Ulff Lehmann's Blog: Blogging Lot
November 10, 2018
It's been a while... again
Sometimes I just have nothing to say... okay, that ain't true, but I feel in terms of writing there's little I haven't said yet. My "insights" may just work for me...
This week I had a conversation with my publisher regarding themed anthologies. He hates them, I like them. That pretty much sums it up, both of us being settled in our ways, I never expected either of us (him) to change our preference.
Shameless plug for the anthology I also supplied a story to: Blackest Knights, cue Deep Purple.
Such a title promises fallen paragons, the kind of bastard one becomes when one hates sand, because it's coarse and gets everywhere. Skywalkers aside, the title evokes tales of those dudes... my little tale was my take on the subject... fuck chivalry and all the other stuff, in the end knights were killing machines pointed in one direction or the other. But since courtly (not Courtney!!!) love and too many Hollywood movies gave us this paragon of virtue shit, we're stuck with all them heroic types.
If you go into a super market and buy 500 grams of peanuts (for whatever reason, who knows, maybe you're headed for the zoo) and instead you get 250 grams peanuts and 250 grams pistachios, you'd be pissed. So when you buy an anthology and 50% of the entries don't even have a chess game in it (at least there are bloody knights in the game) I expect the same upsetness.
I mean, it's not that every story containing a knight was the same either, and the topic alone is so broad that one could take the knight as protagonist or antagonist or just slightly pissed stumbling out of a pub to be ignored for the rest of the story. When my publisher told me he had written a story for an anthology with Vampire Romance as theme, I understand that such a minuscule leash is detrimental to both creativity and mental stability (cough Twilight), but black knights? I mean one could've written about a chess game for fuck's sake.
Instead I learned that once you're lying on the floor you can still get down on your knees and crawl. (apparently the floor was higher where the person was lying and thus made it possible to then get down on her knees... or is it downer?) I also learned that ice sinks in water, and that humans apparently have no trouble holding their breaths when being immersed in self same water.
Tangent... sorry... where was I?
Knights... or themed anthologies... I like the idea, because it gives me something to hold on to when writing. Otherwise I go off on tangents. Or maybe that's just blog posts, I dunno.
Maybe that may be as it may be, in the end my rather rigid perception of, you know, reality is not wanted... hah... as if I care! And maybe ice really sinks on water... somewhere. Maybe there's light ice and regular ice, like regular and light coke, and then there's ice zero because there's no water in that ice, at all. Lice, Rice, Zice or Nice... makes sense, doesn't it? Light Ice, Regular Ice, Zero Ice, No Ice...
Again I return to my favorite pet peeve, realism in fantasy... gotta find a new record, this one is scratched
This week I had a conversation with my publisher regarding themed anthologies. He hates them, I like them. That pretty much sums it up, both of us being settled in our ways, I never expected either of us (him) to change our preference.
Shameless plug for the anthology I also supplied a story to: Blackest Knights, cue Deep Purple.
Such a title promises fallen paragons, the kind of bastard one becomes when one hates sand, because it's coarse and gets everywhere. Skywalkers aside, the title evokes tales of those dudes... my little tale was my take on the subject... fuck chivalry and all the other stuff, in the end knights were killing machines pointed in one direction or the other. But since courtly (not Courtney!!!) love and too many Hollywood movies gave us this paragon of virtue shit, we're stuck with all them heroic types.
If you go into a super market and buy 500 grams of peanuts (for whatever reason, who knows, maybe you're headed for the zoo) and instead you get 250 grams peanuts and 250 grams pistachios, you'd be pissed. So when you buy an anthology and 50% of the entries don't even have a chess game in it (at least there are bloody knights in the game) I expect the same upsetness.
I mean, it's not that every story containing a knight was the same either, and the topic alone is so broad that one could take the knight as protagonist or antagonist or just slightly pissed stumbling out of a pub to be ignored for the rest of the story. When my publisher told me he had written a story for an anthology with Vampire Romance as theme, I understand that such a minuscule leash is detrimental to both creativity and mental stability (cough Twilight), but black knights? I mean one could've written about a chess game for fuck's sake.
Instead I learned that once you're lying on the floor you can still get down on your knees and crawl. (apparently the floor was higher where the person was lying and thus made it possible to then get down on her knees... or is it downer?) I also learned that ice sinks in water, and that humans apparently have no trouble holding their breaths when being immersed in self same water.
Tangent... sorry... where was I?
Knights... or themed anthologies... I like the idea, because it gives me something to hold on to when writing. Otherwise I go off on tangents. Or maybe that's just blog posts, I dunno.
Maybe that may be as it may be, in the end my rather rigid perception of, you know, reality is not wanted... hah... as if I care! And maybe ice really sinks on water... somewhere. Maybe there's light ice and regular ice, like regular and light coke, and then there's ice zero because there's no water in that ice, at all. Lice, Rice, Zice or Nice... makes sense, doesn't it? Light Ice, Regular Ice, Zero Ice, No Ice...
Again I return to my favorite pet peeve, realism in fantasy... gotta find a new record, this one is scratched
April 5, 2018
A long, long time ago....
Again it's been a while. Sometimes I get so absorbed with my life, I forget this little unknown place that is mine. Few people know it, less people probably read it, but you know what, o one of the three people who do, I really don't give a fuck.
I've never been much of a journal writer. It always seemed useless to me, not because my days were always monotonous and nothing happened, not even a hangnail, but because I remember most stuff. Makes it impossible for pain to ever go away, really, but it is what it is and no matter how much I could piss and moan about it, it won't change a thing. I could drink loads of booze, sure, but that particular delusion of levity has lost its appeal last millennium.
Of late I've been in touch with people from Nigeria and Kenya, writers and people who want to. It's driven home a point that had been nagging me for a long while.
We're arrogant, and ignorant. By we I mean everyone whose nations are robbing Africa blind. Not that a CEO of a multinational company will give a shit about what I have to say. The bastard will probably just go on wanking with his new severance package.
How much do we know of Africa? Me, personally? Not so much. Not that I know that much about Russia or Asia. But Africa, the cradle of homo sapiens, we should know more. Colonies, sure, savannas, the crap you learn on nature shows. But people, countries? This continent has always been treated as something different, somewhere you get diamonds from, or the backdrop of Quartermain or Tarzan stories. And slavery, of course.
What's depressing is that countries like Britain, Belgium, France, owe a lot of their wealth to colonies, and instead of doing something for those countries, you know, like actually lending a helping hand to get shit properly started, they support the same corrupt assholes that pollute our governments. Greed rules, and everyone who stands in the way gets pushed out of the same or run over.
Do European countries owe the so-called third world nations? Yes. Does the USA owe the former slaves and victims of Jim Crow? Yes. The problem is that most countries are run by corrupt bastards who rather give the CEOs a hand-job than to do what is right.
What's just as bad is the loss of cultural identity. Be it in the form of language or history. Oral traditions faded with the jesusification, and since government was run by foreigners, that language was adopted.
Language is a change that happened, close to impossible to really go back now, I think. That realization doesn't make it better, it is what it is. But as the Celtic civilization was basically wiped out at Alesia and Anglesey so were the histories of Africa obliterated. A continent's worth of stories, fables, tales, mythology gone.
I'll never write stories set in Africa or anything resembling African cultures alone, I couldn't. These stories have to be told by African writers, for they at least do know the hearts of their people, and it should be their voices to tell these tales.
The problem with that isn't so much the willingness. Believe me there are a lot of people out there who think they have something to say, like there are here in whitemansland, and like here most of them won't ever be able to, their grandiose ideas actually amounting to nothing. The problem is language. Many speak English, or what passes as English in their country, and while such a dialect is perfectly all right for their every day conversations, it is not all right for writing.
Yes, they write for themselves. But the voices need to be heard, need to be read! And in order to be heard and read the writing must not be what us ignorant whites "expect" from Africans. It must be better than the average Englishman's or American's, it has to shine! Yes, the stories are from authors written for them and their people, but that is not enough! That can never be enough! In this world where we grow closer together every day, being misunderstood or dismissed because of language is tragic.
African writers, whether you write in English or French, or whatever else language, please I beg you, learn the proper usage, show us ignorant whites that you are great!
I've never been much of a journal writer. It always seemed useless to me, not because my days were always monotonous and nothing happened, not even a hangnail, but because I remember most stuff. Makes it impossible for pain to ever go away, really, but it is what it is and no matter how much I could piss and moan about it, it won't change a thing. I could drink loads of booze, sure, but that particular delusion of levity has lost its appeal last millennium.
Of late I've been in touch with people from Nigeria and Kenya, writers and people who want to. It's driven home a point that had been nagging me for a long while.
We're arrogant, and ignorant. By we I mean everyone whose nations are robbing Africa blind. Not that a CEO of a multinational company will give a shit about what I have to say. The bastard will probably just go on wanking with his new severance package.
How much do we know of Africa? Me, personally? Not so much. Not that I know that much about Russia or Asia. But Africa, the cradle of homo sapiens, we should know more. Colonies, sure, savannas, the crap you learn on nature shows. But people, countries? This continent has always been treated as something different, somewhere you get diamonds from, or the backdrop of Quartermain or Tarzan stories. And slavery, of course.
What's depressing is that countries like Britain, Belgium, France, owe a lot of their wealth to colonies, and instead of doing something for those countries, you know, like actually lending a helping hand to get shit properly started, they support the same corrupt assholes that pollute our governments. Greed rules, and everyone who stands in the way gets pushed out of the same or run over.
Do European countries owe the so-called third world nations? Yes. Does the USA owe the former slaves and victims of Jim Crow? Yes. The problem is that most countries are run by corrupt bastards who rather give the CEOs a hand-job than to do what is right.
What's just as bad is the loss of cultural identity. Be it in the form of language or history. Oral traditions faded with the jesusification, and since government was run by foreigners, that language was adopted.
Language is a change that happened, close to impossible to really go back now, I think. That realization doesn't make it better, it is what it is. But as the Celtic civilization was basically wiped out at Alesia and Anglesey so were the histories of Africa obliterated. A continent's worth of stories, fables, tales, mythology gone.
I'll never write stories set in Africa or anything resembling African cultures alone, I couldn't. These stories have to be told by African writers, for they at least do know the hearts of their people, and it should be their voices to tell these tales.
The problem with that isn't so much the willingness. Believe me there are a lot of people out there who think they have something to say, like there are here in whitemansland, and like here most of them won't ever be able to, their grandiose ideas actually amounting to nothing. The problem is language. Many speak English, or what passes as English in their country, and while such a dialect is perfectly all right for their every day conversations, it is not all right for writing.
Yes, they write for themselves. But the voices need to be heard, need to be read! And in order to be heard and read the writing must not be what us ignorant whites "expect" from Africans. It must be better than the average Englishman's or American's, it has to shine! Yes, the stories are from authors written for them and their people, but that is not enough! That can never be enough! In this world where we grow closer together every day, being misunderstood or dismissed because of language is tragic.
African writers, whether you write in English or French, or whatever else language, please I beg you, learn the proper usage, show us ignorant whites that you are great!
January 18, 2018
Putting my money where my mouth is
In a way this is a continuation of the last post put in this blogging lot.
I can be an asshole, I know. I'm honest, some might say harsh, with prose. If I don't like something I say so, sometimes in reviews, other times I talk to the writer.
As much as I have harped on about continuity, my current re-reading of Shattered Dreams is dumping my own words on my doorstep. Which is good. In the years since writing the book, I've learned a lot about my craft, some of it expressed in my ramblings here, some as guest blogger elsewhere. And some just in conversations with other authors.
Dreams is old, a pastiche of what I wrote when I started out writing in English, just a few bits and pieces, and then the newer stuff I wrote during therapy. I was still figuring out the world, whether fictional or not, and still stumbling more than walking. My mind was a jumble of thoughts most of the time, and my fingers sometimes were unable to keep up.
That people love the story despite errors in prose and continuity speaks for for the strength of the material, a fact that makes me smile each and every day.
But I can't tell people "You need to change this and that" "This doesn't make sense" "There is no logic in this" and then ignore the same with my own work, especially when it's older.
Dreams has been "finished" for 7 years now, it was published, overall well-received by those who have read it, and now it's in the pipeline with Crossroad Press. As I said before, after the final edit I never picked it up again. I had to keep the achievement of me actually finishing something, anything "alive" so to speak. Writing it was part of my therapy, but now, with so many years separating me from the book, it's much easier to take pencil to prose and fix what needs fixing.
Some reviews pointed out the flaws, and I concur, and I hope I am fixing all the stuff that survived.
While writing Hopes, a lot of things changed, my attitude towards my world changed. Before, I freely admit, parts were influenced by Dragonlance, and while my stepping away from Krynn was completed in Hopes, I hope, Dreams never got the same treatment. I'm still debating some of my decisions but I feel more confident about the majority.
Again I say: there are no major changes! The plot remains the same (the song too). Most is cosmetic, and some is to course-correct if you will, and has more to do with the history of the land and its legends.
Nobody who has already read the book needs to buy the new version of Shattered Dreams, folks can continue with Shattered Hopes once it's out.
I can be an asshole, I know. I'm honest, some might say harsh, with prose. If I don't like something I say so, sometimes in reviews, other times I talk to the writer.
As much as I have harped on about continuity, my current re-reading of Shattered Dreams is dumping my own words on my doorstep. Which is good. In the years since writing the book, I've learned a lot about my craft, some of it expressed in my ramblings here, some as guest blogger elsewhere. And some just in conversations with other authors.
Dreams is old, a pastiche of what I wrote when I started out writing in English, just a few bits and pieces, and then the newer stuff I wrote during therapy. I was still figuring out the world, whether fictional or not, and still stumbling more than walking. My mind was a jumble of thoughts most of the time, and my fingers sometimes were unable to keep up.
That people love the story despite errors in prose and continuity speaks for for the strength of the material, a fact that makes me smile each and every day.
But I can't tell people "You need to change this and that" "This doesn't make sense" "There is no logic in this" and then ignore the same with my own work, especially when it's older.
Dreams has been "finished" for 7 years now, it was published, overall well-received by those who have read it, and now it's in the pipeline with Crossroad Press. As I said before, after the final edit I never picked it up again. I had to keep the achievement of me actually finishing something, anything "alive" so to speak. Writing it was part of my therapy, but now, with so many years separating me from the book, it's much easier to take pencil to prose and fix what needs fixing.
Some reviews pointed out the flaws, and I concur, and I hope I am fixing all the stuff that survived.
While writing Hopes, a lot of things changed, my attitude towards my world changed. Before, I freely admit, parts were influenced by Dragonlance, and while my stepping away from Krynn was completed in Hopes, I hope, Dreams never got the same treatment. I'm still debating some of my decisions but I feel more confident about the majority.
Again I say: there are no major changes! The plot remains the same (the song too). Most is cosmetic, and some is to course-correct if you will, and has more to do with the history of the land and its legends.
Nobody who has already read the book needs to buy the new version of Shattered Dreams, folks can continue with Shattered Hopes once it's out.
January 11, 2018
It's been a while
This particular title was easy, considering that it was almost a year ago since I last vomited my thoughts on the page.
Why has it been so long, you ask. Shit kept piling up, I've been living with antidepressants for over a decade now, had some surgery in October of 2016, and afterwards started desensitization for my allergies. On top of that I woke up with most of my long hair in my mouth, and finally got told that I suffer from major gaps in my breathing when asleep. A visit to a sleep clinic diagnosed 90 breaks per hour, needless to say shit needed changing. I got one of those sleep apnea masks/air flow thingies, and began to lose weight. The effort was increased when I learned a dear friend had died... presumably of too much weight and that coupled with apnea... you get the picture.
Now, with the mask breathing is much better, and thus sleep as well. I exercise, eat conscientiously, and count the notches on my belt go in reverse... I also read again, something that I could barely do during my sleep deprived months.
Those who follow me on facebook page already know that I have signed a publishing contract with Crossroad Press.
I'm currently reviewing Shattered Dreams, modifying and correcting stuff in order to bring it more in line with my vision.
Dreams was my first book, and it shows. In fact, the story has existed for decades. There even is a totally different version hidden on another hard drive. But when I began writing what would become Shattered Dreams in earnest, I had already been in behavior therapy for several months. Writing, and finishing, the novel was as much a creative as well as a self-healing process.
I had to prove to myself that I am no failure, that I can finish something I started without being consumed by uncertainty which basically was crippling me.
The first draft was done within 3 months. What followed was the typical process of waiting, reading, correcting and all that. In the end it was a total of 6 months, I think that I worked on the novel. Maybe more, it's been a while. And then I was done, it was done, and part of the program was for me to actually be able to let go of it... to declare it as finished and let it rest. The only other time I looked at it again was when my editor Kathy went over the changes/questions with me. Other than that I was finished.
It was symbolic, had to be symbolic, and I do apologize for the mistakes that still ambushed the prose. I know I should have read a proof, should have fixed what needed fixing, other than the obvious BadDobby I made in the initial run. (I was so engrossed in Shattered Bonds at the time Dreams was released that instead of writing "To be continued in Shattered Hopes" I wrote "Tbc in Shattered Bonds." Bad Dobby indeed. I maintained, that in order to not tarnish the accomplishment, this milestone in my therapy, I wouldn't touch Dreams.
I've maintained that long enough.
I'm currently reading Dreams for the first time in 5 years or more. Reading it with a pencil, tightening, tugging, cutting, replacing. Does this mean the story will change? Nope. There will not be any major alterations, it will be details. Think literary face lift. I learned a lot since finishing Dreams, and fleshed out my world. Think the subtle changes in the original Star Wars movies; nothing spectacular, just some terms brought up to snuff if you will.
This isn't your usual rant or piece of wisdom, but an update... it was needed.
Why has it been so long, you ask. Shit kept piling up, I've been living with antidepressants for over a decade now, had some surgery in October of 2016, and afterwards started desensitization for my allergies. On top of that I woke up with most of my long hair in my mouth, and finally got told that I suffer from major gaps in my breathing when asleep. A visit to a sleep clinic diagnosed 90 breaks per hour, needless to say shit needed changing. I got one of those sleep apnea masks/air flow thingies, and began to lose weight. The effort was increased when I learned a dear friend had died... presumably of too much weight and that coupled with apnea... you get the picture.
Now, with the mask breathing is much better, and thus sleep as well. I exercise, eat conscientiously, and count the notches on my belt go in reverse... I also read again, something that I could barely do during my sleep deprived months.
Those who follow me on facebook page already know that I have signed a publishing contract with Crossroad Press.
I'm currently reviewing Shattered Dreams, modifying and correcting stuff in order to bring it more in line with my vision.
Dreams was my first book, and it shows. In fact, the story has existed for decades. There even is a totally different version hidden on another hard drive. But when I began writing what would become Shattered Dreams in earnest, I had already been in behavior therapy for several months. Writing, and finishing, the novel was as much a creative as well as a self-healing process.
I had to prove to myself that I am no failure, that I can finish something I started without being consumed by uncertainty which basically was crippling me.
The first draft was done within 3 months. What followed was the typical process of waiting, reading, correcting and all that. In the end it was a total of 6 months, I think that I worked on the novel. Maybe more, it's been a while. And then I was done, it was done, and part of the program was for me to actually be able to let go of it... to declare it as finished and let it rest. The only other time I looked at it again was when my editor Kathy went over the changes/questions with me. Other than that I was finished.
It was symbolic, had to be symbolic, and I do apologize for the mistakes that still ambushed the prose. I know I should have read a proof, should have fixed what needed fixing, other than the obvious BadDobby I made in the initial run. (I was so engrossed in Shattered Bonds at the time Dreams was released that instead of writing "To be continued in Shattered Hopes" I wrote "Tbc in Shattered Bonds." Bad Dobby indeed. I maintained, that in order to not tarnish the accomplishment, this milestone in my therapy, I wouldn't touch Dreams.
I've maintained that long enough.
I'm currently reading Dreams for the first time in 5 years or more. Reading it with a pencil, tightening, tugging, cutting, replacing. Does this mean the story will change? Nope. There will not be any major alterations, it will be details. Think literary face lift. I learned a lot since finishing Dreams, and fleshed out my world. Think the subtle changes in the original Star Wars movies; nothing spectacular, just some terms brought up to snuff if you will.
This isn't your usual rant or piece of wisdom, but an update... it was needed.
February 24, 2017
insert witty title #2
Most of the time I have a vague idea regarding the subject matter my meandering thoughts home in on. This is not one of those times.
I find myself returning to the same shit that I've already discussed. Be it the merits of classics (no fucking Twilight ain't a classic and hopefully will disappear in the ginormous ocean that is useless prose) or logic (another horse I now have quite whacked to death with my trusty keyboard hammering)... I also shan't return to analyzing movies again... but... wait... wait... the spark of an idea:
No, I won't do movies, but it is an issue that concerns movies first and foremost: regurgitating ideas. I mean every story has been told, and all us wordsmiths do nowadays is find new ways to tell the same old shit. Be it the typical boy meets girl (When Harry met Sally) or boy follows a convoluted plot to meet girl (insert any current romcom) or the always reliable boy saves the world before he gets the girl... the actors might vary, but in the end it is about one or two people finding true love (or themselves) in front of a backdrop that can be anything.
Sadly there are far too few stories dealing with non-white people. Not that we cannot replace a white protagonist with a black one, byebye Robert Pattinson, hello John Boyega. Western civilization is arrogant, and since Othello we haven't found much use for those non-white characters.
Not that I am innocent of that particular misdeed. I write fantasy, and while Nazir in Robin of Sherwood was a brilliant idea and a fascinating character, the majority of the genre deals with medieval European things... we got them knights, them lords, fucking pseudo feudal systems that only were relevant for one area: Europe. Thanks Tolkien! To make matters worse, in the fantasy classics the colored folk were usually the bad guys. I mean the Haradrim in Lord of the Rings were explicitly in league with Sauron... no black folk fighting for the White City *cough cough*
So far I haven't introduced people of color into my novels, not that they don't exist, but since most of Shattered Dreams and Shattered Hopes and Shattered Bonds takes place in an area slightly larger than North Rhine Westphalia and things are not very cosmopolitan, the opportunity never came. Does this mean the world is solely white? No and yes, but that is a matter of how I created the world, so to speak... I went into a bit more detail in my guest blog entry Through Thinking -- Things so I won't do that anymore here. (I repeat myself enough as it is) Suffice to say that the color is something that is added due to circumstances... and no, I will not ever go near that white savior shit.
The problematic I pointed out during my various internal logic ramblings, however, remains. And it does not change, were I to switch from white to any other colored creator deities: the majority of the world population, if not all, will have the skin color of the creating pantheon... so it's always gonna be a rather lopsided issue.
If you have one creator pantheon, the assumption that all of them are of the same skin tone, is only logical, and I believe it's insulting to just toss in an Asian, African, Hispanic looking god just to explain that variety... it's like whitewashing only the other way around. If you create a world based on ancient Egypt, people everywhere will be Egyptian, walking, talking like... you get the picture (repeating myself again, it's late)
Is it racist to narrow it down to just one skin color? To say yes, would imply that any myth from any culture is also racist. Norse mythology is about as racist as Japanese mythology, or Greek, It is not. I'd go as far as to say that skin color is basically interchangeable, so what if Rapunzel has black hair instead of blonde locks... the story remains the same. Changing just part of the assemble's skin color, however, would be racist. In some cases the change would be an interesting one, supporting or subverting racially based viewpoints: imagine Cinderella's step-sisters and step-mother being white while Cinderella is black. The girl's mistreatment would feel amplified, the tale suddenly not only a metaphor for honesty triumphing over deceit, but also the racism inherent to many white folk (let the step-family speak in a southern drawl and the twist would be perfect) in certain areas. Let the prince be black as well, in this scenario, would amplify the double standard many racists have... it's okay to be nice to the colored folk as long as you gain something from it... if you look at how certain orange would-be politicians run the segregation, with people from countries with which he does business still being allowed to travel into the USA, you get what I'm talking about.
In essence, however, if skin tone is the same for every character, one can interchange any mythological story. The Iliad could as well be portrayed by Asian people, or African people, as long as it is consistent, it doesn't matter.
I've read about racism in fantasy, I've written about it here... if the world is structured logically, there will be no racism. Not because people are enlightened enough to see that one's skin color does not matter when it comes to character, but because the people will all be from the same stock. I've constructed my world as a mythological one, and as such the entire cast could be changed with barely a problem.
Even if you had a mixture of cultures and religions similar to Earth, the problem would be negligible, PROVIDED EVERY CULTURE HAS A PANTHEON OF GODS AND NO MONOTHEISM. Did he just capitalize something??? Why yes, I did. And it, again, has to do with logic. If a people think themselves the chosen of their one god, who incidentally created everything else as well, everyone who does not believe in this deity is automatically seen as inferior. Perceived superiority, no matter how delusional and fact-free, leads to racism. If you have a pantheon of gods, each one has their job and is part of the machine, allowing for outsiders to be integrated as well, be it gods or people. Monotheism (one god faith) does not allow for outside religious views, there is either right (that particular religion) or wrong (the rest); people who are selected/chosen by that deity and the outsiders. Superiority is almost automatic, and with that comes, eventually, racism.
This wasn't planned as a theological essay, I know far too little to make these things stick. These are merely my perceptions and interpretations of the matter, brought into a fantasy aspect. (Though I do think I am correct.)
Let's see what happens in "insert witty title #3"
I find myself returning to the same shit that I've already discussed. Be it the merits of classics (no fucking Twilight ain't a classic and hopefully will disappear in the ginormous ocean that is useless prose) or logic (another horse I now have quite whacked to death with my trusty keyboard hammering)... I also shan't return to analyzing movies again... but... wait... wait... the spark of an idea:
No, I won't do movies, but it is an issue that concerns movies first and foremost: regurgitating ideas. I mean every story has been told, and all us wordsmiths do nowadays is find new ways to tell the same old shit. Be it the typical boy meets girl (When Harry met Sally) or boy follows a convoluted plot to meet girl (insert any current romcom) or the always reliable boy saves the world before he gets the girl... the actors might vary, but in the end it is about one or two people finding true love (or themselves) in front of a backdrop that can be anything.
Sadly there are far too few stories dealing with non-white people. Not that we cannot replace a white protagonist with a black one, byebye Robert Pattinson, hello John Boyega. Western civilization is arrogant, and since Othello we haven't found much use for those non-white characters.
Not that I am innocent of that particular misdeed. I write fantasy, and while Nazir in Robin of Sherwood was a brilliant idea and a fascinating character, the majority of the genre deals with medieval European things... we got them knights, them lords, fucking pseudo feudal systems that only were relevant for one area: Europe. Thanks Tolkien! To make matters worse, in the fantasy classics the colored folk were usually the bad guys. I mean the Haradrim in Lord of the Rings were explicitly in league with Sauron... no black folk fighting for the White City *cough cough*
So far I haven't introduced people of color into my novels, not that they don't exist, but since most of Shattered Dreams and Shattered Hopes and Shattered Bonds takes place in an area slightly larger than North Rhine Westphalia and things are not very cosmopolitan, the opportunity never came. Does this mean the world is solely white? No and yes, but that is a matter of how I created the world, so to speak... I went into a bit more detail in my guest blog entry Through Thinking -- Things so I won't do that anymore here. (I repeat myself enough as it is) Suffice to say that the color is something that is added due to circumstances... and no, I will not ever go near that white savior shit.
The problematic I pointed out during my various internal logic ramblings, however, remains. And it does not change, were I to switch from white to any other colored creator deities: the majority of the world population, if not all, will have the skin color of the creating pantheon... so it's always gonna be a rather lopsided issue.
If you have one creator pantheon, the assumption that all of them are of the same skin tone, is only logical, and I believe it's insulting to just toss in an Asian, African, Hispanic looking god just to explain that variety... it's like whitewashing only the other way around. If you create a world based on ancient Egypt, people everywhere will be Egyptian, walking, talking like... you get the picture (repeating myself again, it's late)
Is it racist to narrow it down to just one skin color? To say yes, would imply that any myth from any culture is also racist. Norse mythology is about as racist as Japanese mythology, or Greek, It is not. I'd go as far as to say that skin color is basically interchangeable, so what if Rapunzel has black hair instead of blonde locks... the story remains the same. Changing just part of the assemble's skin color, however, would be racist. In some cases the change would be an interesting one, supporting or subverting racially based viewpoints: imagine Cinderella's step-sisters and step-mother being white while Cinderella is black. The girl's mistreatment would feel amplified, the tale suddenly not only a metaphor for honesty triumphing over deceit, but also the racism inherent to many white folk (let the step-family speak in a southern drawl and the twist would be perfect) in certain areas. Let the prince be black as well, in this scenario, would amplify the double standard many racists have... it's okay to be nice to the colored folk as long as you gain something from it... if you look at how certain orange would-be politicians run the segregation, with people from countries with which he does business still being allowed to travel into the USA, you get what I'm talking about.
In essence, however, if skin tone is the same for every character, one can interchange any mythological story. The Iliad could as well be portrayed by Asian people, or African people, as long as it is consistent, it doesn't matter.
I've read about racism in fantasy, I've written about it here... if the world is structured logically, there will be no racism. Not because people are enlightened enough to see that one's skin color does not matter when it comes to character, but because the people will all be from the same stock. I've constructed my world as a mythological one, and as such the entire cast could be changed with barely a problem.
Even if you had a mixture of cultures and religions similar to Earth, the problem would be negligible, PROVIDED EVERY CULTURE HAS A PANTHEON OF GODS AND NO MONOTHEISM. Did he just capitalize something??? Why yes, I did. And it, again, has to do with logic. If a people think themselves the chosen of their one god, who incidentally created everything else as well, everyone who does not believe in this deity is automatically seen as inferior. Perceived superiority, no matter how delusional and fact-free, leads to racism. If you have a pantheon of gods, each one has their job and is part of the machine, allowing for outsiders to be integrated as well, be it gods or people. Monotheism (one god faith) does not allow for outside religious views, there is either right (that particular religion) or wrong (the rest); people who are selected/chosen by that deity and the outsiders. Superiority is almost automatic, and with that comes, eventually, racism.
This wasn't planned as a theological essay, I know far too little to make these things stick. These are merely my perceptions and interpretations of the matter, brought into a fantasy aspect. (Though I do think I am correct.)
Let's see what happens in "insert witty title #3"
February 11, 2017
Man of Steel or finding something new...
in a beaten to death story.
This is my opinion, no review, no recommendation...
Loads of people dislike what Zak Snyder did with the Superman myth, I'm not one of them, and that is for a simple reason. Realism: huge fan of it. Huge fan.
So how do we get realism into a story about a godlike alien? Well, pretty much the way the movie showed us. If two quasi gods brawl it out in a city like Metropolis, shit's gonna fall, people will die, and even if one wants to prevent casualties as much as possible, he cannot account for every pane of glass, every skyscraper, especially if his opponent doesn't give a fuck. Set up a couple of ant farms and then ask someone over to wrestle with you, chances are you're gonna step on and break some of these farms, and kill a bunch of ants.
But wait, we are people not ants, some might complain. To Zod we are, and that is the crux of the matter... if we want someone in a building, we send in a SWAT team in order to minimize casualties. Bad press such casualties, makes you look like a moron if you don't prepare for stuff. Unless you're a sociopath or an alien sociopath, but to be fair to Zod, he is doing his predestined, genetically bred job to the best of his ability, and humans really are no better to him than ants, so if he needs to tear down a skyscraper just to get to the one person he wants to kill, well, the opponent is hiding behind ants, who cares if they die!
In the end Supes needs to kill Zod because the bastard not only threatens one family, no he basically promises that he will not stop. There is no doubt in him, he has a mission, one mission, and how do you deal with someone like that, a fanatic who will not listen to reason? Well, you kill him... not with glee, and Supes regrets it as he is snapping the asshole's neck, but he still does it, because it is the only way.
But Superman does not kill, some people are shouting. And they are right, it is one of the defining traits of the Comic book Code! Erm... the character (and every other sodding superhero!) So, we have 70 years of Super stories, how many explain the reason for his code against killing. Everything is there for a reason... and with the numerous retcons the character has been through, the reason has to have changed as well... or? Google for the code against killing, and then try to find a reason for that code, I'll wait...
Stupid elevator music... done? No... shit
It's the final countdown... da... da... done? Good.
Found much, have ya? No? Neither did I. So, according to the bit I read before the comic code authority, Supes threatened injury and may have injured a bunch of people. Then, to avoid seducing the innocent, the Kryptonian developed this code which is pretty much in sync with the comic book code of the day.
That was then, this is now. Me, as a storyteller, I want a fucking reason for him not killing anyone. And lo and behold, that reason is his killing of Zod. Unlike other people, Supes never belonged, and then there is this whole gang of people from his home world-- he sends them into exile until only one is left, Zod. And while the movie doesn't show it, we can assume that lil Clarkie has always imagined what stuff would be like on his home world, and that he would love to have a friend who knows what it's like... instead he gets Zod, a single minded leader of killers... err soldiers, who are all pretty much superior to humans. He does not want to kill Zod, he tries to reason with him, he wants Zod to live, and the bastard tells him he won't stop... ever. So he kills the dick, and hates himself for it, thus developing this code against killing.
Voila, suddenly it makes sense... suddenly realism kicks in... I would've done something pretty similar, because, let's face it, Superman not killing his opponents is pretty fucking stupid, from a realistic point of view. We have a god here, and while some of the folks he catches are just morons who wanna steal shit, he also faces some nasty motherfuckers.
From a realistic point of view: why does he not kill Lex Luthor? Seriously, why doesn't he? OK, not the first time around, but after good ole Lex has threatened the Daily Planet nursery for the 10th time, and has killed a bunch of people just to get to Supes, a little kick and the sucker would kiss atmosphere good bye. Why does he not? If you say "because he has a code against killing" you have missed the point. He like Batman and virtually any superhero stands outside the law, vigilantism isn't something any agency really embraces, so his not-killing must have a reason.
Actions and their consequences, in any story those are key. Showing, not telling is part of it as well, and as such showing the reason why Superman does not kill is superior to merely telling it.
I might look at BvS at some point, I don't know, for now, I believe I have made it clear, once again, what a sucker I am for logic and reasons of behavior.
This is my opinion, no review, no recommendation...
Loads of people dislike what Zak Snyder did with the Superman myth, I'm not one of them, and that is for a simple reason. Realism: huge fan of it. Huge fan.
So how do we get realism into a story about a godlike alien? Well, pretty much the way the movie showed us. If two quasi gods brawl it out in a city like Metropolis, shit's gonna fall, people will die, and even if one wants to prevent casualties as much as possible, he cannot account for every pane of glass, every skyscraper, especially if his opponent doesn't give a fuck. Set up a couple of ant farms and then ask someone over to wrestle with you, chances are you're gonna step on and break some of these farms, and kill a bunch of ants.
But wait, we are people not ants, some might complain. To Zod we are, and that is the crux of the matter... if we want someone in a building, we send in a SWAT team in order to minimize casualties. Bad press such casualties, makes you look like a moron if you don't prepare for stuff. Unless you're a sociopath or an alien sociopath, but to be fair to Zod, he is doing his predestined, genetically bred job to the best of his ability, and humans really are no better to him than ants, so if he needs to tear down a skyscraper just to get to the one person he wants to kill, well, the opponent is hiding behind ants, who cares if they die!
In the end Supes needs to kill Zod because the bastard not only threatens one family, no he basically promises that he will not stop. There is no doubt in him, he has a mission, one mission, and how do you deal with someone like that, a fanatic who will not listen to reason? Well, you kill him... not with glee, and Supes regrets it as he is snapping the asshole's neck, but he still does it, because it is the only way.
But Superman does not kill, some people are shouting. And they are right, it is one of the defining traits of the Comic book Code! Erm... the character (and every other sodding superhero!) So, we have 70 years of Super stories, how many explain the reason for his code against killing. Everything is there for a reason... and with the numerous retcons the character has been through, the reason has to have changed as well... or? Google for the code against killing, and then try to find a reason for that code, I'll wait...
Stupid elevator music... done? No... shit
It's the final countdown... da... da... done? Good.
Found much, have ya? No? Neither did I. So, according to the bit I read before the comic code authority, Supes threatened injury and may have injured a bunch of people. Then, to avoid seducing the innocent, the Kryptonian developed this code which is pretty much in sync with the comic book code of the day.
That was then, this is now. Me, as a storyteller, I want a fucking reason for him not killing anyone. And lo and behold, that reason is his killing of Zod. Unlike other people, Supes never belonged, and then there is this whole gang of people from his home world-- he sends them into exile until only one is left, Zod. And while the movie doesn't show it, we can assume that lil Clarkie has always imagined what stuff would be like on his home world, and that he would love to have a friend who knows what it's like... instead he gets Zod, a single minded leader of killers... err soldiers, who are all pretty much superior to humans. He does not want to kill Zod, he tries to reason with him, he wants Zod to live, and the bastard tells him he won't stop... ever. So he kills the dick, and hates himself for it, thus developing this code against killing.
Voila, suddenly it makes sense... suddenly realism kicks in... I would've done something pretty similar, because, let's face it, Superman not killing his opponents is pretty fucking stupid, from a realistic point of view. We have a god here, and while some of the folks he catches are just morons who wanna steal shit, he also faces some nasty motherfuckers.
From a realistic point of view: why does he not kill Lex Luthor? Seriously, why doesn't he? OK, not the first time around, but after good ole Lex has threatened the Daily Planet nursery for the 10th time, and has killed a bunch of people just to get to Supes, a little kick and the sucker would kiss atmosphere good bye. Why does he not? If you say "because he has a code against killing" you have missed the point. He like Batman and virtually any superhero stands outside the law, vigilantism isn't something any agency really embraces, so his not-killing must have a reason.
Actions and their consequences, in any story those are key. Showing, not telling is part of it as well, and as such showing the reason why Superman does not kill is superior to merely telling it.
I might look at BvS at some point, I don't know, for now, I believe I have made it clear, once again, what a sucker I am for logic and reasons of behavior.
December 31, 2016
Objectifying women...
or stop being stuck in your puritanical shit ways!
I admit, sometimes I do take shit too seriously... right now a meme containing abysmal prose, obviously written by a man from a woman's perspective... she marvels at her nipples, that sort of shit.
Having been raised by a feminist mother, there are very few ways that can make me go into a angry rage this easily.
Objectifying women is, in my opinion, a symptom of our christianized, patriarchal society. In the middle ages, women were there to breed heirs and be adored on their pedestal, provided they were noble; common women were there to breed offspring and do a lot of shitty work in and around the house without the added adoration on a pedestal.
Granted it is a simplified interpretation, and women in antiquity were not much better off.
Or were they?
For starters there were a bunch of female deities, some pretty much equal to the greatest gods around. Zeus could do a lot of pompously stupid things outside his home, but once he hung the ole lightning bolts on the wall above the fireplace, Hera was his boss. Women ran the household, and while there certainly were exceptions, a man would not run about with muddy shoes in his home, at least not more than once.
Come christianity and all this is fucked up because of a bunch of old dudes deciding what is right and proper, come to think of it, they still do... in certain pre-enlightened societies here, now.
This will not be a rant concerning religion, but a lot of our preconceptions are tied to in which region we were raised. Whether its the courtly bard professing his love to the lady of the court via poetry or the rapper asking a woman to shake her ass... style has changed, certainly, but in the end either song is directed at the woman on the pedestal. In movies, more often than not, we see women being the damsels in distress, barely able to hold their own in rush hour London. In essence it's another case of courtly love, the pedestal, and the idiot crooning his heroics, only done by ILM.
We see hinted sex-scenes, from which, after presumably a night of boinking, the man pushes the covers away to stand up already wearing his boxers, and the woman stands up, already wearing her bra and panties and yet still clinging to the sheet to cover her already covered lady parts, her hair is perfect, her make up too, as if sex was something that is effort and motionless. Once again we glean the courtly vision of love, from afar and not too direct.
Why not direct? Sure, it's cool to say one wants to caress her quivering lips, leaving everything else up to the mind of the listener and how far to the ... lips they are ready to go. But the reason why we have such an unnatural relationship with our bodies in the first place is religion. I don't need to point out whatever passages in the bible or that in Victorian England table cloth was used to prevent men from seeing naked legs (why men would get aroused by seeing a stiff wooden appendage in the first place is beyond me, but okay). People do strange shit because of religion.
Even now we read that some practitioners of faith view women as unclean due to the original sin, Eve eating an apple and all that nonsense. (I shan't apologize for making fun of this crap... for it is shit, and anyone clinging to this thing as truth, ask yourself this, if Adam and Eve were the first humans, and Eve was basically a transsexual clone of Adam, and they only had two sons... how the fuck did they people the Earth without us all looking like Deliverance rejects?!)
So, women bad, but sadly man can't do without them, procreation without female involvement is either gay sex or masturbation, stuff religions also have a problem with, unless it's with children. So we worship women, put them on pedestals, like Mary the virgin... women were worshiped from afar, rarely being treated as human much less equal. Sure, there are exceptions, but that we have to point out these exceptions at all, that women are still treated as dolls we can modify with photoshop or word to fit our male ideals, that is the abomination and far too few people, far too few men actually point it out.
Centuries of patriarchal indoctrination, paired with lusting from afar, paired with dream images of the perfect woman, without ever fucking asking women what they want, is what has created a society of men incapable of handling female nudity without getting excited and a society of women that gets trampled on because of the shit some goat fuckers invented millennia ago!
If you write people, write people dammit! Stop jerking off to the titties of your imagined characters, stop worshiping from afar, and treat your female characters with the same respect you treat your male characters with!
I'd be remiss to not point out the covers of romance novels and shit like Twilight which do the reverse, putting males on pedestals because women need strong protectors... fuck this shit. Women, and men, need partners, equals. In literature and in life!
Religion has fucked us up, nudity is seen as wicked, and women are seen as objects... and while one could argue to reflect that, in historical fiction that actually is the case, it should have nothing to do with fantasy and science fiction. If you get giddy just thinking about two people having sex, give yourself a helping hand, then wash up and write without this infantile stupidity religion has beat into you.
Oh, and look at yourself, naked, get used to it, otherwise you'll be lending a hand to yourself more often than not!
I admit, sometimes I do take shit too seriously... right now a meme containing abysmal prose, obviously written by a man from a woman's perspective... she marvels at her nipples, that sort of shit.
Having been raised by a feminist mother, there are very few ways that can make me go into a angry rage this easily.
Objectifying women is, in my opinion, a symptom of our christianized, patriarchal society. In the middle ages, women were there to breed heirs and be adored on their pedestal, provided they were noble; common women were there to breed offspring and do a lot of shitty work in and around the house without the added adoration on a pedestal.
Granted it is a simplified interpretation, and women in antiquity were not much better off.
Or were they?
For starters there were a bunch of female deities, some pretty much equal to the greatest gods around. Zeus could do a lot of pompously stupid things outside his home, but once he hung the ole lightning bolts on the wall above the fireplace, Hera was his boss. Women ran the household, and while there certainly were exceptions, a man would not run about with muddy shoes in his home, at least not more than once.
Come christianity and all this is fucked up because of a bunch of old dudes deciding what is right and proper, come to think of it, they still do... in certain pre-enlightened societies here, now.
This will not be a rant concerning religion, but a lot of our preconceptions are tied to in which region we were raised. Whether its the courtly bard professing his love to the lady of the court via poetry or the rapper asking a woman to shake her ass... style has changed, certainly, but in the end either song is directed at the woman on the pedestal. In movies, more often than not, we see women being the damsels in distress, barely able to hold their own in rush hour London. In essence it's another case of courtly love, the pedestal, and the idiot crooning his heroics, only done by ILM.
We see hinted sex-scenes, from which, after presumably a night of boinking, the man pushes the covers away to stand up already wearing his boxers, and the woman stands up, already wearing her bra and panties and yet still clinging to the sheet to cover her already covered lady parts, her hair is perfect, her make up too, as if sex was something that is effort and motionless. Once again we glean the courtly vision of love, from afar and not too direct.
Why not direct? Sure, it's cool to say one wants to caress her quivering lips, leaving everything else up to the mind of the listener and how far to the ... lips they are ready to go. But the reason why we have such an unnatural relationship with our bodies in the first place is religion. I don't need to point out whatever passages in the bible or that in Victorian England table cloth was used to prevent men from seeing naked legs (why men would get aroused by seeing a stiff wooden appendage in the first place is beyond me, but okay). People do strange shit because of religion.
Even now we read that some practitioners of faith view women as unclean due to the original sin, Eve eating an apple and all that nonsense. (I shan't apologize for making fun of this crap... for it is shit, and anyone clinging to this thing as truth, ask yourself this, if Adam and Eve were the first humans, and Eve was basically a transsexual clone of Adam, and they only had two sons... how the fuck did they people the Earth without us all looking like Deliverance rejects?!)
So, women bad, but sadly man can't do without them, procreation without female involvement is either gay sex or masturbation, stuff religions also have a problem with, unless it's with children. So we worship women, put them on pedestals, like Mary the virgin... women were worshiped from afar, rarely being treated as human much less equal. Sure, there are exceptions, but that we have to point out these exceptions at all, that women are still treated as dolls we can modify with photoshop or word to fit our male ideals, that is the abomination and far too few people, far too few men actually point it out.
Centuries of patriarchal indoctrination, paired with lusting from afar, paired with dream images of the perfect woman, without ever fucking asking women what they want, is what has created a society of men incapable of handling female nudity without getting excited and a society of women that gets trampled on because of the shit some goat fuckers invented millennia ago!
If you write people, write people dammit! Stop jerking off to the titties of your imagined characters, stop worshiping from afar, and treat your female characters with the same respect you treat your male characters with!
I'd be remiss to not point out the covers of romance novels and shit like Twilight which do the reverse, putting males on pedestals because women need strong protectors... fuck this shit. Women, and men, need partners, equals. In literature and in life!
Religion has fucked us up, nudity is seen as wicked, and women are seen as objects... and while one could argue to reflect that, in historical fiction that actually is the case, it should have nothing to do with fantasy and science fiction. If you get giddy just thinking about two people having sex, give yourself a helping hand, then wash up and write without this infantile stupidity religion has beat into you.
Oh, and look at yourself, naked, get used to it, otherwise you'll be lending a hand to yourself more often than not!
December 17, 2016
To read and what to read
that is the question...
Writing, like any art form, really, is influenced by what kind of art, or genre, we read/listen/spend time with. If you write music and you listen to Death Metal, chances are your final product will be one of hammering rhythms. If you spend hours without end poring over Picasso's work, chances are your own paintings will look like Picasso knock offs. If you read run of the mill fantasy, chances are you will write your tales in a similar style. And don't call reading DragonLance or Forgotten Realms research either. Research is reading texts on specific matters like sword fighting, how people lived in which social class in a given era and whatnot, it has nothing to do with women sporting chain bikinis flinging themselves at dragons.
I've read my share of DragonLance and Forgotten Realms novels, and roleplaying supplements... and when the first version of what is now Shattered Dreams was finished it pretty much read like one of those novels as well. Lots of heroic battles, magic spells being hurled by wise mages and that sort of stuff.
I was drawing Picasso because that's all I surrounded myself with.
An acquaintance then suggested that I should not read the genre I was writing in, and while I was too cocky to pay heed, in the end it was what made things better, for the book and my style as well.
I've heard people say, okay, I've read people say that they read fantasy to know what their audience wants/expects. Pretty highbrow speech for "I wanna produce the next Harry Potter" and were Harry P readers in a constant state of being young teenagers, it might work, but even the dumbest kid will eventually realize you're fucking with them, cashing in on the wish-fulfillment fantasies and not really offering them anything new.
Sure you can be successful by copying the greats, but the eternal question bugging the fuck out of me has been and will always be this: what makes me happy? Sure, I write to be read, but my primary audience is me.
No, this is not narcissism, I'm only the center of my universe, not yours, but in the end, what makes one happy is the knowledge that one has produced something that makes them happy. Be it the crayon drawings we made in kindergarten or a poem we had to write in 3rd grade. Are they masterpieces? Probably not, but at the time they were, for us, and that's all that counted.
Now, decades after kindergarten and elementary school, our interests and tastes have, hopefully, changed. At times even what we enjoyed a few years ago, no annoys the fuck out of us. For instance, take the abomination that, for our adult eyes, was Episode I The Phantom Menace. Yes, yes, I know, the film sucked balls, but ask kids for whom this film was the first encounter with Star Wars. They'll tell you they love it, and that feeling will persist until a few years later they might have read or seen a story with a decent beginning, middle and end, believable characters and motivations. That moment comes to us all, and when that moment is there what we loved and would have killed for in the past is just as much part of our past as the crayon drawings which have been taken off the refrigerator door a few years ago, or the poem that lost its appeal around the time you discovered novels... who knows, fact is we all grow into other tastes.
If you're stuck with one thing too long, your works will look/feel like it too, and instead of writing your own thing, your stories are slightly elevated fan fiction. If you do not step out of your comfort zone, you will not grow as a writer.
I used to read only heroic fantasy and Star Wars... then I began reading everything else. And I discovered a whole world of suspense and disturbing humans that make Sauron or Takhisis look like altar kids. It also gave me an appreciation of pace, and while "relentless" now seems to be my MO, I know there are other paces... all that you miss out on, if you just stick withing the boundaries of your comfort zone.
Writing, like any art form, really, is influenced by what kind of art, or genre, we read/listen/spend time with. If you write music and you listen to Death Metal, chances are your final product will be one of hammering rhythms. If you spend hours without end poring over Picasso's work, chances are your own paintings will look like Picasso knock offs. If you read run of the mill fantasy, chances are you will write your tales in a similar style. And don't call reading DragonLance or Forgotten Realms research either. Research is reading texts on specific matters like sword fighting, how people lived in which social class in a given era and whatnot, it has nothing to do with women sporting chain bikinis flinging themselves at dragons.
I've read my share of DragonLance and Forgotten Realms novels, and roleplaying supplements... and when the first version of what is now Shattered Dreams was finished it pretty much read like one of those novels as well. Lots of heroic battles, magic spells being hurled by wise mages and that sort of stuff.
I was drawing Picasso because that's all I surrounded myself with.
An acquaintance then suggested that I should not read the genre I was writing in, and while I was too cocky to pay heed, in the end it was what made things better, for the book and my style as well.
I've heard people say, okay, I've read people say that they read fantasy to know what their audience wants/expects. Pretty highbrow speech for "I wanna produce the next Harry Potter" and were Harry P readers in a constant state of being young teenagers, it might work, but even the dumbest kid will eventually realize you're fucking with them, cashing in on the wish-fulfillment fantasies and not really offering them anything new.
Sure you can be successful by copying the greats, but the eternal question bugging the fuck out of me has been and will always be this: what makes me happy? Sure, I write to be read, but my primary audience is me.
No, this is not narcissism, I'm only the center of my universe, not yours, but in the end, what makes one happy is the knowledge that one has produced something that makes them happy. Be it the crayon drawings we made in kindergarten or a poem we had to write in 3rd grade. Are they masterpieces? Probably not, but at the time they were, for us, and that's all that counted.
Now, decades after kindergarten and elementary school, our interests and tastes have, hopefully, changed. At times even what we enjoyed a few years ago, no annoys the fuck out of us. For instance, take the abomination that, for our adult eyes, was Episode I The Phantom Menace. Yes, yes, I know, the film sucked balls, but ask kids for whom this film was the first encounter with Star Wars. They'll tell you they love it, and that feeling will persist until a few years later they might have read or seen a story with a decent beginning, middle and end, believable characters and motivations. That moment comes to us all, and when that moment is there what we loved and would have killed for in the past is just as much part of our past as the crayon drawings which have been taken off the refrigerator door a few years ago, or the poem that lost its appeal around the time you discovered novels... who knows, fact is we all grow into other tastes.
If you're stuck with one thing too long, your works will look/feel like it too, and instead of writing your own thing, your stories are slightly elevated fan fiction. If you do not step out of your comfort zone, you will not grow as a writer.
I used to read only heroic fantasy and Star Wars... then I began reading everything else. And I discovered a whole world of suspense and disturbing humans that make Sauron or Takhisis look like altar kids. It also gave me an appreciation of pace, and while "relentless" now seems to be my MO, I know there are other paces... all that you miss out on, if you just stick withing the boundaries of your comfort zone.
December 15, 2016
Details, Devils, and why the fuck did the author put that in there
or Creating a homogeneous world part Deux
There are a lot of things fantasy fans can be thankful for in D&D, one thing nobody in their right mind should, however, is the plethora of weapons lists.
Let me explain: it's nice bit of knowledge that there are so many different tools to disembowel a human being. But knowledge of the Arms & Equipment Guide does not a weapons expert make. Most people ignore a simple yet important fact: history. The simplest way to explain this is this: nobody in the Middle Ages knew what a broadsword was, or a long sword, or a short sword. These terms were created later, the normal man at arms of the time had a sword, it might have been broader, or longer, or even shorter, but too short and it was called knife.
But but but, blubber, there are the different sword kinds on the weapons tables, some might blubber. If you're still using those D&D tables, go design adventures, but please stop writing novels, readers might be more astute and pick up on the rogue tulwar popping up in an otherwise medieval Europe setting, or a kukri making its way through the mail armor of a bad guy... if you do this because it's cool, sure go with it, but any applied archaeology student and medievalist will tell you that these weapons are in context utterly useless.
You see, weapons are designed with one purpose in mind: to overcome a specific kind of armor. Armor in turn is designed to counter as many kinds of attacks as possible. The evolution is weapon > armor > weapon > armor etc. A tulwar is akin to a cavalry saber, used from horseback as a slashing weapon against basically unarmored enemies. A kukri is a machete with some weapons properties for all intents and purposes, meant to wound unarmored opponents. Both weapons are as effective against medieval steel armor (be it plate or chain, supported by leather or cloth) as a wet fart. They are slashing weapons, and a knight's armor was designed to withstand a hell of a lot of slashes.
But why are they featured in the D&D weapons lists? Waaaaah! I cannot speak for newer versions of the game, I stopped at Pathfinder, what I do know, however, is that in certain books these lists also contained the flint-stone-studded clubs used by archaic cultures, or the swords used by Incas and whatnot... these lists also came with an index showing which weapons were used in which technological era. Sure that would put the tulwar right into medieval times, and one could now say my hero uses a tulwar, and with a d6 damage the tulwar deals out about as much hurt as a short sword(remember, the term was not used in the Middle Ages). Stands to reason that a tulwar wielder could kill someone in chainmail, after all, the bugger does d6 damage.
And this is where I interrupt this nonsense and repeat: DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON D&D MANUALS!!!
Seriously, you'd have a better chance at authenticity when using a flight simulator on your computer to describe aerial combat!
But medieval... tulwar... sword... waaa!
There there little moron, calm down.
I already answered why the tulwar was not used in medieval Europe, armor. And while soldiers in India also wore armor to work, it was not...? Right! You in the back! It was not made of metal! Why? Yes, you. Correct! It was too fucking hot, so foot soldiers and most riders wore primarily cloth and leather armor, so as to not become a happy meal for tigers. That is why tulwars were used there, because they were designed to work against such armor.
But the weapons list...
*le sigh* You again? Think of those weapons lists as crotches, insecure people need to stuff them so that it appears to be more while basically remaining the meager selection it should have been.
Namely: Sword, Greatsword, Dagger/knife, Ax, Spear, maybe Flail and Hammer, that's it, which, of course means, an ideally geared man at arms had his chainmail, his shield, his sword, and his dagger. Doesn't scream variety here, does it?
And why should it? Weapons and armor were designed for one thing only, the former to kill and the latter to prevent being killed. In medieval Europe the sword was the ideal close combat weapon, only an idiot would have voluntarily chosen a different weapon.
So how could a person stand out from all the other warriors if not with their weapon? Mementos from battles, as in a necklace of teeth maybe, or I dunno preserved heads dangling from his saddle... there are options, but anyone choosing, to use more modern equivalents, a single shot rifle instead of a full auto one might look brave for a moment, the moment before the spray of bullets hits the dirt before him.
If your aim is to just tell a story, without even a hint of realism, why not add laser guns to the mix? After all, it's just a story, right?
Me, personally, I prefer some realism, chopped off hands and all the nice stuff that makes war such a terrible thing.
There are a lot of things fantasy fans can be thankful for in D&D, one thing nobody in their right mind should, however, is the plethora of weapons lists.
Let me explain: it's nice bit of knowledge that there are so many different tools to disembowel a human being. But knowledge of the Arms & Equipment Guide does not a weapons expert make. Most people ignore a simple yet important fact: history. The simplest way to explain this is this: nobody in the Middle Ages knew what a broadsword was, or a long sword, or a short sword. These terms were created later, the normal man at arms of the time had a sword, it might have been broader, or longer, or even shorter, but too short and it was called knife.
But but but, blubber, there are the different sword kinds on the weapons tables, some might blubber. If you're still using those D&D tables, go design adventures, but please stop writing novels, readers might be more astute and pick up on the rogue tulwar popping up in an otherwise medieval Europe setting, or a kukri making its way through the mail armor of a bad guy... if you do this because it's cool, sure go with it, but any applied archaeology student and medievalist will tell you that these weapons are in context utterly useless.
You see, weapons are designed with one purpose in mind: to overcome a specific kind of armor. Armor in turn is designed to counter as many kinds of attacks as possible. The evolution is weapon > armor > weapon > armor etc. A tulwar is akin to a cavalry saber, used from horseback as a slashing weapon against basically unarmored enemies. A kukri is a machete with some weapons properties for all intents and purposes, meant to wound unarmored opponents. Both weapons are as effective against medieval steel armor (be it plate or chain, supported by leather or cloth) as a wet fart. They are slashing weapons, and a knight's armor was designed to withstand a hell of a lot of slashes.
But why are they featured in the D&D weapons lists? Waaaaah! I cannot speak for newer versions of the game, I stopped at Pathfinder, what I do know, however, is that in certain books these lists also contained the flint-stone-studded clubs used by archaic cultures, or the swords used by Incas and whatnot... these lists also came with an index showing which weapons were used in which technological era. Sure that would put the tulwar right into medieval times, and one could now say my hero uses a tulwar, and with a d6 damage the tulwar deals out about as much hurt as a short sword(remember, the term was not used in the Middle Ages). Stands to reason that a tulwar wielder could kill someone in chainmail, after all, the bugger does d6 damage.
And this is where I interrupt this nonsense and repeat: DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON D&D MANUALS!!!
Seriously, you'd have a better chance at authenticity when using a flight simulator on your computer to describe aerial combat!
But medieval... tulwar... sword... waaa!
There there little moron, calm down.
I already answered why the tulwar was not used in medieval Europe, armor. And while soldiers in India also wore armor to work, it was not...? Right! You in the back! It was not made of metal! Why? Yes, you. Correct! It was too fucking hot, so foot soldiers and most riders wore primarily cloth and leather armor, so as to not become a happy meal for tigers. That is why tulwars were used there, because they were designed to work against such armor.
But the weapons list...
*le sigh* You again? Think of those weapons lists as crotches, insecure people need to stuff them so that it appears to be more while basically remaining the meager selection it should have been.
Namely: Sword, Greatsword, Dagger/knife, Ax, Spear, maybe Flail and Hammer, that's it, which, of course means, an ideally geared man at arms had his chainmail, his shield, his sword, and his dagger. Doesn't scream variety here, does it?
And why should it? Weapons and armor were designed for one thing only, the former to kill and the latter to prevent being killed. In medieval Europe the sword was the ideal close combat weapon, only an idiot would have voluntarily chosen a different weapon.
So how could a person stand out from all the other warriors if not with their weapon? Mementos from battles, as in a necklace of teeth maybe, or I dunno preserved heads dangling from his saddle... there are options, but anyone choosing, to use more modern equivalents, a single shot rifle instead of a full auto one might look brave for a moment, the moment before the spray of bullets hits the dirt before him.
If your aim is to just tell a story, without even a hint of realism, why not add laser guns to the mix? After all, it's just a story, right?
Me, personally, I prefer some realism, chopped off hands and all the nice stuff that makes war such a terrible thing.
November 30, 2016
Something smart
at least I hope it will be. Truth be told, whenever I start one if these sodding things I wonder if anything intelligible will come out in the end.
Today was a day I once more felt the belittling touch of my father's affection. I've never even felt adequate when around him... no wait, that's not entirely true, when me and my comrades in oars won the state championship in rowing, I was, if only for a moment, the shining jewel in his fatherly crown. When I stopped rowing, so stopped his attention. And stupid me, I have been trying to get it back every single day until halfway through my therapy.
I wrote lyrics and sang in two bands, in the last band I also helped with the arrangements; I co-authored a book on role-playing games, nothing I am particularly proud of, but still; now I'm readying to publish my second novel... other parents would be supportive of their son's creativity, would have encouraged their kid to be whatever he wanted to be... sadly, my father is one of those people who does not know how to read a book, trusts only the sad little newspaper he reads, and has never even tried to leave the confines of his narrow mind.
A lot of the times, I can wipe it aside, the kindly meant words that hurt to my core... he tries, I tell myself, he tries to be a father, which is more than he did when you were young. I know he can't change, a failed marriage and an intellect forged by his parents, both his parents were hardcore Nazis, make of it what you will, bear witness to the person I tried so hard to see me for who I was instead of the brainless jock he wanted me to be.
I must thank my father for a lot of things tho, he and my mother sent me to the US as exchange student, which basically started my love for the English language. Without my father's disinterest in me, I might have never found my love for books and music.
Emotionally, my protagonist and I are almost at the same level, mainly living in our heads, trying to understand why people like us when we at times have trouble liking ourselves.
Being smart is a bitch, being "gifted" is worse. Being 30something years old and having your mother, a teacher, tell you about a seminar she had just taken part in which dealt with recognizing "gifted" children at an early age, running a mental checklist, checking off every single symptom she lists, is so far away from happiness a neologism is sorely needed.
We all have our demons, the shit we carry with us, writers, readers, non-readers, smart, normal, stupid, we all have them, and us writers, we need them for without the pain that nags us every single fucking day, we would be unable to imbue the same into our characters. We write about people, give them our traits, positive and negative, and while I would like to believe our positive traits are prevalent, it is the pain, our pain that makes these characters accessible for others.
A perfect character, a Superman, is boring. If each character we write were the best, conversationalist, archer, sword fighter, rider, pilot, driver, academician, shit would get boring fast. Give me hurt, jealous, miserable, afraid, lonely... is it nice to live with these things? Fuck no! But each of these make our characters more accessible, because everyone of us has experienced one or the other. And while lovesick might be appealing in a romance novel, we fucking hate this part of ourselves, so please don't, just don't.
Today was a day I once more felt the belittling touch of my father's affection. I've never even felt adequate when around him... no wait, that's not entirely true, when me and my comrades in oars won the state championship in rowing, I was, if only for a moment, the shining jewel in his fatherly crown. When I stopped rowing, so stopped his attention. And stupid me, I have been trying to get it back every single day until halfway through my therapy.
I wrote lyrics and sang in two bands, in the last band I also helped with the arrangements; I co-authored a book on role-playing games, nothing I am particularly proud of, but still; now I'm readying to publish my second novel... other parents would be supportive of their son's creativity, would have encouraged their kid to be whatever he wanted to be... sadly, my father is one of those people who does not know how to read a book, trusts only the sad little newspaper he reads, and has never even tried to leave the confines of his narrow mind.
A lot of the times, I can wipe it aside, the kindly meant words that hurt to my core... he tries, I tell myself, he tries to be a father, which is more than he did when you were young. I know he can't change, a failed marriage and an intellect forged by his parents, both his parents were hardcore Nazis, make of it what you will, bear witness to the person I tried so hard to see me for who I was instead of the brainless jock he wanted me to be.
I must thank my father for a lot of things tho, he and my mother sent me to the US as exchange student, which basically started my love for the English language. Without my father's disinterest in me, I might have never found my love for books and music.
Emotionally, my protagonist and I are almost at the same level, mainly living in our heads, trying to understand why people like us when we at times have trouble liking ourselves.
Being smart is a bitch, being "gifted" is worse. Being 30something years old and having your mother, a teacher, tell you about a seminar she had just taken part in which dealt with recognizing "gifted" children at an early age, running a mental checklist, checking off every single symptom she lists, is so far away from happiness a neologism is sorely needed.
We all have our demons, the shit we carry with us, writers, readers, non-readers, smart, normal, stupid, we all have them, and us writers, we need them for without the pain that nags us every single fucking day, we would be unable to imbue the same into our characters. We write about people, give them our traits, positive and negative, and while I would like to believe our positive traits are prevalent, it is the pain, our pain that makes these characters accessible for others.
A perfect character, a Superman, is boring. If each character we write were the best, conversationalist, archer, sword fighter, rider, pilot, driver, academician, shit would get boring fast. Give me hurt, jealous, miserable, afraid, lonely... is it nice to live with these things? Fuck no! But each of these make our characters more accessible, because everyone of us has experienced one or the other. And while lovesick might be appealing in a romance novel, we fucking hate this part of ourselves, so please don't, just don't.
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