps some self-censorship --- or restraint or creativity --- on the part of authors and filmmakers might not go amiss. And I know what some people will say: if I’m so offended watching Jamie Fraser sexually assaulted by Black Jack Randall, then I should just turn the Blu-Ray off (and not come back). But those people are missing the point.
 
Because, folks, a society whose only rule seems to be “anything/everything is allowed --- and encouraged” is in more than deep trouble; it’s doomed... and deservedly so.
 

0 Comments

Sex and Violence and Bears, Oh My!

11/9/2015

1 Comment

 
How much is too much violence and sex in film and literature? That’s a question I’m currently struggling with. And it’s all Outlander’s fault. Sorry, Ms. G.
 
Now, before I get underway, I need to come clean and confess I have committed Cardinal Sin #1 with Outlander: I haven’t read the books, merely watched the television series. (By the way, I’ve neither read nor watched Game of Thrones, which I’m told also has a generous share of sex and violence.) But Diana Gabaldon, the books’ author, has been something of an inspiration to me, because I’ve always thought, if a research professor can find huge success as an author of historical fiction/romance/fantasy, there’s no reason why I can’t --- all else being equal, of course (like assuming I can string sentences together in an engaging way). But the television incarnation of Outlander is where my problem is centered: close to the end of the first season --- and, I’m led to believe, the first novel --- the male protagonist is captured by one of the most evil, sadistic villains I’ve encountered in film or literature in a very long time. And when I say ‘sadistic’ I’m not kidding. After unceremoniously dumping the female protagonist alive down a waste chute into a charnel pit of corpses for her to clamber out of as best she can (pretty intense imagery right there), the villain proceeds to graphically torture and sexually abuse the male protagonist in seemingly endless fashion. Just after the point where the villain nails the protagonist’s hand to a table to prevent him from going anywhere while the villain deals with the female protagonist, I shut down the Blu-Ray. I was past angry; I felt assaulted by what seemed totally gratuitous sexual and physical violence --- ‘torture porn’ is a phrase I believe I used to describe it. And I also felt betrayed, because up until that point, the show --- while occasionally more violent than it probably really needed to be --- was quite well done and engaging. And I had admired Ronald Moore’s work on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Battlestar Galactica. I was also rather surprised by the depth of my visceral reaction.
 
A week or so later, when I had calmed down, I realized that to get an understanding of what the show’s creative staff were trying to do, I really should finish watching the season, and so I sat down with no sense of pleasure and grimly resumed playback, watching to the end. When I was done, I set myself to percolate the whole thing, asking why the creative staff felt it necessary to put us through what we’d seen. Hmm. Well, obviously, they wanted to convey that the male protagonist had been totally broken as a human being; check. They wanted to drive home the point (no pun intended) that all of us can be broken; check. Likewise, they obviously wanted to convey the deep devotion and love the female protagonist still had for him, a love that could transcend just about anything, no matter how horrific; check. And they obviously wanted to convey what a truly despicable excuse for a human being the villain was; check. There are probably other things, but that’s enough to start with.
 
But did they really need to show it in such graphic detail? Or is it just that I lead a very sheltered life? (Well, evidently I do, but that doesn’t answer the first question.)
 
Look, I know that really terrible, monstrous things go on in our world today, and have done since day one: I’m both a news junkie and a student of history. Bad stuff --- really bad stuff, the stuff of hellish nightmares --- happens all the time. Has done ever since the snake whispered in Eve’s ear in the Garden. I get it. We humans are frequently --- all too often, as a matter of fact --- broken, deeply flawed, cruel-beyond-imagining, psychotic creatures.
 
But do we need to see such behaviours in every bloody, psychopathic detail when we watch film and television? Do we need to have every last excruciating detail recounted in minute specifics when we read a book?
 
I realize that I’ve asked a whole slew of questions in this post, and not really answered any of them... but I’m going to let the issue percolate some more before I tackle that task. In the meantime, if you have any constructive musings on the issue that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them.

1 Comment

Strong Female Characters Redux

11/2/2015

0 Comments

 
Rhiss was aghast. “What?! You allowed her to go back to Rontha? Alone?”
                Lowri looked comically surprised. “I didn’t ‘allow’ her to do anything. She’s a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. But aye, she went to Rontha by herself this morning. What of it?”
                “But, Lowri… she… she’s only a… And she’s old! Something could happen to her, travelling by herself!”
                Lowri’s eyes narrowed, and she wagged an accusing finger. “Now, that’s enough of that, Just Plain Rhissan. It matters not whether you be prince or commoner, there’s no reason for arrogant rubbish! It’s plain you have never seen a Castellar in a scrape... For your information, my Lord, they’ve a thoroughly well-earned reputation for dealing efficiently and ruthlessly with any threat to their persons… and it matters not whether we speak of male or female Castellars. So have a care. I don’t know how things happen in your country — I’m told it’s a far ways from Arrinor — but you’ll find in this land, many women are just as capable of wielding sword or bow as men. And age has naught to do with anything.”
                -excerpted from Gryphon’s Heir by D.R. Ranshaw
 
Poor Rhiss, protagonist extraordinaire. We see him here being thoroughly castigated by a strong female who very definitely has a mind of her own. But before we condemn him as just another hopelessly incurable chauvinist, we need to bear a couple of things in mind: at this point in the story, he’s just arrived from 1920s England, which as I noted in my last post, was hardly a bastion of gender equality; and second, as you’ll see when you read the novel, he’s actually very teachable on a number of issues, including gender equality.
 
In one sense, talking about ‘writing strong female characters’ does the entire issue a disservice. Why should it come up at all? Well, in an ideal world, it wouldn’t. But the practical answer is that we live in a world far from ideal which has, unfortunately, been highly patriarchal and at times extremely misogynistic ever since Eve took the fall (no pun intended) for eating of the tree of knowledge. Our society is sure messed up, isn’t it? Never mind. Rhetorical question.
 
How to write strong female characters? I’m acutely aware of writing this as an OWG --- Older White Guy --- so I do so with trepidation, knowing we’re entering a minefield. And I need to stress that I didn’t write Gryphon’s Heir with the following list mentally or physically present beside my trusty old Dell Inspiron. I just tried to write real people, which is what you should do, too, and gender be damned (by and large). But in retrospect:
 
  1. Don’t make women helpless or force them into stereotypical roles. Please. The last thing good literature needs is yet more soft-spoken, submissive females, just because the author thinks women must act like that. Unless it’s naturally a part of who a specific woman is. By the way, there are men like that, too. Gender as an explanation for character motivation is such a tired old cliché that it really shouldn’t enter the discussion at all. Like I tell my students, it may be hard to believe, but civilized, intelligent life has got to revolve around more than just hormones. Yes, I know hormones are a big part of what we do, but... dream higher, folks. Literally as well as figuratively.
  2. Give women their own voices. Every character needs his or her own individual voice. I’m not necessarily talking about a physical voice, either, but about temperament and intellect.
  3. Make them real, as I said --- which applies, of course, to every character. How? Well, to start, don’t say, ‘I Will Make This Character A Strong Woman Because It’s Politically Correct That I Do So And I Will Score Points With The Feminists.’ If that’s your mindset, perhaps you should return to the 1950s along with Marty and Doc. Rather, could you realistically see yourself talking to your character? Having lengthy conversations with them? Having a relationship --- platonic or romantic --- with them? Hating them with white hot intensity? Do their actions smack of real-life interactions you’ve had, or might have, with actual people? Do you talk to them when you’re staring into the bathroom mirror? Now they’re real. (One thing I did periodically was consult the women in my life to make sure the women in my story were speaking and acting authentically.)
 
Finally, it’s 2015, people. Leave gender stereotypes and misogyny on writing’s ash heap. Just because you write fantasy with a medieval bent doesn’t mean you have to include medieval attitudes. Free your world from those stereotypes. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you discover. I was.

0 Comments

    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    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