Deborah Wilde's Blog, page 17

Lin-Manuel Miranda: clever bastard and master storyteller

I am a voracious consumer of storytelling. Books by the dozen every month, hours of television too inumerous to keep track of, tons of movies. From This is Us to The Expanse, historical romance to lit fic, Lego Batman to Lion, give me a good story and I’m in. It’s more than being a junkie, I draw inspiration from these other great storytellers. And I can’t tell you the number of times I consume some random story that, on the face of things, has nothing in common with a story problem I’m trying to unravel and yet, it sparks a solution for me.

Lately, however, I have one model that I keep returning to: the soundtrack of Hamilton, both the book and lyrics written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. This might not be a big surprise to anyone who knows me since I’m a life-long musical theatre lover. That said, I had a real resistance to this one, because a rap musical about Alexander Hamilton of all people, failed to get me excited. But then my daughter got obsessed and I was subjected to the first (of many) animated videos set to the score.

Mind. Blown.

From the way in which Miranda details character by the very cadence of their rap, to the incredible amount of exposition and world building he so deftly lays down, to the complex character dynamics and billions of feels that this music evokes, all handled with a sly wit, this is storytelling at its finest. It’s even more impressive given the story is told not through dialogue but through song. It’s as pure a musical as things get.

He takes a story spanning a man’s entire life, sets it against this epic backdrop of the American revolution and birth of a nation, and creates this incredible intimacy around the entire thing. Not just with Hamilton’s character either. We feel Burr’s mounting frustrations, Eliza’s heartache, Angelica’s sacrifice. Miranda is a puppet-master, playing this ensemble cast to milk every emotional connection, every complication, every stake out of their lives and yet always with grace and subtlety, never melodrama.

He is a master and I anticipate endless listenings as I humbly learn at his feet.

All this to say: 1) clever bastard. And 2) life is storytelling and the greatest tales can come from the most surprising of places. So don’t discount any of them. (I’m looking at you, everyone who dismisses romance out of hand.)

Until next time,

Deborah

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Family Feud, Veronica Lodge, and the worse things I could do

I was at my in-laws having dinner and Family Feud was on in the background. The question asked of 100 women was “name a reason a stranger might mistake a woman for a hooker” and surprisingly, “because he’s an asshole” was not an answer.

What got me, though, was how whenever someone took a guess, everyone seemed to nod sagely in a “that’ll do it” kind of way. Not because yeah, they’d faced that judgment themselves, but more like “of course if you wear a short tight skirt you’re a whore.”

After I screamed into a pillow for a while, I started thinking about romance novels. In romance, there is something for everyone, from readers who prefer a chaste kiss at the end to those who prefer their HEAs via a rougher, kinkier, journey. And I love that there is choice and that characters can have as much or as little sex as they want in these books. However, the sad truth is that even as fictional characters, women face a double standard.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to be Veronica Lodge. But I was peer pressured into saying that I wanted to be Betty Cooper. It was understood even at a young age, that it was more acceptable to be the girl who would totally sacrifice herself for love, accept whatever meagre scraps she could get of a guy’s attention (Miss Cheap – well in terms of her own self-respect) than be the girl who used her sexual wiles in an aggressive way (hello, Easy.)

Even then, didn’t sit right with me. What I couldn’t articulate then was that I found the reduction of their respective behaviours to these simplistic (and incredibly judgmental) labels profoundly troubling. For a while, I thought I’d found a neat loophole. I’d profess in our games of “which Archie character would you want to be?” that I wanted to be Sabrina, the teenaged witch. But that attitude just got me sent to the tetherballs  – which was the social equivalent of being exiled to Elba.

I was reminded of this the other day, because I was writing about Grease. One of my all-time favorite musicals, the song I always loved most was not “Hopelessly Devoted To You.” Not the song in which pure Sandy lays her heart bare in her overwhelming love for Danny, who let’s face it, is acting like a giant douche at this point, his own peer pressures notwithstanding. Where she’s willing to and I quote “sit around and wait for you.” Nicely managed, Zuko. *snort*

Nope. It was “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” – the song in which sexually active Rizzo announces that it would be worse to flirt and tease than to just be upfront about her actions. Refuse to hurt someone. Play it tough. I liked its saucy, “sisters are doing it for themselves” vibe, but poor Rizzo was judged and punished for her actions. Pregnancy scare? That’ll learn her.

Men, even fictional ones, aren’t held to those same standards. In the 1950’s Philip Roth wrote Portnoy’s Complaint, a book in which Alexander Portnoy, our main character obsesses over sex and it’s considered one of the literary classics of the 20th century. I really enjoyed that book, yet I’m hard pressed to find the equivalent novel with a female main character that is so celebrated.

I can’t imagine Family Feud asking “name a reason a stranger might mistake a man for a…” – yeah, I can’t even really come up with the comparable term. Nor should they. As for me, I’ll continue to enjoy both writing and reading characters who have exactly as much or as little sex as is right for them. Who, whether sexually active or not, have no shame around it. Who have fun with sex, no matter how far they want to go and whose choices are respected.

And now, let me leave you with an anecdote about the great Tallulah Bankhead.

When Tallulah met Chico Marx. Chico was a famed womanizer and when he saw Tallulah at a party, decided he had to meet her. Groucho tried to impress upon him that she wasn’t like the other girls he usually slept with. Tallulah came from a prominent Alabama family. Her uncle and grandfather were Senators and her dad was a Representative and Speaker of the House. In otherwords “She’s a lady, Chico.” “Yeah, yeah,” Chico replied “I get it.” Again Groucho insisted “Behave yourself. Be a gentleman because she’s a lady, and I stress the word lady.” “I’m a gentleman,” Chico assured him. “Don’t worry about it.”

So Groucho takes Chico over to meet her and Chico immediately says “I want to f**k you.” Without missing a beat, Tallulah replies “And so you shall, you dear, old-fashioned, boy.”

Sex: it may not be clean but that doesn’t mean it’s dirty.

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Cover reveal!

Cover Reveal

Oh, you beauty! This is the cover for book one in my new line of funny, sexy, urban fantasy.

For me, it all started with a playful irreverence. A cheekiness that my main character Nava possesses that I really wanted to capture on the cover. What do you think?

Email me or let me know in the comments section.

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Inspiration for an unlikeable demon hunter

It all started with this photo:

Okay, not exactly but you gotta admit he’s smoldering. This is the super sexy, super talented Arjun Gupta, who I’m loving as Penny on The Magicians. He’s who I kept imagining, except with longer hair and gold eyes, whenever I pictured Rohan.

What do you think?

Nava? Well, she came fully formed to me, doing her walk of shame before half-drunkenly crashing her brother’s induction ceremony. What’s not to love, right? There is the slightest chance that in channeling her I was merely corralling my inner voice, saying the quiet part loud for the entirety of this book. I will say though, that I’ve never had so much fun writing a character.

Ari was born for me pretty much as soon as Nava was, which is fitting since their twins. But the other Rasha in book one were a process of discovery. I found my way to them via magic powers, questionable fashion choices, and my husband’s preferred Italian swear words.

Then there is Vancouver. It was so much fun for me to set an urban fantasy in my city. We have this stadium called Roger’s Arena and at night, lit up, it looks like a metal alien bug, hiding out behind the buildings, ready to raise its mandibles and strike. One day, I’ll manage to get a demon inside there somehow.

So those are some of the things that went into the dark cauldron of my brain while writing this book.