• 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

What Drives Characters?

5/22/2023

0 Comments

 
So… just how would you advertise if you were looking for a protagonist/hero? Possibility of great monetary reward and/or treasure? No, no… you want a hero, not some greedy, grubbing mercenary only interested in money and shiny trinkets. Great adventure accompanied by insane dangers? Definitely no. That belongs in the category of a little too much accuracy in advertising. I mean, who’d take on such a job except the hopelessly naïve of the insanely reckless? Preferably single with no family or emotional ties? Again, no, despite the fact such a requirement is honest and would keep your character out of messy relational entanglements. Besides, you want a person, not a robot. Should be courageous, able to laugh in the face of danger? Who the hell laughs at danger? Not sane people with intelligence, that’s for sure.
 
Where’s all this coming from? you might well ask impatiently, a jaundiced look in your eye. Well, the other day I was rewatching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the 2012 (Sweet Earendil! Has it really been that long?) Peter Jackson film which kicked off the second round of Tolkien film trilogy mania. And I was struck by the image of Martin Freeman as Bilbo, cavorting over the New Zealand countryside, dementedly shouting, “I’m going on an adventure!”
 
Now, aside from the fact that those words are Jackson’s, not Tolkien’s --- and in an act of supreme self-control, I’ll refrain from a rage-rant today about jackalope upstarts rewriting the Master --- it suddenly struck me that this is a damned silly thing for a protagonist to do, especially a protagonist Tolkien (and even Jackson) have to that point been at pains to emphasize is a solid, quiet individual totally uninterested in the concept of danger, dismemberment and adventure in general. (Yes, yes, I know Jackson could be doing it for several reasons, including highlighting how fun it is to make abrupt and capricious turnarounds in a character’s nature. Or simply because he thought it’s amusing to watch. Shut up and stop interrupting. This is my soap box.)
 
So, then, the weighty question concerning all writers becomes (at least insofar as today’s epistle is concerned): What Drives A Protagonist? I sat down, pen in hand, and within a few seconds noted a number of reasons --- not a Compleat Lyste by any stretch, but it’ll do to begin with, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice.
 
(I suppose, he admitted grudgingly, come to that, protagonists can be driven by a sense of adventure. Just not very many rational ones… you know, the ones who are okay with three square meals a day, hot baths, warm beds to snuggle up in while listening to the night rain… that kind of thing. The key word in my question is drives, which implies some sort of force creating the need for a protagonist to take action, leave a comfortable life, and embark on suicidal dragon-slaying quests accompanied by a bunch of smelly, uncouth dwarves who despoil their hosts’ dining areas with food fights.)
 
In no particular order, then, here are several possible Factors Which Drive Protagonists:
 
Curiosity. It’s simultaneously one of our race’s greatest gifts and curses. We Need to Know. We Need to Know Why. We’re insatiable in our curiosity (well, except hormonal adolescents in a hot classroom on a Friday afternoon, grumbled the retired secondary school teacher). At times, that curiosity gets us into a helluva lot of trouble, especially when we don’t bother to think of the repercussions of that curiosity. But it doesn’t seem to stop us.
 
Revenge. Ah, one of the oldest motivators of human behaviour, regardless of whether it’s served cold or piping hot. When we’re wronged, we are Not. Going. To. Let. That. Horrible. Other. Person. Get. Away. With. It. End of story. Even if it drags us both down into some spectacularly destructive mutual death-spiral. The problem with this drive is, obviously, it’s a pretty negative headspace to put your protagonist into --- like its close relative, Fear. Protagonists can be driven by fears --- my God, most of us are walking clumps of neuroses and fears which all too often govern our actions --- but it’s not really a very noble motivation for getting a protagonist to do something.
 
Duty. Which is a concept that may have fallen somewhat out of favour in our modern, narcissistic world. “I don’t really want to do this, but feel a moral obligation to start/finish this mission… quest… thing.” It’s a noble sentiment in theory, but I’d suggest that, if that’s the protagonist’s primary motivation, it’s not a great one. Doing something merely from a sense of duty implies your heart isn’t really in it, which doesn’t infuse one with a lot of optimism about possibilities of a favourable outcome.
 
Need to Defend Something. Person, loved one, land, city, way of life… take your pick. Whatever your little heart can imagine. This has been a primary basis for human behaviour pretty much from the get-go. As a species, we’ll do quite a lot to protect something we really like, or something, in Samwise’s words, that’s worth fighting for.
 
Need to Restore Something. Similar, but kind of the flipside of the previous drive. Loved one, land, city, way of life… it’s gone or been taken from the protagonist, who wants to try and bring it back. As before, humanity will go to extraordinary lengths to right a wrong, to bring about healing and restoration… it’s one of our (few) sterling qualities.
 
And finally… Love. We’ll go out on a treacly note. Let cynics roll their eyes and groan theatrically to their hearts’ content, ain’t no denying that love is a major driver of human behaviour --- and, I should note, there are many different types of love, the vast majority of which have absolutely nothing to do with physical attraction and sex. (Something our modern-day society seems to have forgotten in its puerile efforts to equate everything with sex. Chill out, dudes. As Freud is supposed to have said, sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.) But people will do all kinds of things for love, some honourable, some not.
 
So there you are. Seven-ish possible reasons to get your protagonist out of his/her armchair and leaping across the fields, shouting adventure memes. What are you standing around for? Get moving!

0 Comments

More Decisions... Mostly Stupid

4/24/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
In my last post, I examined a really important question for writers (and just about everyone else, too): why do literary characters (and real people, come to that) often make such unfortunate --- and at times, inexplicably stupid, stupid decisions?
 
I examined the choice of Joel Miller, smuggler/survivor extraordinaire, in the post-apocalyptic, plague-infested world of The Last of Us. His decision to save Ellie Williams, who’s become his de facto daughter, from the desperate clutches of a group trying to get a vaccine from her --- a move which will save humanity but simultaneously bring about her death --- is a mammoth decision and, as I explained, one he only has seconds to make… truly a tragedy, given the far-reaching consequences of whatever he decides. So… yeah… time, or rather lack thereof, is certainly a major reason why we often make such poor decisions. But there are others, too, so today, for your entertainment and edification, I’ll look at five --- by no means a Compleat Liste, but certainly prime, enduring culprits.  In no particular order, here they are.
 
The first big-ass factor is ignorance/rationalization. My God, our species has a spectacular --- well, I was going to say ‘gift,’ but I think ‘curse’ is a better word --- to rationalize decisions which fly in the face of all reason and logic. People go to unbelievable lengths to ignore inconvenient facts/situations they don’t like. We’re past masters at it. You need look no further than the entire COVID experience for proof… gads, it certainly destroyed any lingering faith I had in humanity. Perhaps the best meme I saw relating to COVID was “we’re going to have to retire the phrase, ‘avoid it like the plague,’ because apparently people don’t do that.” I’m still shaking my head.
 
Another factor is duty. We make bad decisions because we feel a sense of obligation, of duty. (Less so nowadays in our juvenile, narcissistic society than in times past, perhaps.) Frodo agreeing to take the Ring to Mordor is an example. It’s a terrible decision, because everyone in the room knows perfectly well it’s basically a suicide mission, but he wearily raises his hand to volunteer regardless because, gosh-darn it, someone’s got to win the booby prize, and he’s brought it this far, and it was a family member who dredged it up in the first place, so...
 
Fear is another biggie, probably one of the dominant reasons why we behave as we do. We’re biologically programmed to very sensibly shy away from danger, because, despite the cartoonish violence we’re bombarded with on film --- and in literature --- humans are remarkably fragile organisms in a world full of terrors. But sometimes we allow that fear to overwhelm us into making really bad choices. It’s no coincidence the Litany Against Fear in Frank Herbert’s Dune included the lines “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration” because it does. Fear clouds rational judgement, reducing us to gibbering idiots who dash from one danger right into the path of oncoming traffic. Splat.
 
Then there’s anger and its close relative, jealousy. Like fear, when we become angry, rational thought deserts us and we do/say really, really stupid things which later, when rationality has returned, we can’t believe we did/said. It’s hard to focus on stuff when we’re viewing it through a fine scarlet haze and we want to just reach out and crush, maim, kill, and in general be unkind. I lump jealousy into this factor because it’s similar: our anger/disappointment/resentment causes us to commit all sorts of violent, sabotaging things. Many people say Shakespeare’s Iago does what he does out of jealousy.
 
Finally, people make really bad decisions because of love, which seems a little paradoxical until you realize that love frequently does pretty much what fear, anger, and jealousy all do: rob us of our ability to be calm, rational, and objective. Crap, does it ever. The drive to reproduce is also biologically programmed right into us --- only just behind the drive to survive --- and my God, we are absolutely enslaved to it. People in love do all sorts of crazy things.
 
However, ultimately, as writers, it’s a good thing characters do make terrible calls and bad judgements; if they didn’t, if they were all calm, rational, objective folks who do and say the right things all the time… well, aside from the fact they’d be irritatingly perfect, pretentious, and tremendously boring, it would make it harder for us as writers to craft interesting stories. Internal conflicts arising because of various emotional states --- that roiling cauldron of human feelings --- is often far more interesting than merely outside forces casting, as Will says, the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ at our characters.
 
I find it really amusing when readers/viewers say characters in this or that tale are behaving unrealistically because their actions are too unbelievable, too ridiculous, too stupid. Folks, I’ve got news for some of you: ain’t no such thing. People are stupid. Humanity routinely makes terrible decisions, really, really bad calls. All. The. Frigging. Time. Individually and collectively. Where’s my proof for that, you ask? Shucks, how about five thousand years or so of recorded history? There’s one unbelievably big-ass catalogue of stupid decisions right there at your fingertips… for your perusal, as Rod Serling might say --- a writer who was a keen observer of humanity’s foibles. And that’s before we heard about people eating Tide detergent pods or drinking battery acid. Like, come on, people.
 
Some years back, the popular musical group The Arrogant Worms wrote a hilarious song entitled “History is Made By Stupid People,” and all humour aside, they make a pretty valid point. I guess that’s what writers do: we revel in people’s stupidity, their bad decisions.  
 
So… yeah. Revel on, writers. Cultivate the cruelty. Encourage the enervation. Illuminate the idiocy. Massage the mendacity. Your characters have nothing to lose but… well, nothing to lose but their common sense and quiet good judgement.
 
Which makes for more interesting stories.

0 Comments

Decisions, decisions...

3/27/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
So… here’s a thing (a stranger thing, one might almost say, although Eleven and Mike aren’t even remotely involved):
 
At great personal risk, you’ve just spent several terrifying, freaking months ferrying a package --- on foot, to boot, if you’ll pardon the pun --- across a plague-devastated United States, full of mutant infected who slaver and want nothing more than to messily devour you at every opportunity --- while theoretically non-mutant survivors want to do the same, more or less simultaneously. You started off loathing this package --- a snarky, sassy, foul-mouthed, 14-year-old girl named Ellie, by the way --- who detested you right back, with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.
 
But along the way, another thing, even stranger… well, maybe not, given shared tribulations and such: the two of you actually started to like each other, care for each other… to the point where, by the time you finally deliver her to the consignee, a resistance/terrorist group (everything’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it?) quaintly named the Fireflies, she’s kinda become your de facto daughter, and you’re kinda her de facto dad. (Aww. How sweet, even though it’s not a particularly original trope. Then again, as I’ve noted before, nothing really is.)
 
Now, you’ve long known Ellie is the key to resolving this plague, because (gasp!) she’s immune to it. So… the plan has been to get her to a Firefly lab and a team of specialists, and hopefully, they can synthesize from her a vaccine to stop people from sprouting repulsive fungal growths and going crazy. (I was going to make a smartass reference about our current, real-life society, but I’ll let you read between the lines.) But… both you and she naively thought that would involve nothing more than getting a few blood samples, and then you could both be on your way, smugly aware you’ve Just Saved Truth, Justice and the American Way. Oh, and Humanity, too, by the way.
 
However, before we can all join hands and sing a touching round of Kumbaya, it turns out, to nobody’s great surprise… there’s a slight problem. Saving humanity is going to require a little more than a few vials of Ellie’s blood. Matter of fact… it requires a good chunk of her brain, which is likely to ruin her whole day.
 
And yours, daddio.
 
So… You Have A Decision To Make. You can choose Door #1: leave quietly and gratefully, reflecting, with tranquil, Spock-like wisdom, that sometimes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one) and that, doubtless, the universe is unfolding as it should. Or you can choose Door #2, saying, “Not my kid, you @#$%^!” and do everything in your power to prevent Ellie from going under the knife… even if that means a certain amount of carnage involving understandably upset Fireflies i.e. a veritable bloodbath as you grimly carve your way to an unconscious Ellie, already lying on the operating table awaiting the aforementioned knife.
 
But here’s the Real Thing (and the crux of today’s epistle): you don’t have days, or hours, to quietly meditate and reflect on the correct course of action, sipping herbal tea, munching a biscotti, and calmly weighing the pros and cons of these alternatives. You. Have. Seconds. Tick tock, tick tock, with the Angel of Death at your elbow, murmuring quietly in your ear, “Well? What’s it gonna be, Joel? ‘Cause I haven’t got all day. And neither do you.”
 
We all make scores of decisions, some good, some not, each and every day --- though most aren’t the emotionally searing kind, determining life and death, like Joel has to make above (thank God). Because the truth of the matter is that most of us are really terrible at making good decisions under pressure. We want to be able to sit down, take some time, and calmly analyse the alternatives. We hate being put in the pressure cooker. Because, like I said, when we are, most of us tend to screw things up badly. Now, when the above scenario played out in the climactic season finale of the TV show The Last of Us, and Joel unsurprisingly chose Door #2, my wife turned to me and asked how he could possibly rationalize that choice, knowing he’d just condemned humanity to the dark hell of the plague’s possibly endless continuation. Or words to that effect. And because I’d spent over two hundred hours on the PlayStation game of the same name prior to watching the series on TV (gee, thanks Sony, for that really helpful system update which now accusingly informs me how long I’ve played each game on my console, he said sarcastically), I was able to approach the matter rather more calmly and philosophically, having long had opportunity to reflect on the same question.
 
This is a really important question for writers --- and readers --- to consider: why do story characters make unfortunate, and at times, really stupid, decisions? Well, there are a whole raft of reasons --- maybe I’ll make that the subject of my next post --- but one of the more important ones is what I’ve gone to some length to sketch out for you today: time. Every once in a while, the cosmos confronts us with a split-second, life-altering situation, and calmly tells us it needs our response within the next couple of seconds, and no extensions or refunds. So… we have to decide. Fast. And as I said, most of us aren’t good at choosing the best choice. In Joel’s case, he really doesn’t have time (or inclination) to consider the needs of humanity’s future. His baby girl is about to be vivisectioned, and his totally understandable (if possibly egocentric), emotional response, is, “Not on my watch!”
 
As real-life humans… we fervently hope such scenarios never occur, or at least are few and far between. As writers… well, bwahahahaha! We present those scenarios to our characters as often as we possibly can, because they make for great drama, and conflict, and readers/viewers tearing out their hair, screaming, “What? Why? How can they do that?!”
 
So, the next time you read about a story character making a really stupid split-second decision… cut ‘em a little slack.
 
And blame the writer. Bwahahahaha!
0 Comments

Enemies to Friends (or Lovers)

2/13/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Let me start today’s epistle by telling you a delightful little bedtime fairy tale, boys and girls (and it comes with plot spoilers, too, so… you’ve been warned):
 
Once upon a time, in a broken world all too similar to this one, except even more broken --- and yes, Virginia, lest you gesture in disbelief at the dumpster fire which is currently our little rock hurtling through the inky vastness of space, let me assure you such a thing is all too possible --- there lives a broken man. He’s one of many, surviving in a dystopian world he hasn’t made and doesn’t like, but that changes nothing, so he wearily makes his way through it day by day.
 
This broken man --- Joel, his name is --- has a partner Tess, and together they’re pretty passable smugglers, managing to get by in this broken, dystopian world… which is that way because there’s been a devastating fungal plague outbreak some 20 years prior, which killed off a goodly portion of the world’s population, turned another sizeable portion into shambling nightmarish things wandering the landscape, and reduced what was left of  so-called civilization to a dysfunctional, hard-scrabble, subsistence-level shadow of its former self.
 
One day Joel and Tess are approached by a nice lady named Marlene, the leader of a resistance/terrorist group --- like so many things related to the human condition, it always depends on your perspective, you know --- called the Fireflies. Marlene has a job for them: to transport a young girl named Ellie across devastated Boston to meet up with another group of Fireflies who’ll take Ellie on to some undisclosed location out west. Marlene doesn’t specify why she wants this done, and Joel and Tess don’t ask, because they couldn’t care less. What does interest them is the payment. So they accept the job.
 
Along the way, just outside the protected Quarantine Zone, Joel, Tess, and Ellie run into some trouble: they’re confronted by the nice security forces, who check them for the fungal infection. What do you know? Ellie tests positive. As you might imagine, this dims the festive atmosphere somewhat, with Ellie attacking the nice security man, forcing Joel and Tess to do the same. When the dust --- and blood --- settles, the security people have gone to the great checkpoint in the sky, and Ellie explains that, by gosh, she’s a pretty valuable asset, because she’s *immune* to the plague.
 
Joel’s a teensy bit sceptical, but Tess is more trusting, so they continue to their destination. Unfortunately, on arrival, they find the receiving Fireflies dead. Bummer. And more nice security forces are outside, and they’re understandably a little ticked off. Joel is all for leaving and returning Ellie for a refund, but Tess says, no, that’s not possible. Somewhere along their little jaunt, she’s been bitten by an infected, and her long-term prospects aren’t. But… she plays the old relationship card, making Joel promise to take Ellie out west to find the Fireflies, so they can find a cure and heal all the hurts of this broken, dystopian world. Like so many hapless males before him, Joel rolls his eyes and agrees.
 
Problem is, Joel and Ellie don’t like each other very much. She thinks he’s, to quote Star Trek, “a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood.” Or words to that effect. And he regards her as an unmitigated nuisance, insubordinate, wilful, and several other likeminded things. Doesn’t sound like the most promising foundation for any kind of relationship, does it, boys and girls?
 
However… in one of the more enduring literary tropes… Joel and Ellie bond with each other. No, no, not in any icky kind of way; get your mind out of the gutter. But by the game’s end --- and yes, this story comes from the deathless images of the video game (not the TV series, which is showing some differences, some minor, others more major) The Last of Us --- they’re pretty much father and daughter. Ta da! The ol’ enemies-to-friends trope. Someone asked me recently why this has been and continues to be a thing. But when it’s handled properly, it isn’t something to do that aforementioned eye-rolling over. Why? Several reasons:
 
First, it happens all the time IRL (in real life). I’ve said before that yeah, much of our collective lives seem governed by clichés. And they are. Because humans are not nearly as original and creative as they think. We’re walking clichés (oy). But that sometimes makes the job of writers easier, so there’s that. So the next time you’re tempted to roll your eyes at a writer’s machinations… stop and think first.
 
One of the biggest things to remember about the enemies-to-friends (or lovers) trope is our first impressions of other people aren’t always completely --- or even partially --- accurate. We tend to put a great deal of stock in physical appearance, for example, which isn’t necessarily misleading, but certainly can be. More fundamentally, many of us are just not great judges of human character. (Don’t agree with me? Just look back over our dismal human history. Oy again.) Some of us --- a small number --- are remarkably keen assessors of people. But an enormous percentage of the population is also appallingly bad at it. So it’s quite easy to start off with one superficial take on a person, only to realize later, as you get to know them on deeper levels, that you need to revise your initial assessment… which assumes one has the emotional maturity and humility to accept that unpleasant realization; most of us really don’t like to have to admit we’re wrong. But that’s what the enemies to friends/lovers trope is really all about: people who start off their relationship with one mindset, then change it as their relationship evolves and understanding and empathy replaces prejudice and trite assumptions.
 
Yep. Happens all the time, folks. “I hate you… no, on reflection, actually I like/love you.”
 
After all, everyone wants to be liked. As Will would say, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

0 Comments

The Job's The Thing

1/30/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
There’s a hoary old cliché about characters in TV sit-coms who never seem to have jobs --- or apparently bills to pay, either, for they just sit around in coffee shops all day and zing each other with pithy one-liners. The rest of us working stiffs must, however, toil in the sweatshops of first-world capitalism to put food on the table and pay for the kids’ braces. (Oy, he said in a pained voice, vividly recalling how he financed the Monte Carlo villa of his kids’ orthodontist.)
 
What gives rise to this cynical observation, you ask? It was a Twit, asking one of those faux-interested questions on everybody’s favourite social media platform. (Well, Elon’s favourite platform, anyway.) The actual question ran along the lines of, “What’s your protagonist’s job? And what was their first job?” Aside from the fact that I doubt the Twit really wanted to know --- I highly suspect the ultimate goal was merely engagement stats --- I thought it useful grist for the blog mill. Hence, here we are today.
 
Employment (aka indentured servitude) is just one of those necessary things we must all engage in, once dearest mama and papa toss us fledglings from the comforts of the nest --- sometimes before, too. For most, I suspect those first jobs don’t tend to have a helluva lot to do with what we ultimately wind up doing --- in my case, I fervently mutter, “thank God” --- and while writers don’t necessarily need to go into copious backstory about a character’s first job, it can be a useful exercise in character development.
 
Case in point: my first job was as a car jockey at a Ford dealership, back in the Dark Ages. I was newly 18, it was the summer between high school and university, and I was desperate for a job, because yes, Virginia, even then, universities charged tuition. No, I don’t particularly want to hear boomer jokes about how cheap it was and how easy I had it. Yes, he said wearily, tuition was a helluva lot less back then, (though wages were also a lot lower), and yes, I’m aware the fact my summer pay was enough to cover my tuition for the following year isn’t something which routinely occurs nowadays. But it was still a lot of money to fresh-faced little ol’ me.
 
Yes, you heard me right: car jockey at a Ford dealership. Pretty much the lowest rung of a very blue-collar ladder. Like, we’re not talking periwinkle blue here… more along the lines of whatever shade of blue is closest to… well, black. Car jockey was a dignified name for a job that entailed just about anything and everything, including the shitty stuff nobody higher in rank than me (read: everyone) wanted to do. I was, as I said, 18, sheltered-ish, sensitive-ish, nerdish, bookish and a whole bunch of other ishes… and it took me until about morning coffee break on the first day (I was going to say ‘lunch,’ but nah, that merely confirmed what I already knew) to reach the conclusion I was terrifyingly waaaay past the archetypical fish-out-of-water scenario. But I stuck with it for the whole summer. Didn’t have a lot of choice, really, if I wanted to keep that date with academe in the autumn, because jobs were scarce, and I got mine the old-fashioned way, by nepotism: my dad took pity on me and called around his list of business contacts to see if anything was available. This was. End of story, son.
 
Looking back on it now, close to five decades later (excuse me while I go and scream into a pillow at that anguished realization), it really was one of those what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger situations. A real crucible. Character development, like I said. In fact, if I wanted to take a cheap shot about my eventual career, I could say it was rather like teaching… except that educating 30-40 hormonal adolescents at a time for 35 years was, if you’ll pardon the awful pun, child’s play in comparison.
 
So. Your protagonist’s job. I’m thinking the Twit referenced above must’ve been thinking ‘day job,’ because as we all know, our protagonist’s primary job, at least as far as the plot goes, is ‘hero.’ No, no, no… that doesn’t necessarily mean the traditional concept of hero, complete with bulging biceps and/or more magical abilities than you could shake a stick/wand/staff at. Hero is just someone who’s prepared to sign up for the booby prize. They can be the most unlikely candidate for hero-hood in terms of skills and abilities.  Like Frodo. (I mean, really… this dude’s ostensible qualifications for an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to Mordor are essentially… well, nil. As Peter Jackson has him say --- because it’s not in the book! --- he doesn’t even know which direction he’s supposed to take.) But on Ye Olde Official Hero-Candidate Qualification Checklist, there’s one box, and one box alone, which needs to be checked: willing. Once that’s done, we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!
 
But day jobs… yeah, protagonist day jobs can range from the utterly irrelevant to the uncannily prescient, according to the author’s peculiar whims and twisted sense of humour. I’m not sure one is any better than the other, from a writer-creator’s point of view, except that ‘utterly irrelevant’ does introduce much greater possibility for surprise and uncertainty --- not to mention humour, gallows and otherwise --- which is pretty much always a good thing, story-wise.
 
It’s worth some thought, when you’re sitting down to flesh out your protagonist: what do they do to pay the bills? Because what they do for a living does say quite a lot about their personality. Or, if they’re sufficiently wealthy to be divorced from that mundane reality… what do they do to pass the time? Though that, paradoxically, can be a rather tedious situation to place a protagonist in. For example, Mr. Darcy’s life seemed to revolve around endless, mind-numbing balls and social visits to a lot of simpering women searching for a wealthy husband… though it ended pretty well for him… and Lizzie, all things considered. But for most of us, that isn’t an alternative. Toiling away in the salt mines for a good portion of each day is mandatory. If we want to eat, that is.
 
So, remember, folks: the job’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the conscience of the… schlep who’s your protagonist. (Sorry, Will.)

0 Comments

Literary vs. Real-life Misery

12/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Hello, my name is Everyman, and I am a newsoholic. (There, that’s my major personal admission for today. And it does relate to today’s literary thesis, although that may take a moment or six to become clear.)
 
I have a lifelong, apparently incurable, insatiable need to be informed about the murder, madness and mayhem which nightly ‘graces’ the video and written news platforms I consult. I’m not really sure why, and believe me when I say, I’ve given the matter a certain amount of personal reflection. My wife, who’s smugly not afflicted by this curse, blithely continues on her merry way with little more than an eloquent roll of the eyes when I put the news on… and, really, who can blame her? It’s not uplifting stuff, by and large.
 
I’m not sure the news has gotten any worse, he said thoughtfully… I mean, sure, nowadays, there’s climate change, and the sixth extinction, and similar cheery stuff, but When We Were Very Young, there was the very real spectre of nuclear war and its resultant unpleasantness (and some of the nastier side effects, like nuclear winter, weren’t even understood at the time). And, of course, corrupt, amoral politicians, and wars… well, they’ve always been around, unfortunately. Although, on reflection… I will say that since… oh, 2016 and the rise of The Donald (when every whackjob hiding under a rock was given carte blanche, or at least the secret activation code, to crawl out into the world and start spewing their particular brand of hatred or rebellion or lunatic conspiracy theory or scientific denial or whatever), followed quickly by the pandemic-that-people-got-tired-of-so-decided-it-was-over-or-never-happened-in-the-first-place… well, things seem to have gotten exponentially worse. Or maybe it’s just my tolerance for the crazies, the incurably narcissistic, and the deplorables has reached a nadir I wouldn’t have thought possible in the sunnier days of my youth. And I have noted my desire to remain informed is, more and more, coming into intractable conflict with my desire to remain sane. So, the question is, why do we remain morbidly fascinated by the dumpster fire which is the daily state of affairs for so many unfortunates on this rock?
 
And that (ta da!) is where the link to today’s literary thesis comes in, from a Tweet I saw recently, where the Tweeter asked why writers need to make characters’ lives so miserable. So, let’s work backwards and see if we can’t use a question with a rather obvious answer to provide insight into something deeper and more puzzling.
 
Back in the dark ages, when I was working on my first novel, my editor urged me to ‘throw rocks’ at my protagonist, which, on the surface of things, sounds incredibly cruel, but then again, we writers seem to major in hurling the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune at characters, cackling maniacally as we do so. In fact, it’s almost a job requirement. The reason for this (and the answer to the Tweeter’s question) is, as I said, fairly obvious: it’s the protagonist’s struggles against the vicissitudes of life, and how those struggles are handled, which make his/her story interesting. Unfortunately, at least from some points of view, a story with no conflict, no struggle, no arbitrary/unfair/cruel hurdles to overcome, a story which just contains sweetness and light and peaches ‘n cream, is… well, boring.
 
If we want to be noble/charitable about it, we could say this is because we want to be instructed in the finer points of life, or we want cautionary tales to show us pitfalls to avoid, or perhaps feel a sense of ‘there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I.’ But as you might suspect from my earlier rantings in this post, I’m not feeling particularly charitable about human nature these days, so I’d say a large part of our interest in reading about characters’ literary misfortunes is we just like to see other people dealing with shit… perhaps more sinister shit, more soul-crushing shit, than we’re experiencing ourselves. At least I don’t have to go traipsing over hill and under dale to throw a piece of antique jewellery into an active volcano, we can mutter to ourselves. It’s a weird characteristic of human nature, rather like when we’re driving along and come across the remnants of a motor vehicle accident. Most of us just have to slow down and gawk. We have a morbid fascination with wrecks of any kind, mechanical or flesh and blood, particularly if we can see them in slow motion on the TV news replay later. The more spectacular, the better. I’m not sure this reflects very favourably on us as a species, but there it is.
 
But wait! There’s more! as the old Ginsu steak knife ads used to say. We also want to read about literary misfortunes because… wait for it… we want to see our beloved protagonists come through those slings and arrows… to make it to the other side of the abyss. We’re rootin’ for them… possibly because, if they can make it to the frigging Cracks of Doom and survive… well, then, dammit, maybe we can, too, at least insofar as whatever pile ‘o poop life is flinging at us this week. Even if they/we need a good ol’ deus ex machina, like an eagle swooping in to make a very convenient and timely rescue, to do it. Because deus ex machinas do happen in real life, just like they do in stories… just rather less frequently.
 
So… does any of this really address my obsession with the news? Well… perhaps not as much as I thought it would before beginning today’s ramblings. For me, it’s not about watching blood and circuses, or other gloating/tsking over other peoples’ misfortunes. It’s more just a deep-seated need to know what’s going on around me, even if there’s very little I can do to change most of it… and I’m not entirely sure where that comes from. I think it’s a fairly common writerly trait.
 
But thanks for putting up with me while I ruminated through it. Oops, gotta go… the network news is starting.

0 Comments

Villains Ultimately Triumphant?

11/28/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Just for fun, let’s start today’s epistle by running a few literary speculations past you:
 
What if…
…Sam didn’t take the Ring from a supposedly dead Frodo after Shelob’s attack, thereby making it quite likely it, along with ye olde mithril shirt, was delivered via express orcmail to a certain Dark Lord shortly thereafter? Methinks that little conversation with the Mouth of Sauron would likely have had a rather different flavour.
…at the end of the seventh book, the one numerous people maintain should’ve been more appropriately titled Harry Potter and the Enormous Royalty Cheque, Harry decided to take that train ‘onward’ rather than heading back to our own mortal, rather drab world, thereby handing Voldemort game, set and match? (‘Onward,’ Jo? Really? Onward? My gosh, the painful contortions a thoroughly secular writer undergoes trying to discuss the afterlife without really discussing the afterlife. Sheesh.)
…those severe burns Katniss suffers at the climax of Mockingjay turn out to be a little more severe than thought, and she dies? President Coriolanus Snow (Coriolanus, Suzanne? Really? Yeah, I got the reference… though I bet most of her readers didn’t) winds up defeating the rebellion, setting us up for continued jolly rule by the Capitol and the eventual centenary of the Hunger Games… hosted by an elderly Caesar Flickerman whose now-white hair remains dyed a determined cerulean blue.
 
I could go on --- political/military/social/literary what-ifs are always entertaining to generate, kind of like erudite versions of It’s a Wonderful Life --- but you get the point, which was brought up in a Tweet I recently saw. (Yes, Virginia, I’m still on Twitter, along with several others --- and not all of us are whackjobs, either, BTW. Just a goodly chunk, it seems. But that’s a discussion for another day.) The Tweeter asked about the concept of the literary villain ultimately triumphant, yea or nay? Now, like many Tweets, this is a discussion virtually impossible to condense to 280 characters --- at least, not while generating any kind of thoughtful analysis --- and I have a distinct loathing of threads, which I’ve likened previously to trying to read War and Peace on the backs of multiple cereal boxes. (Ever noticed how social media comments tend to fall into one of two categories? Either they’re hopelessly banal, or hopelessly complex. Oy.) However, the good news is it provides grist for a longer forum i.e. today’s post. Ta da! You’re welcome.
 
My answer to the question is, actually, quite simple: Nay. Firmly. And, you know, I think most readers fall into that camp, too. Check out that Poe quote above, for example. Never mind its uncomfortable relevance in this, our third-going-on-seemingly-hundredth year of the-pandemic-which-the-aforementioned-whackjobs-have-decided-isn’t-a-pandemic, it’s just such a major downer. Most of us don’t want our stories ending that way. (There are times it seems, if we want gritty and depressing, all we have to do is step out our front doors.) Bittersweet is about as far as most are prepared to go… I mean, if you don’t have a heart of stone, just try staying dry-eyed at the finale of The Lord of the Rings, as Frodo and the elves skip town. Go on, try. I dare you.  So in this broken world of ours, most of us seek at least a little redemption in the literature we read, and that definitely doesn’t include villains ultimately triumphant. It may not include the tired old cliché ‘and they lived happily ever after,’ because most of us learned --- probably somewhere between elementary and high school --- such drivel belongs on the ashpit of literature, but that’s not to say the vast majority grooves on the success of evil ascendant.
 
Off the top of my head, about the only time I can recall the villain-triumphant trope actually working was, unsurprisingly, a riveting Stephen King teleplay entitled Storm of the Century. It follows the travails of a small-town sheriff in coastal Maine. When his village is cut off from civilization by a monster blizzard (pun intended), strange and horrific things begin occurring, as they are wont to do in Mr. K’s stories. Gruesome murders and disappearances and cryptic scrawlings in blood on walls, oh my! Eventually, we learn (plot spoiler) all the nastiness is caused by an ancient --- hmm, well… evil sorcerer, I suppose we’d call him --- who seeks an heir. He proposes to obtain a kid by having the townsfolk gift him one of theirs. ‘Give me what I want, and I’ll go away,’ is his ominous tagline, and it leads to a pretty agonized climactic discussion among the townsfolk, as you might imagine. Sheriff Mike, our intrepid protagonist, is against giving in to this monstrous evil… but he’s the only one --- even his wife, Molly, is against him --- and he’s forcibly subdued by the terrified townspeople, who cave to the demands of the sorcerer, Linoge. (It’s an anagram, folks, and not especially rocket science… work it out.) So, yeah, villain triumphant. And in a dreadful bit of dramatic irony, guess whose kid winds up being given to Linoge? Yep. Talk about twisting the knife once it’s in. Sheriff Mike’s final monologue, which comes years later when he gets a momentary, heartrending glimpse of Linoge and his/their son, is a masterpiece of hopeless raillery at the prevalent evils of our existence: “It’s a cash and carry world. Sometimes you pay a little. Mostly, it’s a lot. Once in a while, its everything you have.”
 
It is, as I said, a riveting tale. But is it the sort of heartwarming narrative making you want to burst into song alongside Julie Andrews, climbing sun-soaked meadows with flowers blooming all around, proclaiming the hills are alive with the sound of mucus/music? Umm… nope. Not even remotely. It’s much more in keeping with Ed’s gloomy pronouncement about death and decay and assorted yucky stuff holding infinite dominion. Yay, Ed.
 
I guess we could conclude, then, that even when the villain-ultimately-triumphant trope works… well, it doesn’t, not really. At least for me. Now, I’m not looking for a treacly Hallmark-Christmas-movie ending liable to cause type 2 diabetes from all the surging sweetness (ack!), but I do want a story that’ll encourage me to go forth and meet the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with a little stamina and courage, not nihilistic feelings of impending doom.
 
So stuff it, Ed… or go listen to Julie.

0 Comments

A Hatchet to the Back

10/31/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
The other day, I saw an image on social media from the 2013 (Yikes! Has it really been that long?!) video game Tomb Raider, and it sparked an interesting question in my fertile little writer’s mind.  Now, before you roll your eyes in disgust and think to yourself, we’re just discussing Another Fricking Video Game for Prurient Adolescent Males, let me disabuse of that you right now: the game is a reboot of the franchise that, yes, was originally targeted at hormonally charged teenage boys, what with the character’s --- ahem --- large pixilated breasts, which her skimpy clothing constantly struggled valiantly to contain. But the reboot did away with that tired crap; while the new Lara is still attractive, she’s far more intelligent and the game is much less focused on her winsome charms. Anyway, the point of today’s epistle isn’t to muse on the male gender’s near-ubiquitous fixation with female mammary glands (especially large ones), or the weird pathological/psychological ramifications thereof. As this post’s title reveals, it’s about a hatchet to the back, or, more specifically, one of those diamond moments in life we all fervently hope never to have to face… and, of course, the writing question, which, rest assured, I will get to in a moment.
 
First, though, allow me to back up a little. There’s two characters in the aforementioned image. One is, naturally, Lara, budding adventurer extraordinaire --- and kick-ass strong female protagonist, BTW. The other is Conrad Roth (kind of a Dr. Smoulder Bravestone sort of name, if you get the reference, which I modestly think is pretty apt). Roth is a ruggedly handsome older man --- his backstory reveals he’s an ex-Royal Marine --- so he provides the perfect mentor trope for a young Lara fresh out of university. She’s blissfully unaware of the extreme crisis situation her research is about to thrust her entire group of adventurers into: shipwrecked on a remote, unknown island in the Pacific, unable to leave because a vengeful entity destroying all ships or planes trying to do so, surrounded by a bunch of Crazed Cultist Castaways (CCC) bent on sacrificing Lara’s BFF to said entity while messily murdering Lara and her other compatriots. In other words, just a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park. Much of the game revolves around Lara attempting three things: (a) staying one step ahead of the CCC; (b) keeping her friends alive --- probably not much of a spoiler to say she’s largely unsuccessful on this goal; and (c) unraveling the mystery of the island so she and her surviving friends can get the hell off it and return to civilization.
 
Now, late in the game, remorseless fate finally catches up to Roth --- a character whom players have erroneously assumed to this point to be well-nigh indestructible. Fleeing with Lara from their latest cataclysmic engagement with the CCC (complete with plenty of pyrotechnics), no less a personage than the CCC’s doubly crazy leader, a psychopath by the name of Matthias, pursues and catches up to them. A wounded Roth uses up the last of his ammunition vainly attempting to save him and Lara, and then… Matthias throws a hatchet. At close range. Too close (I guess) to dodge. And so, Roth…
 
…without hesitation, instantly turns to shield Lara…
 
…and, in so doing, takes the full force of the hatchet in his back… thereby saving Lara’s life but, as you might imagine, rather spoiling his entire day.
 
(Yeah, he dies heroically a few minutes later, after providing a devastated Lara with some pithy encouragement. Cue the violin section.)
 
And this (finally) is where the writing question comes in:
 
What extraordinary things are going through a character’s mind in such an instant that they know, with complete, icy clarity, that they must and will sacrifice their life --- their life! --- for someone else?
 
You know… the realization that This. Is. It. That we’re about to voluntarily take a one-way trip through that old portal to, as Will refers to it, “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” Wow. A deep, metaphysical moment, don’t you think? I mean, dying is a moment we intellectually know we must all come to, but one which, emotionally, we delude ourselves into thinking never will. And the Roth example involves an act of free will in approaching that portal.
 
His action isn’t about sitting down in peace and quiet with a cup of tea and rationally weighing pros and cons for an hour or a day, either. It’s at once. It must be an incredible moment, full of love, loyalty, commitment, pathos, regret, despair, wonder, and about a thousand other emotions, all rolled into one split-second. A moment which simultaneously lasts an eternity and as much time as blowing out a candle. Like I said, a moment I’m sure every last one of us fervently hopes never happens to us… because, well… you know… they say the survival instinct is the paramount imperative built into just about every living organism. To consciously, deliberately decide to override that imperative --- again, within the space of a nanosecond --- man, what an awful decision to have to make. And yet humans do it, all the same. It’s a deeply sentient, sacrificial moment.
 
It’s also a moment of extraordinary clarity I think few of us ever come to… and I’m not sure whether or not that’s a good thing. It is, I think, undoubtedly a great moment for a writer, watching from the Olympian summit of his/her author’s perch/perspective: all the things one could cram into such a moment in time!
 
In reality? Not so much.
 
Extraordinary.

0 Comments

Worldbuilding 101

9/26/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Gazing at a blank canvas/page/screen/stage/potter’s wheel (or any other creative medium, come to that) is something that likely generates one of several possible emotional states --- euphoria or terror being two contrasting ones that immediately come to mind. As a retired teacher and active writer, I’d say I place myself firmly in the former. (A large number of my students were, unfortunately, in the latter, though I did my level best to help them conquer that terror.) But I’ve always thought there’s something magical in building a fresh creative project with something new.
 
Many creatives --- not only writers --- love acts of creation like worldbuilding. Because artists of all stripes of love to create anyway… it’s what we do. And once we’ve created, we want to share the fruits of our labour. Think of Tom Hanks in the film Castaway, having finally succeeded, after being shipwrecked on a deserted island and engaging in hours of backbreaking work, finally igniting a freaking giant bonfire. As he dances around the flames, celebrating his small triumph after having the universe shit all over him, he gestures to the silent stars shining above and shouts “Look what I have created! I… have… made… FIRE!” Yeah. Worldbuilding can be like that. I think acts of creation fill a basic, primal need that so many of us seem to have. In fact, that primal need is one of the few things about humanity giving me hope nowadays: that want to build and create, not just tear down and destroy.
 
There’s a definite art to worldbuilding; it needs to manifest in drips, not a flood. A fire hose of information in the middle of your narrative just turns readers off, so, unless you’re writing appendices that follow the end of your story, and it’s made very clear that they aren’t part of the story per se, limit the details you throw out. They should just appear as part of the landscape or a character’s actions.
 
Setting is part of worldbuilding. To say that setting the "when" and "where" of a story may satisfy a basic definition, but it doesn’t delve into the kind of detail authors can, probably should, and often do go into when plotting stories.  After all, setting isn’t, and shouldn’t be thought of, as a static or non-moving picture.  In the best stories, it’s a richly woven tapestry providing not only background for the plot itself, but can rival the plot in interest and ignite in the reader an intense desire to learn more about the world in which the story takes place.
 
When authors fashion the world in which their stories take place --- and J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion is among the most famous writers ever to do so --- they engage in acts of Creation.  Consider:  to build a world; put landscapes upon it; fill those lands with plants and animals; people those lands; build cultures, cities, and languages --- these are all acts of Creation which can ultimately be hugely rewarding and enjoyable.  I use the word "Creation" with a capital "C" quite deliberately, because, if time and care are taken in generating details like those mentioned above, the parallels between an author's acts of Creation and God's acts of Creation are very real (if not perhaps on the same scale!).
 
The act of creating setting and worlds for stories is a vital one and shouldn’t be dismissed as an afterthought or just a necessary nuisance, a "peg" on which to hang the "coat" of the plot.  While this is true of all literature, one has only to look at some of the great fantasy works to see that this seems especially true for it.  A prime example is The Hobbit, Tolkien's other best-known work taking place in Middle Earth, and which, unlike The Lord of the Rings, was written for children. The "magical" places (not necessarily in the literal sense) of so many fantasy stories really almost require a richness and depth to their settings that many other types of literature don’t strictly need in order to succeed.
 
Worldbuilding doesn’t belong only at the beginning, or the middle, or the end of stories.  Great authors constantly give readers more information about the worlds in which their characters interact.  Such detail isn’t only setting; it’s texture. Stephen King calls it chrome --- the details which take something very ordinary and lacklustre and give it glitter and interest. (And he should know.)
 
So build on, worldbuilders! You’ve nothing to lose, and rich, fulfilling environments to create and savour.

0 Comments

The Jabbertrope

8/29/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
'Twas late in the day, and the desperate writer
   Did squirm and stare at his trusty laptop;
All flimsy and miserable were his thoughts,
   As he struggled to generate something startlingly original
(Not to mention reach his self-imposed word count for the day -
  Dude, what had he been thinking?)
 
"Beware the Jabbertrope, my son
   The clichés that bite, the stereotypes that catch!
Beware the Triteness bird, and shun
   The frumious Banalitysnatch!"
                -with sincere apologies to Lewis Carroll
 
I hear the lament constantly, from writers and non-writers --- yes, Virginia, there really is such a group; in fact, the funny thing is, it actually includes quite a few people who fancy themselves writers but aren’t, based on objective observations concerning the lack of literacy skills on their social media accounts. (Ooh, look: aggressive snark manages to rear its ugly head in my introductory sentence. Aren’t I clever.) The lament? Why, as you should be able to discern from my pathetic parody of Jabberwocky, it concerns tropes and clichés (T&C). So… several thoughts about them in today’s epistle. Written for your entertainment and edification in conversational list form --- just like Rabbit’s Plot to Kidnap Kanga, he added helpfully.
 
First: they’re like cockroaches: widespread and almost impossible to kill, he says, shaking his head despondently. I’ve especially noticed this lately on many Netflix/Crave/Bravo/Amazon Prime/Disney+ shows (and so on… the list seems virtually endless), where my wife and I occasionally make a kind of amusing game out of guessing the next line of dialogue or plot point, then turning to each other triumphantly when (not if) we’re right, exclaiming, “See? I could write for this show!”
 
To be fair, it’s not only TV --- for example, let’s briefly touch on three epically successful modern franchises which should remain nameless (one filmic from the get-go, two originally written before becoming monstrous film sensations which demonstrated annoyingly varying degrees of faithfulness to their source material): young, male, plucky protagonist (PP) who’s nobody’s idea of a hero (Frodo/Luke/Harry), needs to kill cosmically powerful villain (Sauron/Emperor/Voldemort) bent on killing him because of what he is (Ringbearer/Chosen One/Boy Who Lived). PP, surprisingly willing to accept the booby prize AKA quest, is aided along the torturous way by an ancient, crusty male mentor with magical powers (Gandalf/Obi-wan/Dumbledore) who ultimately gets offed --- an event which, strangely, doesn’t seem to possess the ultimate finality one might be forgiven for assuming it would. PP is hindered but eventually saved by a loathsome quasi-villain who actually turns out not to be (Smeagol/Vader/Snape). Also along the way, PP is accompanied by various sidekicks played for either earnest loyalty and smarts (Aragorn/Leia/Hermione) or silly, buffoonish comic-relief potential (Pippin --- in the films, it’s Gimli/C-3PO/Ron).
 
Second: but why are they everywhere? you query plaintively. Well, here’s the thing, boys and girls: tropes and clichés exist because human behaviours are chock FULL of them. We’re essentially walking clichés, folks. Human behaviours are depressingly repetitive and (mostly) depressingly predictable, because we do the same kind of things over and over. And have done for the last… oh, five thousand years or so of recorded history. Give or take. In addition, we rationalize those behaviours. My gosh, do we ever; humans are past masters at the art of rationalization. (Then we pretend we’re not rationalizing. Oy. Oh, the humanity.)
 
Third: however… is this a bad thing? he asks rhetorically, in his best expository teacher-voice. And the answer is… unsurprisingly, no, not necessarily. Those three franchises I just trashed are beloved by millions. (One of the franchises I actually like a lot --- the other two are… okay. No, I’ll let you guess which is my literary daddy. Besides, if you’re a regular here, you should already know.) Another thing about T&C is they appear in all types of story-telling because… they work. They are us. We recognize ourselves and our life situations and stories in them. We have met the enemy, and he is us. Sad, kinda pathetic at times, but true. Yep. Truth often hurts. And it may set you free, as a certain book claimed, but it will frequently piss you off in the process.
 
Fourth: hmm, well, can we avoid them, then, at least a little? you whisper hopefully. Ay, there’s the rub, as Will said. Well, I have an answer, and the good news is I think we can, at least somewhat. It’s a more difficult thing to accomplish in this modern day and age, when the vast majority of us are pretty jaded and world-weary, having read, watched, and heard all kinds of situations in different genres, but… still possible, I think. As a writer, you help to avoid T&C by asking yourself this question and its all-important follow-on:
-what does the reader expect will happen next?
-so, what do we give ‘em instead?
 
Returning momentarily to one of the franchises, for example: how would things have been different if Gandalf had been female? And admittedly, all three make the attempt --- some more successfully than others --- to ask the ‘instead’ question by providing at least one pithy revelation emerging from the situation-that-turns-out-to-be-not-what-we-thought-it-would-be (“I am no man”/ “I am your father”/ “Yer a wizard, Harry”). (Riddles are always good for that, because they’re usually written so as to be ambiguous and capable of various interpretations: “not by the hand of man will he fall.” And who among us wasn’t initially blown away by Vader’s declaration of paternity? Whoa, dude. Granted, they were simpler times. The Harry one… well, not so much.)
 
Have I used this pair ‘o questions in my own writing? Why, yes, constant reader, as a matter of fact, I have. To good success, too, in my humble opinion.  I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, one-size-fits-all solution, panacea, or any number of other hoary old clichés I could employ. I’m not even saying you’ll be successful every time using my magic elixir. After all, as I’ve said, we are walking clichés. But it is something you can do to avoid the dreaded Jabbertrope. At the very least, it will force you to consider other, possibly fresher, avenues to explore… to take the path less travelled by, as Bob said.
 
And that might make all the difference for you, too.

0 Comments
<<Previous

    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

    Copyright 2015-2023
    ​
    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    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