Amanda Frederickson's Blog: Musings, page 4
October 31, 2013
Sometimes the Magic Works
It's funny how October 31st is still one of my favorite days of the year, but not for entirely the same reasons. The costume and candy anticipation has turned to character and plot anticipation. Don't get me wrong, costumes and candy are still the highlights of Halloween, but on the stroke of midnight, like a reverse Cinderella's carriage, All Hallows Eve becomes Day One of National Novel Writing Month.
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
October 26, 2013
Bird By Bird
Here's what's happening. I've been participating in National Novel Writing Month for nine years now and since it's a non-profit organization I try to donate toward their operating costs when I can (they also run awesome things like the Young Writers' Program for kids and teens). Circumstances being what they are this year, I'm even poorer than usual and I'm not going to be able to make my usual donation.
So I'm going to see if I can kill several birds with one month.
Smashwords.com is going to be running a promotion for NaNoWriMo. Anyone who signs up will be able to "publish" their book as a work in progress as they write. Ordinarily I'd be running from this idea, screaming. Especially when it comes to self publishing, everything put out for the public consumption needs to be the best that it can be.
On the other hand, a freshly published author's worst enemy is obscurity. Marketing and book pitches aren't exactly my strong suit either; it's part of why I chose to self publish Keystone.
So, I decided to go for it and "publish" this year's Nano project as a sort of open beta read. It's going to be a "reader sets the price" option so if someone wants to contribute toward my Nano donation goal of $25 they can, otherwise they can read it for free. As a bonus for enduring the book's rough state, everyone who opts in for this experimental project will get the final, published work for the absolute bargain price of whatever they chose to pay for it.
However, being a work in progress, the Nano project may or may not contain things like this: [King Needsaname] [Dang, it's hard to type while eating][Why did I think this was a good idea?] [He needs to DIE]. Consider them bloopers. Behind the scenes commentary. The product of too much caffeine and sugar without adequate sleep. It happens a lot during NaNoWriMo.
I'd love for this to be an interactive experience, so readers can tell me what they'd like to see (or not see) as the book progresses, so to that end I'm going to be starting a Facebook author page, which I think is a little more easily accessible than Goodreads. Also I can post when there's a fresh updates without cluttering up this blog. I also have some cool bonus materials planned (Thanks Katrina Shelley for some great ideas!).
I'm really getting excited about this one, but I'm getting crazy nervous too. I've been getting perfectionistic in my old age, so the prospect of exposing my work before it's finished is very daunting. That's another bird I'm hoping to kill: the stark terror of showing my work to those outside my familiar circles.
Let's go bird hunting.
Coming next: project details and why this might be my best NaNoWriMo ever!
So I'm going to see if I can kill several birds with one month.
Smashwords.com is going to be running a promotion for NaNoWriMo. Anyone who signs up will be able to "publish" their book as a work in progress as they write. Ordinarily I'd be running from this idea, screaming. Especially when it comes to self publishing, everything put out for the public consumption needs to be the best that it can be.
On the other hand, a freshly published author's worst enemy is obscurity. Marketing and book pitches aren't exactly my strong suit either; it's part of why I chose to self publish Keystone.
So, I decided to go for it and "publish" this year's Nano project as a sort of open beta read. It's going to be a "reader sets the price" option so if someone wants to contribute toward my Nano donation goal of $25 they can, otherwise they can read it for free. As a bonus for enduring the book's rough state, everyone who opts in for this experimental project will get the final, published work for the absolute bargain price of whatever they chose to pay for it.
However, being a work in progress, the Nano project may or may not contain things like this: [King Needsaname] [Dang, it's hard to type while eating][Why did I think this was a good idea?] [He needs to DIE]. Consider them bloopers. Behind the scenes commentary. The product of too much caffeine and sugar without adequate sleep. It happens a lot during NaNoWriMo.
I'd love for this to be an interactive experience, so readers can tell me what they'd like to see (or not see) as the book progresses, so to that end I'm going to be starting a Facebook author page, which I think is a little more easily accessible than Goodreads. Also I can post when there's a fresh updates without cluttering up this blog. I also have some cool bonus materials planned (Thanks Katrina Shelley for some great ideas!).
I'm really getting excited about this one, but I'm getting crazy nervous too. I've been getting perfectionistic in my old age, so the prospect of exposing my work before it's finished is very daunting. That's another bird I'm hoping to kill: the stark terror of showing my work to those outside my familiar circles.
Let's go bird hunting.
Coming next: project details and why this might be my best NaNoWriMo ever!
October 16, 2013
'Tis the Season...
...For Nanowrimo.
The official November National Novel Writing Month is sneaking up and I have been pondering possibilities. Possibilities are being pondered. Questions are being posed. Projects are being questioned.
Moreover, there is a freshly minted stack of library books that is taller than my bed. My arms were not happy but my reading bug is gleeful.
Research is happening.
Don't worry, Kingstone hasn't been forgotten. But I might be doing something a little different for Nanowrimo 2013.
Stay tuned....
The official November National Novel Writing Month is sneaking up and I have been pondering possibilities. Possibilities are being pondered. Questions are being posed. Projects are being questioned.
Moreover, there is a freshly minted stack of library books that is taller than my bed. My arms were not happy but my reading bug is gleeful.
Research is happening.
Don't worry, Kingstone hasn't been forgotten. But I might be doing something a little different for Nanowrimo 2013.
Stay tuned....
October 10, 2013
To the Library!
FINALLY, after a three year wait, the new building for our local library had its grand opening on Saturday! Of course I was among the crowd eagerly funneling in the moment the ribbon was cut (after all, I was literally the last patron to check out books at the old building).
The new building is awesome! Not only is it bigger than the old building, but it uses the space more efficiently. The sections are arranged in a ring around a spiral staircase, which has a dome skylight that pours sunlight down the middle of the building. The non-fiction was moved up to occupy the third floor, giving everything way more expansion room. The books have space to breathe!
Most importantly: THE BOOKS HAVE BEEN MOVED OUT OF STORAGE! *Happy dance.*
I planned to check out some books straight off the bat (break in the new building, right?) but the new circulation area wasn’t really made for a huge crowd all coming in at once, so the lines were incredibly long and the whole space was almost elbow room only.
No problem, I thought. I’ll come back in a few days. Best part about this beautiful new book paradise? It’s in 20-minute walking distance.
So, last night I got my returns together, happily planning my angle of attack to check out all the new shelves. What do I hear first thing waking up this morning? Rain.
Well, maybe it will lighten up and I can walk over in the afternoon.
It’s now raining even harder.
NOOOOOOOO!
Library plans foiled. :(
The new building is awesome! Not only is it bigger than the old building, but it uses the space more efficiently. The sections are arranged in a ring around a spiral staircase, which has a dome skylight that pours sunlight down the middle of the building. The non-fiction was moved up to occupy the third floor, giving everything way more expansion room. The books have space to breathe!
Most importantly: THE BOOKS HAVE BEEN MOVED OUT OF STORAGE! *Happy dance.*
I planned to check out some books straight off the bat (break in the new building, right?) but the new circulation area wasn’t really made for a huge crowd all coming in at once, so the lines were incredibly long and the whole space was almost elbow room only.
No problem, I thought. I’ll come back in a few days. Best part about this beautiful new book paradise? It’s in 20-minute walking distance.
So, last night I got my returns together, happily planning my angle of attack to check out all the new shelves. What do I hear first thing waking up this morning? Rain.
Well, maybe it will lighten up and I can walk over in the afternoon.
It’s now raining even harder.
NOOOOOOOO!
Library plans foiled. :(
October 4, 2013
Apples and Onions
I’ve just released my third short story ebook, and I’ve always thought it was cool when authors tell a little bit about the background behind their stories, so here’s a little bit about this latest tale: Apples and Onions.
It’s a fairy tale retelling (also among my long-time favorite things) of a story that’s a bit off the beaten path: The Lindorm King, or King Lindorm. A Lindorm is a type of dragon, which no one seems to be able to agree on a description for besides being long and thin. I stumbled across the fairy tale in school the year my science fair project was classifying types of dragons. Yes, my teacher let me get away with it.
Being a lover of fairy tales and especially thrilled because this one was new to me, I wanted to write my own version and even typed a few lines, but it didn’t go anywhere. The file sat untouched in my “fiction” folder through several computer transfers. Then, last year in the middle of revising Keystone, I flipped a page in my notebook and started scribbling Apples and Onions. It was one of those few, fantastic times when the story poured itself onto the page in its entirety in only two sittings. I scrapped the old lines entirely (poor things).
Then, recently I was going through notebooks hunting for Kingstone snippets (somehow almost anything I’m working on ends up spread out through tons of notebooks as I lose track of them or don’t have them when I want them) and came across it again. Obviously it needed a little cleaning up, but as a whole I was very pleased with how it came out, especially the dragon himself.
Now it's polished up and published with a pretty new cover image. ^_^
You can currently find the story in these places:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FN677HU
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
My own Etsy shop:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/16475184...
It should also be available through other retailers soon.
It’s a fairy tale retelling (also among my long-time favorite things) of a story that’s a bit off the beaten path: The Lindorm King, or King Lindorm. A Lindorm is a type of dragon, which no one seems to be able to agree on a description for besides being long and thin. I stumbled across the fairy tale in school the year my science fair project was classifying types of dragons. Yes, my teacher let me get away with it.
Being a lover of fairy tales and especially thrilled because this one was new to me, I wanted to write my own version and even typed a few lines, but it didn’t go anywhere. The file sat untouched in my “fiction” folder through several computer transfers. Then, last year in the middle of revising Keystone, I flipped a page in my notebook and started scribbling Apples and Onions. It was one of those few, fantastic times when the story poured itself onto the page in its entirety in only two sittings. I scrapped the old lines entirely (poor things).
Then, recently I was going through notebooks hunting for Kingstone snippets (somehow almost anything I’m working on ends up spread out through tons of notebooks as I lose track of them or don’t have them when I want them) and came across it again. Obviously it needed a little cleaning up, but as a whole I was very pleased with how it came out, especially the dragon himself.
Now it's polished up and published with a pretty new cover image. ^_^
You can currently find the story in these places:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FN677HU
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
My own Etsy shop:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/16475184...
It should also be available through other retailers soon.
September 28, 2013
Death
Ta-da! Here it is, the post you’ve been waiting for. (Right? You’ve been anticipating this one, right?) Gratuitous death!
Don’t do it!
We all know the trick of seeing the villain kill off some hapless minion just to prove how evil he is. It’s a quick and dirty sort of “Hey, I’m dangerous.” Effective? Only if you manage to put a new spin on it. Then there’s the typical horror film. Most people know that if someone goes wandering off to investigate [fill in the blank], they’re dead. Death is what redshirts are for, right?
Death is a powerful tool in an author’s arsenal. It can also backfire powerfully.
I’ll use an example from one of my college manuscripts. In this particular story, there was a Scotland/England-esque conflict of a conquered kingdom trying to regain its freedom. I decided to build sympathy for the conquered kingdom’s cause by starting with a massacre at a wedding. I proudly handed my shining new manuscript with its lovely Nanowrimo winner’s certificate (it was my first, actually) to my readers at the time. Imagine my dismay when they told me that my terrible tragedy had the opposite effect from what I was hoping. Starting off by killing everyone made them less inclined to get attached to the real main cast, and later, the much more significant death (er, deaths *cough*) were overshadowed and made less effective. Eeek! I revised the opening to take the massacre “off screen,” leaving it as a much removed event until it had personal impact on the heroes later on. This allowed my hapless readers to become ensnared before I killed off the characters who were actually significant. Nee-chan might never forgive me.
When executing (heh) a death, an author has to keep the audience in mind.
If the genre is horror, the audience is going to expect some death, and will probably accept thinner reasons (wrong place, wrong time, too stupid to live). In mysteries, it’s elementary. Sci-fi, fantasy, thriller genres, the audience might not necessarily expect death, but know that it happens. If you’ve got a serious string of deaths going on in a romance, there better be a really darn good reason, or you might need to re-think the genre.
The thing is, no matter how absorbed your audience is, there’s a tiny portion back there that knows all the events in front of their eyes are/were controlled by a writer. They know that theoretically it was in your power to save their favorite character. (Thus the joke: George R.R. Martin, Joss Whedon, and Stephen Moffat walk into a bar and everyone you’ve ever loved dies. They can probably include J.K. Rowling too.)
Here’s how to keep an audience from (completely) hating you: make it inevitable. If there is simply no escaping this death, it’s the villain getting cursed (or whatever the cause of death was), not the author. (Mostly.) If there’s wiggle room, if it’s contrived, if there’s too much leaning on coincidence or timing, if it’s just for the sake of killing off that cutesy character that you loved at first but now they just have to die, the audience will call you on it.
(This is one of the reasons I love Jack. I can kill him as often as I want to and he’s up and about within pages.)
Here’s a rule of thumb: the more significant the character, the more significant the death. Redshirts and Soldier A, B and C can just get eaten by a dragon without much fanfare. If someone the audience has come to know and love dies, give it the weight it deserves.
Take a moment to consider the character death that reduced you to tears and left you devastated and inconsolable. Everyone has at least one, so just admit it. Consider the details of the scene.
Now consider this: Often the most powerful part of a death isn’t the death itself, it is the impact on the other characters.
Kirk and Spock, anyone? In either direction, it’s a heart-wrenching death.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Gandalf?
“Fly, you fools!” he cried, and was gone.
“Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that he himself was weeping as he ran. Doom, doom, doom the drum-beats rolled behind, mournful now and slow; doom! ... Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.”
Empathy is a beautiful thing. Humans are wired to respond to the emotions we see in other humans. (If this wiring is broken, we get lovely people called psychopaths.) If the other characters don’t care or the reaction is rushed, there’s less impact on the audience because they don’t have the chance to empathize.
In short.
Use. Death. Wisely.
Don’t do it!
We all know the trick of seeing the villain kill off some hapless minion just to prove how evil he is. It’s a quick and dirty sort of “Hey, I’m dangerous.” Effective? Only if you manage to put a new spin on it. Then there’s the typical horror film. Most people know that if someone goes wandering off to investigate [fill in the blank], they’re dead. Death is what redshirts are for, right?
Death is a powerful tool in an author’s arsenal. It can also backfire powerfully.
I’ll use an example from one of my college manuscripts. In this particular story, there was a Scotland/England-esque conflict of a conquered kingdom trying to regain its freedom. I decided to build sympathy for the conquered kingdom’s cause by starting with a massacre at a wedding. I proudly handed my shining new manuscript with its lovely Nanowrimo winner’s certificate (it was my first, actually) to my readers at the time. Imagine my dismay when they told me that my terrible tragedy had the opposite effect from what I was hoping. Starting off by killing everyone made them less inclined to get attached to the real main cast, and later, the much more significant death (er, deaths *cough*) were overshadowed and made less effective. Eeek! I revised the opening to take the massacre “off screen,” leaving it as a much removed event until it had personal impact on the heroes later on. This allowed my hapless readers to become ensnared before I killed off the characters who were actually significant. Nee-chan might never forgive me.
When executing (heh) a death, an author has to keep the audience in mind.
If the genre is horror, the audience is going to expect some death, and will probably accept thinner reasons (wrong place, wrong time, too stupid to live). In mysteries, it’s elementary. Sci-fi, fantasy, thriller genres, the audience might not necessarily expect death, but know that it happens. If you’ve got a serious string of deaths going on in a romance, there better be a really darn good reason, or you might need to re-think the genre.
The thing is, no matter how absorbed your audience is, there’s a tiny portion back there that knows all the events in front of their eyes are/were controlled by a writer. They know that theoretically it was in your power to save their favorite character. (Thus the joke: George R.R. Martin, Joss Whedon, and Stephen Moffat walk into a bar and everyone you’ve ever loved dies. They can probably include J.K. Rowling too.)
Here’s how to keep an audience from (completely) hating you: make it inevitable. If there is simply no escaping this death, it’s the villain getting cursed (or whatever the cause of death was), not the author. (Mostly.) If there’s wiggle room, if it’s contrived, if there’s too much leaning on coincidence or timing, if it’s just for the sake of killing off that cutesy character that you loved at first but now they just have to die, the audience will call you on it.
(This is one of the reasons I love Jack. I can kill him as often as I want to and he’s up and about within pages.)
Here’s a rule of thumb: the more significant the character, the more significant the death. Redshirts and Soldier A, B and C can just get eaten by a dragon without much fanfare. If someone the audience has come to know and love dies, give it the weight it deserves.
Take a moment to consider the character death that reduced you to tears and left you devastated and inconsolable. Everyone has at least one, so just admit it. Consider the details of the scene.
Now consider this: Often the most powerful part of a death isn’t the death itself, it is the impact on the other characters.
Kirk and Spock, anyone? In either direction, it’s a heart-wrenching death.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Gandalf?
“Fly, you fools!” he cried, and was gone.
“Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that he himself was weeping as he ran. Doom, doom, doom the drum-beats rolled behind, mournful now and slow; doom! ... Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.”
Empathy is a beautiful thing. Humans are wired to respond to the emotions we see in other humans. (If this wiring is broken, we get lovely people called psychopaths.) If the other characters don’t care or the reaction is rushed, there’s less impact on the audience because they don’t have the chance to empathize.
In short.
Use. Death. Wisely.
September 23, 2013
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Apparently Goodreads shot itself in the foot over the weekend and I only just learned about it.
For anyone who hasn’t heard it from others, Goodreads updated their policies on reviews, and then proceeded to delete reviews deemed in violation without giving notice.
I have no problem with the clarifications of policy (because they really don’t seem to be full-out changes), but the actions that have accompanied this announcement have me very worried. Thus I felt the need to say a few words.
The sheer fact that there was no clear notice given to the general Goodreads population (posting a thread and assuming people will look for it does not count – I only learned of it through fellow users) and then reviews were deleted without notice is a HUGE red flag. I’m all for stopping outright abusive behavior, but what I’m hearing and seeing is that perfectly good reviews are being thrown out with the bad(?). I saw one person who re-posted an (innocent) deleted review only to see it deleted again. To me, this is abusive behavior on Goodreads’ part.
In short, this royally sucks.
I’m an author, but I use Goodreads first and foremost as a reader. Frankly, I don’t trust Amazon’s book reviews. Their job is to sell books and they do that well, but I can’t trust their reviews to be honest. Moreover, I can’t trust that my reviews (as a reader or an author) won’t be deleted. I think I’ve posted maybe three reviews there, because it doesn’t seem like contributing my opinion would matter.
This is the beauty of Goodreads. Overall, I can trust that there’s a person on the other side of the words I see, giving their honest opinion (good or bad). I’m also free to agree or disagree with them, and they with me.
Given the events of the weekend, how are any of us to be sure that Goodreads will not in the future decide to start deleting any reviews as it pleases, for no given reason and without warning (as it has now done)? How do I know my words on Goodreads are safe? I don’t anymore.
I had to run and check the reviews I’ve written just to be sure none of them disappeared. None of the reviews I’ve written seem to be deleted (I don’t keep track outside the site), but I don’t exactly try to pull punches when a book ticks me off. I don’t intend to start, either.
In the announcement thread for the policy changes, Goodreads asserts that the only reviews deleted were not “book” reviews but “author” reviews. Having seen a few of the contended reviews, either no one is actually looking at these reviews before deleting them, or else Goodreads is not abiding by their assertions.
Hopefully, this will end up a case of just plain not thinking things through (giving the Goodreads team the benefit of the doubt), but so far Goodreads has not been very satisfactory in their response.
I don’t like the unhappiness!
(The announcement thread, in case you want to see for yourself, is here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...)
(And I promise I’ll put up that post on gratuitous death soon! This just cropped up.)
For anyone who hasn’t heard it from others, Goodreads updated their policies on reviews, and then proceeded to delete reviews deemed in violation without giving notice.
I have no problem with the clarifications of policy (because they really don’t seem to be full-out changes), but the actions that have accompanied this announcement have me very worried. Thus I felt the need to say a few words.
The sheer fact that there was no clear notice given to the general Goodreads population (posting a thread and assuming people will look for it does not count – I only learned of it through fellow users) and then reviews were deleted without notice is a HUGE red flag. I’m all for stopping outright abusive behavior, but what I’m hearing and seeing is that perfectly good reviews are being thrown out with the bad(?). I saw one person who re-posted an (innocent) deleted review only to see it deleted again. To me, this is abusive behavior on Goodreads’ part.
In short, this royally sucks.
I’m an author, but I use Goodreads first and foremost as a reader. Frankly, I don’t trust Amazon’s book reviews. Their job is to sell books and they do that well, but I can’t trust their reviews to be honest. Moreover, I can’t trust that my reviews (as a reader or an author) won’t be deleted. I think I’ve posted maybe three reviews there, because it doesn’t seem like contributing my opinion would matter.
This is the beauty of Goodreads. Overall, I can trust that there’s a person on the other side of the words I see, giving their honest opinion (good or bad). I’m also free to agree or disagree with them, and they with me.
Given the events of the weekend, how are any of us to be sure that Goodreads will not in the future decide to start deleting any reviews as it pleases, for no given reason and without warning (as it has now done)? How do I know my words on Goodreads are safe? I don’t anymore.
I had to run and check the reviews I’ve written just to be sure none of them disappeared. None of the reviews I’ve written seem to be deleted (I don’t keep track outside the site), but I don’t exactly try to pull punches when a book ticks me off. I don’t intend to start, either.
In the announcement thread for the policy changes, Goodreads asserts that the only reviews deleted were not “book” reviews but “author” reviews. Having seen a few of the contended reviews, either no one is actually looking at these reviews before deleting them, or else Goodreads is not abiding by their assertions.
Hopefully, this will end up a case of just plain not thinking things through (giving the Goodreads team the benefit of the doubt), but so far Goodreads has not been very satisfactory in their response.
I don’t like the unhappiness!
(The announcement thread, in case you want to see for yourself, is here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...)
(And I promise I’ll put up that post on gratuitous death soon! This just cropped up.)
September 11, 2013
Danger: The Rings of Akhaten
Returning to the original example of the Rings of Akhaten, (you don’t really need a spoiler warning, do you?) on the surface there appears to be stakes, and there appears to be a threat, but is the monster dangerous?
What is at stake? We’re fairly convinced that what’s at stake is the life of the Queen of Years. Got stakes? Check. No problem. Cute kids make instant stakes.
Is the monster capable of threatening what’s at stake? Erm…. Getting shaky. We don’t know what’s supposed to happen if this “old god” or "grandfather" wakes up. Everybody on the asteroid with their Festival of Offerings seems happy. There’s no dreading of a fearsome laying waste to the asteroid field. No one is afraid of what the monster is capable of. More to the point, besides a vague assertion that it would be bad, we have no idea if it is capable of anything once it wakes up.
Capable of destruction? No details. Not cutting it. Not convinced yet.
Ok, then. What does the monster want? We’re finally told (after the thing is starting to wake up) that the big bad monster is going to eat everyone’s souls. Erm. Right. How is it going to do that then? We don’t know.
Which brings it to the most important question: what does the monster do to achieve its stakes (souls)?
Let’s see. We see the Queen of Years snatched away (oh no!) and a big heavy door closes between her and our heroes (the Doctor and Clara).
But. Was it the monster that snatched her? Huh. No clue. That's not really clear, actually. She's just picked up and swept off by some kind of force. We're left to assume that it's because the monster is waking up (though no reason is given for its waking besides "it's time").
Then what?
There’s a bit of consternation when the girl is swept away, but no one runs for their lives because the big bad monster is going to eat them. No one even lifts a finger outside of the Doctor and Clara. Not convincing if we’re supposed to believe that big bad things are happening.
The Doctor opens the big heavy door with his magic wand (yes, it’s a sonic screwdriver. I hate it when my brother-in-law calls it his magic wand, but in this case it applies. [Random trivia: it was originally for screws, with the occasional electronics, not for being a catch-all]). What do we get once the door is open? A creature behind glass. Sleeping.
This is Doctor Who. Scary looking creatures aren’t necessarily dangerous. We’ve already seen batches of different weird looking creatures in this episode. We've even seen one act in an apparently aggressive manner, but that was just its language (conveniently not translated by the Tardis).
Then what do we see?
The Queen of Years pins Clara to the glass with her mind! Not the monster. The girl at stake! (Ok, it’s not exactly unusual for characters to act against the Doctor even while he’s trying to save their lives, but in this case the girl is now more dangerous than the monster because she actually did something).
Now the creature behind glass is awake and snarling. Oh no! Everyone is going to be eaten!
Except they aren’t. No one is, in fact. Not in the entire episode.
Now the Doctor talks. A lot. They might be pretty words, but all we see from the monster is growling and snarling. Oh, wait! That’s not the real monster. The real monster is the planet. (Oh, and in between this “the vigil” – which seems to be creepy military androids [also not sufficiently explained] – tries to make the Queen of Years sacrifice herself to the monster. We still haven’t seen evidence of a legitimate threat from the monster itself.)
Now we have a snarling planet.
What has changed? Nothing. Because the monster hasn’t done anything. It doesn’t matter that it’s now planet sized.
What are its goals? What does it want? “I vant to suck yourblood souls.”
Thing is, this planet sized monster hasn’t done anything for itself to achieve that goal. (Furthermore, we haven't seen anything holding it back now that it's awake.)
The Doctor decides to give it what it wants: his soul. Because that totally makes sense. Feed it a Time Lord soul and hope it gets indigestion instead of motivation, even though it hasn’t made any move to actually take any souls. Even if it could. Which we technically don’t know that it can. We still haven’t seen any evidence. Of course the Doctor wouldn’t do something so rash if he didn’t have reason.
Riiiiight.
What does everyone else do, now that there is a snarly face on the planet? Do they run in terror now? No. Why should they? The monster isn’t dangerous. They stand there and sing. Not much terror there.
Planet monster finally makes a move. Sort of. It touches the Doctor with some orange light. Apparently this is supposed to be feeding on his soul. All the while, the people are singing and the Doctor is giving a lengthy monologue on how awesome he is. I’m not joking. I wish I were.
Well, the Doctor is looking a little under the weather, so Clara jumps to the rescue and feeds the planet a leaf. Again, not joking. The only thing that semi-almost-pseudo redeems this move is that all through the episode they’ve set up that this leaf is important to Clara because it’s how her parents first met, and she kept it in a book through her childhood.
She sacrifices a childhood keepsake to a planet that really hasn’t done anything but take what it’s given. Just let the dumb thing starve to death already. It’s not like it will come after you.
So, from what we’ve seen, what would be the consequences if this snarling monster were to move its lazy self away from its steady food supply of suckers to travel the universe? The flu? Fatigue? Not pleasant, but not exactly dangerous. This is assuming it would even try to sweep over the universe, because we haven't seen it make a move for itself. The minions don't even seem to be under its direction. For all we can see, they're acting on their own.
(I’ll also add a brief note here regarding tone. Happy singing, a cheerful festival, an asteroid belt that apparently has enough atmosphere that no one needs space suits anywhere, and offering the monster valuables does not a dangerous atmosphere make. Dark lighting and cramped, inescapable quarters surrounded by vacuum that leads to a black hole is much more effective.)
What do we have at the end of this episode? A monster that can’t even scare a kid. Not exactly up to Doctor Who standards.
Verdict: not dangerous.
What is at stake? We’re fairly convinced that what’s at stake is the life of the Queen of Years. Got stakes? Check. No problem. Cute kids make instant stakes.
Is the monster capable of threatening what’s at stake? Erm…. Getting shaky. We don’t know what’s supposed to happen if this “old god” or "grandfather" wakes up. Everybody on the asteroid with their Festival of Offerings seems happy. There’s no dreading of a fearsome laying waste to the asteroid field. No one is afraid of what the monster is capable of. More to the point, besides a vague assertion that it would be bad, we have no idea if it is capable of anything once it wakes up.
Capable of destruction? No details. Not cutting it. Not convinced yet.
Ok, then. What does the monster want? We’re finally told (after the thing is starting to wake up) that the big bad monster is going to eat everyone’s souls. Erm. Right. How is it going to do that then? We don’t know.
Which brings it to the most important question: what does the monster do to achieve its stakes (souls)?
Let’s see. We see the Queen of Years snatched away (oh no!) and a big heavy door closes between her and our heroes (the Doctor and Clara).
But. Was it the monster that snatched her? Huh. No clue. That's not really clear, actually. She's just picked up and swept off by some kind of force. We're left to assume that it's because the monster is waking up (though no reason is given for its waking besides "it's time").
Then what?
There’s a bit of consternation when the girl is swept away, but no one runs for their lives because the big bad monster is going to eat them. No one even lifts a finger outside of the Doctor and Clara. Not convincing if we’re supposed to believe that big bad things are happening.
The Doctor opens the big heavy door with his magic wand (yes, it’s a sonic screwdriver. I hate it when my brother-in-law calls it his magic wand, but in this case it applies. [Random trivia: it was originally for screws, with the occasional electronics, not for being a catch-all]). What do we get once the door is open? A creature behind glass. Sleeping.
This is Doctor Who. Scary looking creatures aren’t necessarily dangerous. We’ve already seen batches of different weird looking creatures in this episode. We've even seen one act in an apparently aggressive manner, but that was just its language (conveniently not translated by the Tardis).
Then what do we see?
The Queen of Years pins Clara to the glass with her mind! Not the monster. The girl at stake! (Ok, it’s not exactly unusual for characters to act against the Doctor even while he’s trying to save their lives, but in this case the girl is now more dangerous than the monster because she actually did something).
Now the creature behind glass is awake and snarling. Oh no! Everyone is going to be eaten!
Except they aren’t. No one is, in fact. Not in the entire episode.
Now the Doctor talks. A lot. They might be pretty words, but all we see from the monster is growling and snarling. Oh, wait! That’s not the real monster. The real monster is the planet. (Oh, and in between this “the vigil” – which seems to be creepy military androids [also not sufficiently explained] – tries to make the Queen of Years sacrifice herself to the monster. We still haven’t seen evidence of a legitimate threat from the monster itself.)
Now we have a snarling planet.
What has changed? Nothing. Because the monster hasn’t done anything. It doesn’t matter that it’s now planet sized.
What are its goals? What does it want? “I vant to suck your
Thing is, this planet sized monster hasn’t done anything for itself to achieve that goal. (Furthermore, we haven't seen anything holding it back now that it's awake.)
The Doctor decides to give it what it wants: his soul. Because that totally makes sense. Feed it a Time Lord soul and hope it gets indigestion instead of motivation, even though it hasn’t made any move to actually take any souls. Even if it could. Which we technically don’t know that it can. We still haven’t seen any evidence. Of course the Doctor wouldn’t do something so rash if he didn’t have reason.
Riiiiight.
What does everyone else do, now that there is a snarly face on the planet? Do they run in terror now? No. Why should they? The monster isn’t dangerous. They stand there and sing. Not much terror there.
Planet monster finally makes a move. Sort of. It touches the Doctor with some orange light. Apparently this is supposed to be feeding on his soul. All the while, the people are singing and the Doctor is giving a lengthy monologue on how awesome he is. I’m not joking. I wish I were.
Well, the Doctor is looking a little under the weather, so Clara jumps to the rescue and feeds the planet a leaf. Again, not joking. The only thing that semi-almost-pseudo redeems this move is that all through the episode they’ve set up that this leaf is important to Clara because it’s how her parents first met, and she kept it in a book through her childhood.
She sacrifices a childhood keepsake to a planet that really hasn’t done anything but take what it’s given. Just let the dumb thing starve to death already. It’s not like it will come after you.
So, from what we’ve seen, what would be the consequences if this snarling monster were to move its lazy self away from its steady food supply of suckers to travel the universe? The flu? Fatigue? Not pleasant, but not exactly dangerous. This is assuming it would even try to sweep over the universe, because we haven't seen it make a move for itself. The minions don't even seem to be under its direction. For all we can see, they're acting on their own.
(I’ll also add a brief note here regarding tone. Happy singing, a cheerful festival, an asteroid belt that apparently has enough atmosphere that no one needs space suits anywhere, and offering the monster valuables does not a dangerous atmosphere make. Dark lighting and cramped, inescapable quarters surrounded by vacuum that leads to a black hole is much more effective.)
What do we have at the end of this episode? A monster that can’t even scare a kid. Not exactly up to Doctor Who standards.
Verdict: not dangerous.
Danger: The Threat
Jumping straight into things, the threat is whatever is trying to ruin your hero’s day. For this particular application I’m assuming some sort of monster-type threat (versus an evil empire type threat or interpersonal type threat or any other type threat). The threat is the foundation for the story’s conflict, so you want to make it a good one. A hero is only as good as the opposition, which means your threat cannot be easily defeated. Like, say, by a leaf.
Here’s the thing: the threat can’t just threaten the hero (though it certainly should do that as well). It has to threaten what’s at stake.
Think of our little hobbit hero. What is the main thing standing between Bilbo Baggins (and the dwarves) and reclaiming the dwarves’ halls of gold? The nice whopping dragon curled up in the middle of it all.
Are dragons dangerous? Of course they are. Everybody knows that. But why?
Because they breathe fire and eat people. Through Thorin’s detailed story we have the example of what this particular dragon has done in the past when it took over the Lonely Mountain in the first place. He set fire to everything (and just about everyone).
But is it enough to show that the monster in question is capable of destroying things? Actually, no. Simply being capable of threatening what’s at stake doesn’t mean that it will. It needs its own stakes and the motivation to pursue them. These opposing goals are what will truly make any conflict compelling. The audience can see what would result if the monster achieves its goals, and it needs to be bad. The dragon comes into play when its stakes (the heaps of gold) cross with Bilbo’s actions, and when it happens things really heat up. (Haha. ^_^;)
This is where tension is born.
So, the monster has its own goals and we see that it is capable of achieving those goals. Now it needs to do something about it.
(Because this thing ended up very long, I decided to move the detailed application for Rings of Akhaten to a second post. If you like seeing things applied to examples or if you like to see things torn to shreds, go on to that one. Coming soon: gratuitous deaths.)
Here’s the thing: the threat can’t just threaten the hero (though it certainly should do that as well). It has to threaten what’s at stake.
Think of our little hobbit hero. What is the main thing standing between Bilbo Baggins (and the dwarves) and reclaiming the dwarves’ halls of gold? The nice whopping dragon curled up in the middle of it all.
Are dragons dangerous? Of course they are. Everybody knows that. But why?
Because they breathe fire and eat people. Through Thorin’s detailed story we have the example of what this particular dragon has done in the past when it took over the Lonely Mountain in the first place. He set fire to everything (and just about everyone).
But is it enough to show that the monster in question is capable of destroying things? Actually, no. Simply being capable of threatening what’s at stake doesn’t mean that it will. It needs its own stakes and the motivation to pursue them. These opposing goals are what will truly make any conflict compelling. The audience can see what would result if the monster achieves its goals, and it needs to be bad. The dragon comes into play when its stakes (the heaps of gold) cross with Bilbo’s actions, and when it happens things really heat up. (Haha. ^_^;)
This is where tension is born.
So, the monster has its own goals and we see that it is capable of achieving those goals. Now it needs to do something about it.
(Because this thing ended up very long, I decided to move the detailed application for Rings of Akhaten to a second post. If you like seeing things applied to examples or if you like to see things torn to shreds, go on to that one. Coming soon: gratuitous deaths.)
August 27, 2013
Danger: Stakes
I'm continuing some thoughts on establishing danger since it's a multi-faceted thing that deserves some more depth.
Ultimately, in any given story there is no suspense if there is nothing being threatened. Therefore, you need two things: a threat and something threatened. It's the simplest and hardest factor in writing anything because this is what will hold your audience or lose them.
Let's start with the thing being threatened. The stakes. This is what will make the audience care about your story. It can be the old standby of life, the universe, and everything, it can be the fate of a relationship, or it can be as simple as lunch. (Don't disregard the power of where the next meal is coming from; many a character has effectively hooked an audience by being hungry. Too many to start naming examples.)
So much for the easy part.
Any and every story has something at stake. The trick to it is making the audience care as much as (or more than) the characters do.
First, it has to matter to the characters.
An excellent example of this can be found in The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien opens with a detailed description of Bilbo Baggins' home and its occupant, establishing his comfortable and predictable life (which of course is about to be disturbed). Why, given that Bilbo has "apparently settled down immovably," would he ever leave his hobbit hole for the dangers and discomfort of an adventure?
Because the stakes of the quest become personal.
...the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.... And suddenly first one then another began to sing as they played, deep throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold....
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!
As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.... He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns... he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered....
There's a little more that goes into Bilbo's ultimate decision to join the party, but this is his hook. Through the conveyance of the dwarves' haunting song, Bilbo gets a taste of what is at stake for them and it resonates with him, not only paving the way for a change of heart but also drawing in the reader. The words find a place in the reader that also empathizes with that longing and that's when the magic happens. The reader shares in that desire, that longing, and the stakes become personal.
The stakes for the characters become the stakes for the reader.
Ultimately, in any given story there is no suspense if there is nothing being threatened. Therefore, you need two things: a threat and something threatened. It's the simplest and hardest factor in writing anything because this is what will hold your audience or lose them.
Let's start with the thing being threatened. The stakes. This is what will make the audience care about your story. It can be the old standby of life, the universe, and everything, it can be the fate of a relationship, or it can be as simple as lunch. (Don't disregard the power of where the next meal is coming from; many a character has effectively hooked an audience by being hungry. Too many to start naming examples.)
So much for the easy part.
Any and every story has something at stake. The trick to it is making the audience care as much as (or more than) the characters do.
First, it has to matter to the characters.
An excellent example of this can be found in The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien opens with a detailed description of Bilbo Baggins' home and its occupant, establishing his comfortable and predictable life (which of course is about to be disturbed). Why, given that Bilbo has "apparently settled down immovably," would he ever leave his hobbit hole for the dangers and discomfort of an adventure?
Because the stakes of the quest become personal.
...the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.... And suddenly first one then another began to sing as they played, deep throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold....
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!
As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.... He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns... he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered....
There's a little more that goes into Bilbo's ultimate decision to join the party, but this is his hook. Through the conveyance of the dwarves' haunting song, Bilbo gets a taste of what is at stake for them and it resonates with him, not only paving the way for a change of heart but also drawing in the reader. The words find a place in the reader that also empathizes with that longing and that's when the magic happens. The reader shares in that desire, that longing, and the stakes become personal.
The stakes for the characters become the stakes for the reader.
