Vaughn R. Demont's Blog, page 4

Know Yourself, Know Your Process (Writing Advice)

Process is a daunting term for a writer, but to be asked about it by an industry professional is often a sign that you’ve “made it”. Requiring self-awareness, knowing your process is knowing not just what inspires you, but know what triggers inspiration. All too often writers come into the craft believing they can only write after being visited by the muse, that on some idle Tuesday a random event will occur and suddenly the scales will fall from their eyes and a perfect story will emerge.

That is the difference between writers who see writing as a hobby, and those who see it as a career. To know your process is to know how the words come to you, and what you want to do with them, and how you want to lay them on the page.

“But Vaughn, could you provide an example? Like, what’s your process?” Glad I imagined you asked.

“I am influenced by every second of my waking hour.”

– Lenny Bruce, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People (p. 188)

To understand my process, I feel I need to understand that which influences and has influenced me. I’m a writer, working in the genre of urban fantasy, so it might seem odd that I would lead with a controversial comedian from the Sixties that I’d only heard of because I’d watched the Christian Slater film Pump Up the Volume. While I could easily carry his final line from his autobiography out on my shield and simply go with the point that a writer must keep himself open to receive inspiration and influence from all sources, the rest of his book influenced me as well.

I could use his various arrests for obscenity as a platform, about how in my own writing I’m hoping to rail against the “phonies” and “pretentiousness”. Sure, Lenny went out on stage to challenge the status quo, but he still went out there to get paid, do his job, and have a good time. When I first started taking writing classes in undergrad, I was put under the impression that what I was doing was a sacred and noble pursuit, that I was pulling the abstract from the ether and translating it into words that lesser mortals could understand. I was given works by towering masters of the craft who could, or had changed the world with their words. This continued even into graduate school, where my head was crammed with works by authors I’d never heard of that I read dutifully, perhaps out of some vain hope that I’d emerge from the chrysalis of those hallowed pages ready to deliver my own Great American Novel.

Instead, in secret, like the kid hiding comic books in his biology text, I studied other sources in popular media and realized what I wanted to do with my writing: I wanted to tell a good story about characters that I liked, maybe sell it to a publisher and start to pay off my student loans. It’s hardly lofty, but I found myself, I love what I do, and I find influence in my waking hour. Every second.

 

     “Write the shit you care about”

– Elmore Leonard

Though Elmore Leonard had been recommended to me on a few occasions, I didn’t even start noticing his works until I saw Out of Sight and found out it was based on one of his books. I went out and rented Jackie Brown and Get Shorty and quickly went to the college library to read every Elmore book I could find.

I loved his research, all the little tidbits that were wedged in without feeling like they were wedged in, the constant reusing of characters from previous books and alluding to plotlines that were never quite resolved. I loved how Leonard had created a living breathing world that went on even when he wasn’t writing it.

But most of all I loved his dialogue. It was crisp and witty and sharp but most importantly it was real. I could hear the characters in my head saying the lines, and I knew that I could read the lines aloud and not roll my eyes at them thinking how corny it sounded. When I read Leonard’s dialogue, I knew that that was how I wanted my characters to sound: like regular people. I didn’t want a reader to suspend disbelief because my protagonist sounded wooden or was using a level of diction that wasn’t accessible.

His settings were believable as well, and not just because they were actual places. It’s all too easy to set your story in a real world city and still have the skyline seem little more than set dressing. With Leonard’s stories, you never question why the story is set in Detroit or Los Angeles or wherever because you can’t imagine the story occurring anywhere else. The settings were real because you could tell that no matter how dirty and dingy and crime-ridden these places, they were described with the utmost love and care. It was from recognizing this that I expanded the writer’s maxim of “write what you know” to “write what you care about”.

 

     “This internal requirement toward excellence which we learn from the erotic must not be misconstrued as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. Such a demand incapacitates everyone in the process. For the erotic is not only a question of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness.”

– Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power” (p. 54-5)

I haven’t been the same writer since I first read Lorde’s essay several years ago. Considering that Lorde’s essay deals primarily with reclaiming the erotic not only in writing, but in life, you would think that my enlightenment would be an exaltation, that I would swear from that point forward that all of my writing would only come from my passion, that every word I wrote would be a word I would mean.

Instead, when I said that my eyes were opened, I meant it. I became aware of the line drawn between the erotic and the pornographic. The pornographic, whether written, drawn, photographed, filmed, or imagined, is only intended for one purpose: getting off as well as possible. Instead of wanting to forsake the pornographic for the erotic, I became aware of how both are written.

When I’m not working on longer works of urban fantasy, I write erotic fiction to help pay the bills. This is divided into two camps: e-publishing, and private commissions. With the latter, I’m contacted usually through e-mail or messages on online forums by a patron who gives me a general idea of what he or she wants, the general wordcount, and the rate to be agreed on. It’s all very businesslike.

The commissioned works are often written over the course of three sessions, with fifteen hundred words on average written per session, with a carefully worded contract outlining the specifics of plot, which fetishes will be explored, and the specific points for “slow-downs”, where detail will be overloaded. Sound boring and sterile yet?

To be honest, I dread online writing sessions for commissions because let’s face it: it’s work. I’m not being creative at all, I’m just writing on average forty-five hundred words of descriptive filler with an over-focus on the explicitly fetishistic scenes. There’s no real plot, no real characters, just a pair or more of bodies that I’m flinging together for a penny a word. And yes, the client wouldn’t want it any other way. This is the pornographic as Lorde puts it: an empty and soulless construct that seeks to elicit only one sensation while denying all others.

But hey, it helps me make my rent, and I’m still happy and proud when I finish a project. If I’ve learned one thing about being a writer over the last couple of years, it would be that you have to be at first realistic. You have to accept that there is no type of writing that you are “above”. Writing is writing is writing, and you love the job (that’s right, I called it a job) or you don’t.

The writing I did for e-publishing is similar to the work I’ve done on the novel. I write short stories, novelettes, novellas, all with erotic elements within them, but they aren’t all about the sex. The Last Paladin’s first section is about ten thousand words, and about half of it is sex, but writing it wasn’t an empty and soulless experience. I wasn’t just writing sex, I was writing the story of a character who was rediscovering his faith, who allowed a sense of wonder back into his world, and began to reconcile with the loss of his mother. Instead of dreading writing sessions, I would wake up every morning eager to discover what I would write that day, what more would be revealed about the characters, how the mythology of my created world would expand, and when I went to bed that night, I would lie awake for at least an hour, my mind still swimming in the possibilities I hoped to explore the next day.

It was the difference between the pornographic and the erotic, the mechanical and the creative. One I was putting in my time, and the other, I was giving my time and wishing I could give more. And the difference comes across in the writing, I believe.

I believe that Lorde’s definition of “the erotic” is channeling the creative force that leaves you fulfilled instead of empty, a force you harness and celebrate without shame no matter where it might take you, whether it spirals in or out.

 

     “So my advice to you is: don’t strangle yourself.

Okay, that’s good advice, generally speaking, I guess. But specifically, don’t feel like you need to have absolutely everything lined up for your character before you type word one. Get a solid skeleton built, toss on enough detail to get you started and run with it. Inspiration often visits while you’re right in the middle of work. Sometimes inspiration throws you a stupid idea (even if it feels brilliant at the moment) but it hits a lot more often than it misses.

A second recommendation: Make sure that you, personally, are having a good time writing it. If it’s an enormous chore, that will show through to the reader. Have fun. That shows through to the reader as well, and they tend to like that a lot better.”

– Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files (LJ Quote)

If someone had told me three years ago that one of the most important things to do while writing was to “have fun” I probably would’ve thought they were crazy. I was still mired in the ideas that writing had to be “good”, and by “good” I don’t mean well-written, since that was a given, it had to be literary, a word I still have no idea how to properly define as to how one book can be literary and one can’t be other than using the rather gauche duality of popular vs. critically acclaimed. The only impression I got was that if you were actually going to school to study the fine art of creative writing beyond the general education requirements, then you obviously were trying to be a literary writer. If you wanted to write “genre fiction” (which would be said with a dubious and somewhat disappointed tone) then you had to be a genre-revolutionary. Sci-fi? You had better be writing like early Gibson or better yet, like Delaney. Fantasy? If you weren’t writing like Tolkien from the get-go, or better yet, Marquez (because magical realism is apparently fantasy), then it would be best to give up write then and there.

Gods help you if all you wanted to write was a standard sword and sorcery epic or an urban piece with some light cyberpunk elements. With all of the plotting and pacing and wedging in as much meaning as possible, writing had become a generally dead weight around my neck that I dragged inch by inch toward a degree. Simply put, it wasn’t any fun.

Granted, this is what I thought everyone believed. Attending Goddard, a low residency grad school, was only a public experience for a few days out of the semester, after all, and then I was sent home for one-on-one time with my advisor over the lumbering beast of the US Postal Service. Your mind tends to get away from you when you consider the other people in your group, who start out as writers maybe sharing space with other writers, and by the time I was reaching the end of the semester, I was half-convinced that my fellow Goddardites all lived in a commune producing epic works of experimental fiction that would immensely dwarf my own work, and that said epics would probably be produced through some Hermetic ritual involving the Greater Keys of Solomon. I’m joking of course, but looking back I don’t think it would’ve taken me much effort to get that far.

When I wrote up James, the protagonist for my novel Lightning Rod, I used character creation exercises that I’d used in roleplaying games (I even used a character sheet). I established a bare bones skeleton, fleshed him out slightly, and charged off into the plot figuring I could find out the rest about him along the way. As a result, I ended up with some plot turns that were just as surprising to me as I hope they were to the reader.

This approach made getting to know James a little more difficult, but in my opinion, it was a more enjoyable experience. It gave the character some autonomy to determine his own characteristics, become an independent force in shaping his own story. In the end, that’s what I want for all of my characters as a writer: to give them the story they deserve to have. I want to capture his voice, take him through his triumphs and failings, and outline the flaws that make him human even as I show him aspiring to virtue which makes him human as well.

And it’s rather fun. Before I started writing novels and novellas a few years ago, the idea of writing a story that was ten whole pages was a daunting three week task that would require much agonizing. Now ten pages is easily a night’s work, if that, because I barely notice the time or the wordcount. I just have fun writing the scene and seeing how my characters work through the story. It was taking writing back to a place where I used to write and write for hours. I was having fun, and it showed through to the reader.

 

     “I’ll be fine if you give me a minute, A man’s got a limit
     I can’t get a life if my heart’s not in it”

– Oasis, “The Importance of Being Idle”

I can’t discuss my process without discussing the music that is so much a part of it. I wholly believe that every writer has triggers for their creativity, and I’m no exception. Like many writers, my primary trigger is music, not only for getting me into the correct mood to get writing, but a lot of my plot ideas have come from the music I listen to.

When I conceptualize a character, I often ask myself what kind of music they listen to, and contrary to some belief, they are not always into the same music as me. Not only does knowing the type of music my characters enjoy deepen them, but it makes it easier to get into their mindset and write them. When writing James, I discovered that he was a fan of classic rock primarily due to his mother’s influence, particularly The Rolling Stones, even though it’s never mentioned in the story itself. I also discovered he couldn’t stand the sound of Nine Inch Nails, an industrial band. Investigation of that band, as well as their sound, led to a (eventually discarded) final plot twist of Lightning Rod that James was created by the antagonist Heath, and that the music of Nine Inch Nails figured into the ritual that created him.

What I have to wonder is whether knowledge of this cheapens the plot twist? Does the twist in the book become less original or impressive because it was inspired by music, or, more to the point, popular music? I’d dealt with this in poetry classes in undergraduate studies where I’d written a long prose piece I’d entitled “Meteora” which my group found wonderfully expressive and descriptive and evoking brilliant images and what-not. When I revealed that I’d written it while listened to the album of the same name by the nu-metal band Linkin Park (a band generally reviled as sell-outs by “serious” music fans) the praise for the piece instantly evaporated and the prose was turned into a betrayal of my craft for committing the crime of not being inspired by Mozart or John Coltrane (It was actually said in workshop that the piece would have been acceptable had it been inspired by these artists).

Music is a cornerstone of my process because it remains as one of the few avenues of inspiration I refused to allow myself to be shamed for. I suppose one of the reasons I choose to work in popular fiction is because the genres within it will allow a writer to be inspired by whatever he wants without smirking ridicule, where taking the road more travelled can have as much weight as the road less, because it’s never taken into account that when choosing one road or the other, you’re still being rewarded with a new experience, so why not choose the one you’ll be passionate about?

To conclude, my writing is a process of immersing myself in popular culture, media, television, films, books, graphic novels, music, and asking myself what it is about those experiences that make them enjoyable, and trying to do the same with my own writing. My process toward becoming a writer is a long string of acceptance both practical and emotional. I accept that my writing will probably not win awards or the respect of my peers, and it probably won’t end up on any bestseller lists or get optioned out to be the next summer blockbuster or fall series. But I’m okay with that, because that isn’t the reason I write anyway. I write because it’s fun, because I enjoy writing again.

Writing is a job to me, and it’s a real job, and I love it.

 

Bibliography

Bruce, Lenny. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Fireside Press. New York. 1992.

Butcher, Jim. “Oct. 15, 2008”. http://vaughn-r-demont.livejournal.com/2570.html?thread=11786#t11786. Oct. 16, 2008.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. The Crossing Press. Freedom, CA. 2001.

Gallagher, Noel. The Importance of Being Idle. Don’t Believe The Truth. Sony. 2005.

Gandalf the Messiah (LotR Critique)

 

When the word “messiah” is uttered, it often conjures images of Jesus Christ or the Prophet Mohammed or any other potent religious figure sent to guide his or her people by way of the dispensing of wisdom and morality. Messianic figures are not to be confused, however, with “Christ-figures”. While some characters in literature can echo the story and journey of Christ, as with a Christ-figure, messianic figures are actually infused with divinity. Often, it is necessary for these messianic figures exist in fantasy literature to provide a symbol of either good or evil.  In the case of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings, there will always be argument over the existence of Christ-figures in the characters of Frodo and possibly Aragorn, but in the epic, it is the character of Gandalf the Grey (and later Gandalf the White), who best represents a messianic figure and shows the importance of his role as such.

Throughout the long journey, it is Gandalf who supplies the wisdom, the explanation of events, and the sound advice to the Fellowship and all else. It is Gandalf who possesses a divine origin, and it is Gandalf who possesses great power and also the wisdom to use it correctly.

In her essay, “The Evil Ring: Realism and the Marvelous”, literary theorist Christine Brooke-Rose often refers to Gandalf as “the great explainer”. The reasoning, though, according to Brooke-Rose, is not because of any messianic capabilities, but rather because The Lord of the Rings was set in an exotic and fantastic locale. While a setting based in “reality” would require little explanation, Middle Earth “needs on the contrary to be constantly explained (since it is unfamiliar), either by the omniscient author, or by his substitute Gandalf”. (Brooke-Rose 74) Through reading the book, one can see Brooke-Rose’s point, as it seems that Gandalf seems to do naught but talk and explain and advise until his sacrifice on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum. Though he does take more action after his rebirth as Gandalf the White (much like Jesus post-Resurrection, a character who is both a Christ-figure and messianic), his primary role is still that of an adviser and an explainer.

However, when one examines the role of a messianic figure, one will find that a messianic figure often does no more than simply advise and explain. It is the role of a messiah to inspire and lead and advise and give hope and occasionally dole out a miracle or two. Action, or rather the choice of action is usually left to the followers, to leave them with the choice of when morals to follow. It is in this sense that the “great explainer” Gandalf truly shines. He serves as the de facto leader of the Fellowship as well as adviser, giving lectures and preaching on the quality of mercy and pity. To provide an example, there is a moment where Frodo learns that Gollum, a villain from the the prequel to the series The Hobbit is still alive and following them, Frodo voices that it was a pity that his uncle Bilbo did not kill Gollum when given the chance. Gandalf is quick to respond with:

Pity? It was pity that stayed [Bilbo’s] hand. Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need.  …Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.  …My heart tells me that [Gollum] has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that time comes, the pity of Bilbo shall rule the fate of many – yours not least. (Tolkien 59) It is these words that will echo in Frodo’s decision later in the epic to give mercy and pity to Smeagol.

In the end, advice and wisdom are all Gandalf can dispense. It is his sacrifice that gives his words great weight to all of the Fellowship, but through it all, the choices are their own. It is Frodo’s choice to bear the ring that begins the Fellowship itself, Frodo’s choice that leads them into the Mines of Moria. Though these choices are tempered and weighed with the wisdom that Gandalf has imparted, it still remains the choice of the character.

It is this wisdom that is the greatest quality of a messianic figure. The messianic figure shows the way, leads the group, lights the path, and fills in the holes so that the followers will not be making their choices blindly. In his book, Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Ring, Matthew Dickerson remarks on Gandalf’s status as a Maia, one of the spirits created by Eru, the God-Creator of Middle Earth itself, “…Gandalf is sent to Middle Earth to provide wisdom, and not to provide “power on the physical plane” or what one might call “military might.” In fact his natural “angelic” powers were intentionally limited to hinder their exhibition. Thus, the purpose of the Istari is not so much to do or to act but rather to know …[Gandalf] was sent for training, advising, instructin, arousing.” (Dickerson 49-50) Not only does Dickerson further cement Gandalf’s role as a dispenser of wisdom, he remarks that it is Gandalf’s purpose to dispense it, as a messiah should.

Gandalf is a spiritual being given mortal form who dwells upon Middle Earth for two thousand years before returning to the West along with the diminished Elves and the Ringbearers. A messiah is a potent figure of divine power, and Gandalf fits this description: He is created and sent to Middle Earth by Eru, the God-Creator, as well as resurrected and returned by the same divine power, only much less limited in his displays of power, showing himself as a being of the light in his return from death, his healing of King Theoden (though as a dispenser of wisdom it is better to argue that he guided Theoden out of the web of deceit that Grima Wormtongue had ensnared him in, opening his eyes as it were, and his miraculous arrival at Helm’s Deep and of course the rescue of Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom.

Still though, as a messianic leader, the power is never truly his. Only in Gandalf’s battle against the Balrog is the power definitely the power of an Istari, which results in Gandalf sacrificing himself to save the Fellowship. In the case of Helm’s Deep, it is because Gandalf has inspired Erkenbrand to bring the Riders of Rohan. In the case of Frodo and Sam’s rescue, as well as his own rescue from Orthanc, it is Gandalf’s friendship with the Lord of the Eagles rather than his own power that provides escape. There are of course departures in the films directed by Peter Jackson, where Gandalf is made to be more action-oriented, such as the Battle of Pelennor Fields which shows Gandalf fighting off Orcs and potentially slaying the Witch-King of Angmar himself (while he does fight in the book, his involvement in the battle is increased in the films). Still though, the actions of the heroes and the miracles which save the day are inspired or set in motion in some way by Gandalf, a form of indirect divine intervention.

But what makes Gandalf important to the piece? To the setting? If he were merely a method of exposition, Tolkien could have vital information carried in the various books that Frodo carries. If he were there to simply moralize, there would be no need for him to be a Maia, but rather simply a wise old man with enough experience to know better and having enough respect from the Fellowship to be listened to. Instead, I believe that Gandalf serves as a symbol. Within The Lord of the Rings, the presence of Eru the God-Creator is virtually nil. There is little formal religion, and magic is rare. When the forces of Mordor begin spilling across the land, there is no mention of the people turning to gods for help or advice, yet it is made apparent in The Silmarillion that there are in fact divine beings who watch over Middle Earth. It seems that there is little to give the people hope or moral direction. Gandalf is acting as Eru’s agent, an agent of good to help guide the people to freedom and victory, but still allow them their free will. Sauron is for all intents and purposes a counterpoint to Eru. He seeks to twist and corrupt and rule and destroy rather than create, but he cannot directly intervene as he has been rendered non-corporeal. Much like Eru, he needs agents to act on his behalf, though in his case it is to deceive and incite and sow dissent. Gandalf is needed simply to provide the other side of the duality.

In the end, Gandalf’s wisdom resonates, his lessons echo in the actions of the heroes, his values and morals are championed. It is his teachings and wisdom that cement him as the messianic figure in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf shows the heroes the best of themselves, what they can attain to be, and with a little wisdom and a little magic, sets them on the path to achieving it.

Works Cited

Brooke-Rose, Christine. “The Evil Ring: Realism and the Marvelous”. Poetics today. Vol. 1:4 (1980), pg. 67-90.

Dickerson, Matthew T. Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in the Lord of the Rings. Brazos Press. Grand Rapid, MI. 2003.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York. 2004.

Drawing Blood (Saturday Book Club)

Drawing Blood

by Poppy Z. Brite

It was difficult not to be reminding of my days in roleplaying games while reading Drawing Blood, both running a character and running a game. The novel takes the horror standard of the haunted house and takes it into a “modern” direction, which means there’s more angst and soul-searching than characters running for their lives. Considering the factors at work, namely that the two main characters use mild hallucinogenics constantly throughout the story, and the primary protagonist Trevor is a deeply disturbed individual, it’s difficult to say whether the horror experienced by the pair is supernatural or purely psychological. This uncertainty is part of what makes Drawing Blood work though.

However, I’m still left with questions that I really shouldn’t be asking, and nearly every question pertains to the second lead, Zach. When I would run games, I could always tell who’d seen the most recent blockbuster movie that had been out, because their character would be based wholly on one of the characters from the film, mainly because they thought that person was cool. When reading Drawing Blood I can’t help but wonder if the only reason Zach is a computer hacker is because the author had recently seen Hackers or The Matrix or any other movie or TV series featuring a “keyboard cowboy”, because I can’t understand why a computer hacker is in a haunted house.

The primary plot of the story is Trevor dealing with his demons in his old house where his father brutally murdered his mother and little brother, and then committed suicide in front of him. Nearly everything is handled by Trevor, with Zach only serving in the role of lover and drug hook-up, a role that would usually demand him dying within the first fifteen minutes of the movie so that the other characters will begin to suspect something might be wrong with this old house.

Zach’s plot on the other hand deals with him being on the run from the law and fleeing across the country to make a flight to Jamaica, but still stopping to score drugs and sex with conveniently gay store clerks in the Deep South. The story occasionally flashes to the pursuit to ratchet up the tension, but it all feels so artificial, just a means to heighten things for the reader and raise the stakes but I never found myself caring about Zach’s problems. I have to wonder why he was made a hacker when his sole purpose in the story is to relieve Trevor of his virginity and wake him up from his nightmares. How does knowledge of Linux and the High Doctrine of Slack help you in that situation? I shouldn’t be asking that question as a reader. I shouldn’t be skipping forward through Zach’s sections so I can get back to the interesting part. I should care about him considering that he’s one of the romantic leads.

If anything, this serves as an advisory to be careful when picking traits for my characters. Sure, I shouldn’t tailor them to be perfect for the situation or there’s no conflict, but even if I’m going to use the “fish out of water” trope as with Zach, I know I should at least play that angle up. When writing Lightning Rod, I wanted to underline how inexperienced James was with everything, that the majority of his talents were in washing dishes, writing poetry, and being a closet nerd, all traits that don’t exactly help someone become an effective wizard protagonist. However, he still leaned on those talents no matter how inappropriate they might have been as he progressed through his journey until he could acquire new skills. As a result, I think he was a more believable character for it.

Four on the Floor: Part Nineteen

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Part Nineteen

“Get us out of here!”

A flash of light, and the black dragon is now in Shan’s place. “Against me!” His voice is booming, a hundred cymbals crashing at once. I do it, and through the ringing in my ears I hear the dull roar of the other as I hide between the brick wall and the dragon. The flames wash over him, over the wall, spreading further. The fire in the lot grows in radius, plenty of dry and dead grass to feed on, asphalt to melt. Shan is roaring as I cover my ears, the “low-flying plane” now directly next to me. He’s in pain, taking the brunt of the attack for me.

Shit. My hair’s on fire. My hair’s on fire!

I pull the knife and cut as much as I can, the smoldering, braided lock falling to the earth. I’ll mourn it later, if we survive. The silver dragon is in the distance, beginning a turn. Another pass. I climb on Shan’s back, ahead of his wings.

He doesn’t need any prompting. I clutch against his long neck, squeeze with my legs, finding a ridge in his scales to get a foothold on as his wings beat. My stomach drops as he takes off with me desperately clinging on. I don’t know what I was thinking, why I chose to do this, but I do have to admit that flying on the back of an ebony dragon would be hell of a story to tell Hades if he makes good on his vow to collect me personally.

I keep my eyes shut, mostly, because I can feel the wind in my face, tearing my eyes when I chance a look. The silver isn’t in front of us, on our left when I look the first time and the right when I look a second. Shan and the other dragon are speaking, maybe, but not in Sigil, and Shan sounds angrier with every exchange.

Shan rolls to the left, a searing line of fire coning in out direction, and it happens so quickly I would have fallen if not for already clutching him in a panicked state. I’m not hurt, but the flames splash against the black dragon, who roars his response in Sigil.

“SO BE IT!”

I close my eyes for the rest, clutching what scales I can get a grip on, his maneuvers and speed wrenching me left and right and up and down. I feel surges of heat, rushes of wind, but nothing like when he was showering the earth with acid. The air gets colder, thinner, gravity pulling on me, ordering me down, down, down.

When I open my eyes they dry in seconds, and I squint to see. We’re above the clouds, I can’t breathe no matter how much I gasp. My grip on Shan is slipping. The silver is flying toward us, his breath of fire finding little oxygen to burn at this height. He collides with Shan.

My grip slips.

I’m falling.

Falling.

I don’t have the breath to scream.

I’m going to die.

I don’t want to die.

I can’t die. Not now. Not like this.

Not like this.

Not as a murder suspect with burned hair and a missing shoe.

I try to roll, spread my arms and legs to slow my descent even though the landing will still kill me. I’m getting enough air to start screaming as well, mostly Shan’s name when I can manage to form the word. It won’t work, he’s too high up, ensconced in a fight with his own kind.

“Sorcerer!” is bellowed behind me, too loud to be far away. He’s in a dive, moving faster than I’m falling, wings tightly hugged to his back as he slowly  moves past me, adjusting minutely to align with my trajectory. I reach for his neck, miss. I can see the streets, blocks of the Benedict coming up so quickly.

“A.J.!”

I grab again, and adrenaline supplies the strength to pull me to him, onto his neck. I clutch and hang on. He pulls back, his wings opening as the industrial slum begins to move away, outside of the city limits, the exurbs and scant few undeveloped lots coming into view as another roar from behind us is issue.

Shan screams, my ears feeling torn asunder as I can’t over them as his wings spread completely, the flames colliding with the membranes as we near a smaller lake. We splash down, and my body literally skips, I don’t know how I have the sense to take a deep breath.

My legs kick, instinct driving me upward to air, but I dive down again when another streak of flame lights the surface. I struggle, my coat dragging, and I push it off me to free my movement. When I break the surface again, my lungs refill with air with sputtered coughs as I sweep my vision about to find Shan.

He’s not hard to find, but he’s sinking, his body too heavy to float and his legs not meant for the water. I swim in his direction, yelling, “Be human!” while trying to remember swimming lessons and how to rescue a drowning man, because Shan is clearly panicking.

Focus.

The other dragon is coming out for another pass, and he’s not going to believe that we drowned.

He’ll breathe fire until he’s certain we’re dead, because another sorcerer told him to.

I turn, my legs still kicking hard to keep me above the surface. I can’t kill him. I don’t know how to do it and I don’t know if I could, even if it was him or me. I’m supposed to be the Shadow Dancer, but I don’t see water ballet getting us out of-

Val said the title in Sigil when he gave me the name.

The word comes, almost eagerly, like an avoided child on a gym class line finally picked for the team.

“Shadow! Shadows, come to me!”

This Is Wrong (CNF)

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Trigger Warning: This essay discusses and describes domestic abuse.

This is Wrong

by Vaughn R. Demont

When I got home I opened the door, my head pointed down, the door sweeping back over the trampled down brown carpet, over the stains that had been there since I moved in, and then the door stopped, a dull weak thud and split-second rumble, metal against a filled cardboard box.  Saw one, then two, a stack of four, the hallway that ran the length of the apartment bordered with them all, simple brown cubes and long thick coffin-like egg-boxes with squat plastic containers perched on them as I stepped sideways between them all. My breathing quickened. He might not have heard the door open. There was a chance he wasn’t there.

Frank was supposed to be gone by the time I got home. He was supposed to have loaded up his U-Haul and been off for parts unknown. Today he was supposed to be gone. Today I was supposed to be free. Today it’s all supposed to stop.

Today I’m supposed to be able to go out into the living room of the apartment at five in the afternoon even though that’s an hour he’s usually home and eat something from the cupboard even though he’s told me that it’s all off limits. Today I’m supposed to be able to sit down on the couch that was a hand-me-down from my grandmother with a pattern not unlike a cheap carpet, turn on the radio to the hard rock station I like, and just listen and be. Tonight I was supposed to be unafraid of sleep.

My room was a few steps away. He never went in there anymore. He’d moved to the adjacent room after we broke up. I thought it would be one of those easy breakups where you just say you parted ways. Frank didn’t like having to see me around. He didn’t want me eating any of the food that he paid for. He preferred I stay in my room, and to keep the door closed so he wouldn’t have to see it when he went to the bathroom that was across the hall.

Two years ago I’d have told him to go fuck himself.

 

Six months ago he shoved me into a closet door, the doorknob bruising my kidney. I had blood in my urine for a day afterward. The shove also knocked my head against the doorframe and I stayed awake for the rest of the night,  afraid that I’d fall asleep and die from a concussion. This was all according to him, he was a certified nursing assistant. He was saving my life. I should have been grateful.

It was just joking around, really. Horseplay that had gotten a little too rough and I’d cracked my head against the door by accident. It’s not like he really meant it. I knew that he loved me and that he was sorry and that he’d never really mean to do anything like that. That would make him some kind of monster.

A year ago he didn’t speak for me.

I came into my room and closed the door behind me. The room was dominated by the bed, full-size, not much room between it and the closet, the frame cheap and hand-me-down, the color of the wood reminding me of a bowling alley. The shades on the windows were drawn. The closet’s contents were strewn on the floor, drawers opened and emptied, blankets in a clumped pile in the corner of the bed, TV gone, phone unplugged as usual. My journal was half out of its bindings, pages ripped, passages with gouges of ink through them, cuts and incisions through words like “alone” and “hate”. There was no more poetry in there for him, no more images of the sky caught in his eyes.

There was a mid-pitch thud outside the window, which looked out into the parking lot. I didn’t need to look outside. I closed the door to my room and grabbed the blankets, curling up in the corner of the bed furthest from the door, pulling the covers over me and shaking them slightly, trying to make it look more like a disheveled pile.  I ran through my route from the front door to my room, tried to remember every step, every motion to make sure that I hadn’t disturbed anything, left no traces of my arrival home.

He’d been through the room already, it seemed. He’d taken what he wanted and he was going to be on his way as long as I kept quiet and didn’t move. I chanced a look through the shade and saw a large U-Haul parked, back gate open, facing the entry to the building. There were enough boxes that it’d take him more than an hour to load everything up and be on his way. I had to use the bathroom but I could wait. I’d done longer. I’d gotten through the days before when he’d only leave the apartment for five minutes and I’d gotten everything I’d needed to do done in the space of that time. An hour would be easy. Piece of cake.

I kept curled under the blankets, flexing muscles every few seconds to keep them from falling asleep but always being careful with the motion, remembering the creakiness of the boxspring and the groans of the cross-supports. I heard the front door open and close, I heard “Anyone here?” a couple times. I held my breath, closed my eyes tight, my muscles tensed. Let him think he can just slip away, slip out, escape me to his better job in a better town and a better life. Let the dream of Philadelphia carry him away.

In an hour he would be gone. Two at most. I heard the front door open and close as he carried boxes slowly to the truck outside, muttered remarks that I couldn’t make out, but I knew I heard my name.

I’d known he was leaving for two weeks. I’d heard his side of phone calls to his parents, to his friends in other states, rantings and ventings on the difficulty of living here, the low paying work, the weather, the bills, how everything was on him and how I was no help. I’d started hiding things that I knew were mine before he started packing everything up. Books, CDs, DVDs, they were stashed under mountains of laundry, in the cavernous space under the boxspring, in the study carrel at the library at school, in drawers at my mother’s house.

I heard him just outside and I stiffened. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth, my tailbone was sore from a stray spring from the mattress starting to dig in. I heard the low static hiss of a door moving across carpet. My hand trembled and I clenched it into a tight fist, my fingernails digging into my palm to give me something to focus on, maintain my pose, keeping the bed from creaking.

“Yeah.” His voice was near the door, not five feet away from me. “I’ve got everything I need from here.” Heard soft taps of rubber-soled shoes on carpet, no low-static of the door being pulled shut. He’d left it open, easy access in case he suddenly remembered something. It’d only take a stray glance at the wrong time. I couldn’t remember where I’d hid his knife.

 

Eight months ago I was still interested in sex. We could still go at it in the afternoon if the mood took us, but we’d gone to retreating to the bedroom rather than just screwing where we stood. We’d managed to catch each other in a mood where the idea was mutually agreed on. At first it started with the regular routine: kissing, then making out, then the three minute pause while you both get undressed, and then you resume. His hands were on my wrists, teeth on the nape of my neck, his weight fully on me. His grip was tight, fingers rubbing hard against the skin, my breath at half-strength. Everything started to hurt.

“Stop. Frank. I can’t breathe.”

No response, other than fingernails digging into my wrists.

“Stop. Please. Stop it.”

He lifted for a moment, I opened my mouth and sucked on the air until my chest stopped hurting.

“Let go. My wrists are getting sore.”

The bed creaked as he planted his knees between my legs, wedging them spread. “C’mon, it’s my turn, ok?”

I tried to twist my arms free, my wrists getting rubbed harder, my eyes clenched and for a moment I flashed on third grade and Indian burn survival contests.

“Stop it!”

I could feel my eyes getting itchy, my throat feeling dry and constricted. His hands released my wrists and the skin felt suddenly cool and moist for a second before the throbbing began.

A moment passed, the skin on my wrists felt hot, looked red and blotchy, fingermarks visible.

“Did I hurt you?” I just nodded, figuring that it wasn’t intentional, that this wasn’t him letting me know he was into rough stuff. He got off the bed, went into his top drawer, and took out a small knife in a dark brown leather sheath. The handle had a river carved on it with mountains in the background, a fisherman on the shore. “I would never hurt you. Not intentionally. If I ever lay a hand on you…” He took my hand, and opened the fist, placed the knife there. “Use this.”

I should have known to run right there.

 

My legs were cramping. There was a sharp pain in my thigh, my toes felt like they couldn’t unclench. He was still moving boxes. My sides ached, my bladder felt barely squeezed shut. It felt like an hour had gone by. My hair felt stringy, my skin sticky with sweat. I had to get to the bathroom, or at least outside.

When I heard the front door close I waited a few seconds, didn’t hear any steps inside the apartment, and peeked out of the cover of the blankets, checked the windows. The storms, the thick panes of glass to keep the apartment warm, were on. Kicking the windows would mean a loud shattering crash instead of a softer thunk that he might otherwise shrug off.

I should have closed the door and gone walking the moment I saw the boxes. I shouldn’t have come in, shouldn’t have stayed. Another few hours and he would’ve been gone. He was going to find me and I was going to have to explain why I was there, why I didn’t answer when he called.

I froze when I heard the door open again. I wanted to move, to get back under the blankets, to follow the old rule of being perfectly safe as long as I was completely hidden. I stood on my knees, my muscles felt pulled too far. The boxspring creaked. I heard steps in the hall. I turned fast enough to see him standing in the doorway.

Frank folded his arms, narrowed his eyes. He was wearing brown slacks, a polo shirt that was some kind of off-white. “Where are the DVDs?”

I couldn’t speak.

“Where are the fucking DVDs? You hid them, didn’t you?”

The pulled drawers and their emptied contents showed that he hadn’t been successful in his search. My throat slowly closed.

He crossed the distance and dug his fingers into my shoulder, yanking me forward, “Where are they?”

My face felt wet. My eyes felt hot.

He shoved me backward, my back hit the wall and he left the room, “Fucking useless.”

I felt relieved. I got off the bed and went into the bathroom, my back feeling warm and pinched as I emptied my bladder. When I came out the hallway was free of boxes, the walls bare. There was a garbage bag full of food near the door. He took it outside, and through the window I saw him throw it in the dumpster. When he came back in I backed away down the hallway. He put a brick from outside in front of the door to keep it open. Only five boxes left.

“What was I supposed to be to you, huh? Your fucking wallet? You know how much money you owe me?”

He followed me down the hallway. I backed up a few more steps, my room to the right, the bathroom right behind me. There was only one light on in the apartment, the rest coming from the doorway. The sun was going down. I remember shaking.

“Christ, you’re fucking useless!”

Frank moved his hands. I thought it was a hand gesture at first, but he was taking off one of his rings. At first I thought it was something symbolic, like truly breaking it off between us.

Then he took off the other one, then the last, and started toward me, his hands balling into fists.

This isn’t happening.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh?”

I felt myself pushed into the doorframe of the bathroom. My back against the jamb.

This isn’t happening.

“Why are you so fucking useless?”

I felt something hard hit my stomach. Then again. Then again.

This isn’t happening.

“Fucking…”

My rib cage.

“Useless!”

Shoved back against the door jamb. My head snapped back. Everything felt light and warm and wet.

I think I screamed.

I lost my balance. Something pushed me to my left. I fell. My arms collided with the bathtub. My head bounced off the toilet.

This isn’t happening.

“There.”

I felt something wet splash against my face.

“Now you can just tell people I hit you and come off the victim in this.”

I heard him walk away. I crawled into my room. I couldn’t breathe. Everything felt wet and warm and red.

I saw a fisherman standing in a river, a great range of mountains, a brown leather sheath, all just underneath the dresser. I reached for it, unsnapped the leather strap holding the blade in. I heard him in the adjacent room.

It would be simple.

Unsheathe. Stick. Twist. Pull.

Repeat as needed.

He would never hurt me again.

I pulled the knife out of its sheath and tried to get up. The room spun, my hair felt sticky, I grabbed a dirty towel and pressed it against my head, felt a sting. I held onto the knife as I heard him walk to the front door.

“Good fucking riddance.”

I heard something clack against a hall closet door, then a hard slam. Then the sound of a truck starting. I held still, clutching the knife for a few minutes more. All was shadow, save a glint of light reflected off the blade.

Still Want to Be a Writer?

I’ve written quite a few of these entries before, because there’s always something else to say. I’ve talking about committing to the craft, what’s expected and not expected in publishing, the nuts and bolts sort of topics that are rarely covered in a writing class, because a writing class will rarely go beyond discussing the craft and how to improve. I didn’t even know about agents and that query letters were a thing until graduate school.

“But Vaughn, what if I came to here to actually, y’know, learn something about the craft of writing?” I’m glad I imagined you asked. For all intents and purposes, I’ll discuss craft as it relates to fiction, but the tips can apply to most genres and mediums.

The Questions of Urgency

Whether you’re writing a short story or novel, there are certain questions that a reader will have either subconsciously or ready to post in an excoriating screed with your name at the top of the list. Urgency is a quality that informs the necessity of the story being told, that it could only happen to the protagonist, only in that place, and only on that day in particular, and it must be done quickly before conflict is introduced. The author must justify those details, otherwise the story becomes untethered and easily discarded.

For example, in one writing circle, a writer submitted a short story that served as a portrait of a Southern Mississippi bar on a Friday night, and the various events that occurred. Stated several times is the fact that the primary character is pining for the bartender, and has always chickened out from talking to her. At first, the questions and answers are simple? Why could this only happen at the bar? It’s where the girl works. Why does the story focus on the guy? He’s the one with the romantic conflict/challenge. Why could it only happen that Friday night? It’s her shift, his only night off with money to spend. These are the basic questions of urgency, and at first glance, the story answers them. It’s a middling, low-stakes story, but it apparently accomplishes what it needs to. However, there is another question: What will disrupt the status quo? The assumption by the reader is that the protagonist will either attempt to talk to his romantic interest, or will learn that she is unavailable, but no matter how, changing his outlook either positively or negatively. Instead, the story describes the events of the bar as those that happen every week, and in the end, the protagonist, one again, chickens out, without any change to the status quo.

That nothing changes is why the short story didn’t work, or could be easily discarded because it’s just a snapshot of a bar, more of a setting-creation exercise than a fully fleshed story. As a first chapter, even, it would falter, as a novel has to establish the status quo, and then break the stasis as soon as possible or otherwise leave the reader bored.

It’s something to consider when constructing your setting, developing your characters, and planning your plotlines. Within the first ten pages (or less, if dealing with a shorter story, first chapter if longer), the reader should have answers to most of the questions of urgency if you want to keep their attention.

Character Development

When was your protagonist’s first kiss? If they were in a movie, and they made their initial entrance, what song would be playing? Did they prefer their mother or father while growing up? What do they dream about? Answering these is part of the “First Date” process, where you ask your character all of the questions you’d ask someone on the first date, and try to answer as detailed as possible. These answers will often lead to more questions, and to more answers, making the character more three-dimensional. None of the answers have to make it into the story itself, but it can inform you better on their decisions and actions as the plot goes on.

The Proust Questionnaire is a common writer’s tool for character development, a deeper examination than the “First Date” questions, but answering them as the character would can give the writer an idea of the character’s nature. This is how even an alleged “Mary Sue” can develop into a compelling character, because the writer will have to delve into how the character became that way to begin with. By knowing what makes the character tick, situations and conflicts will become more invested for the character, and the reader as a result.

Music is also a commonly used tool in the craft of writing, as both writers and cognitive musicology have found, since there’s no one specific part of the brain that processes music. However, what kind of music does you character like? Do they have a playlist tuned specifically to the story you’ve given them, and the answers you’ve come up with for them? Pandora is a resource, as instead of playlists, it creates “stations” based on algorithms influenced by user feedback. Thumbs up or down a track as the character would, punch in what their favorite bands or artists or composers would be, and curate it according to the character’s tastes. This way, they character isn’t just getting a list of songs that you enjoy, but also a chance to discover new artists and tracks for both you, and to further develop the character. This can aid a writer in getting into a character’s “mindset” by listening to the music while writing them.

Setting Development

“Sense of place” is a commonly heard term when discussing setting. It’s the notes of detail that keep the setting memorable, and more real to the reader, instead of nondescript rooms and places. It doesn’t relate directly to the questions of urgency, but it can help make it clear that this one bar, hallway, field, city square, is different from all the others. “Sense of place” is trying to evoke the setting as if you had been there yourself, that the place has an identity all on it’s own. “Setting as character” is another way of accomplishing this, having the setting itself influence the plot of the story, or the actions and motivations of the character and how who they are is affected by where they are. If the story takes place in a city, why that one? Could it have taken place in any other city? Is the house, bar, inn, ship, or any other enclosed area unique in some fashion? This doesn’t mean that everywhere has to be unique, just the places that are important to the plot or the primary characters.

Places often have one memorable detail. Harry Dresden’s basement apartment in The Dresden Files was largely like ever other basement apartment, but lit exclusively by candlelight, and the Star Wars poster on the wall was a detail that always managed to make it in. The candlelight was to establish how magic and technology don’t mesh and the poster served to humanize Harry as well as a shorthand to imply his somewhat nerdy inclinations. All one has to do is look at the fan reaction to the TV adaptation of The Dresden Files (“HARRY DOESN’T HAVE F***ING ELECTRIC LIGHTS!!!!

A Survivor’s Recovery in Rise of the Tomb Raider

Trauma is a poison, a creeping sludge with acidy burns that seeps into deep, old wounds to make them twitch and sting and paint the world in a lens of anguish. It makes us feel like part of us has died, leaving an exhausted shade in our body’s stead that has given up on recovery, and only seeks purpose. And once the trauma’s over, the real challenge begins.

The new trilogy in the Tomb Raider series, referred to in the fandom as the “Survivor Timeline”, begins with the story of a woman, Lara Croft, who survives intense violence, the deaths of close friends, near-rape, and a paradigm-shredding encounter with the supernatural. The sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, follows the journey for the middle chapter of Lara with plenty of adventure and puzzles and gunplay and archery, but also takes the time, for those invested in the lore and storyline, to delve into the aftermath of Yamatai, or the events of Tomb Raider (2013).

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

Survivor guilt is the most common diagnosis ascribed to Lara Croft, particularly in Rise of the Tomb Raider, in that her anxiety, insomnia, hallucinations, and predilection to violence are all caused by the numerous deaths she witnessed on the island despite her best efforts to save as many lives as she could. While several arcs are covered in the interim between Tomb Raider (2013) and Rise of the Tomb Raider by Dark Horse comics, it’s summed up quickly with in-game lore entries that describe Lara Croft seeking aid from a therapist after surviving the constant trauma and violence of the island. It’s notable that the series takes a moment to give this attention, as many games and films feature action heroes who battle through similar obstacles and acts of violence, but rarely does the story take a breath to acknowledge the mental and emotional cost of survival as well as the physical, and that recovery requires more than medical care but also psychological assistance.

While Lara’s repeated insistence that she forge on alone and leave her companion Jonah (the only fellow survivor of Yamatai that’s still in contact with her) behind makes sense from a gameplay standpoint, it also ties into a common mindset for survivors of trauma. Lara, like many survivors, finds shoddy logic to place the blame for the traumatic events of her history upon herself. It can be ascribed to self-loathing, but coupled with her intensified desire for independence, it also speaks to her need for control, the knowledge that everything that happens to her is a result of her own decisions and actions. For Lara, taking responsibility gives both herself and her friends someone to blame, someone present that can shoulder the loathing that, in Lara’s eyes, is deserved.

“I’m fine on my own.” “I have to do this alone.” “You wouldn’t understand, that’s why I have to do it.” These are statements commonly voiced by Lara, but also by survivors. Survivors feel that danger is around every corner (likely because of the hyper-vigilance that so often accompanies PTS), and that no one else is equipped to face what’s ahead but them. As a result, they often refuse help when it’s offered, and let relationships lapse and decay, usually with a statement that “they’re better off without me,” (A statement repeated by Lara) until only the most committed are still in contact (usually because of romantic interest), in this case Jonah.

In this case, Jonah is willing to follow Lara to Siberia to search for a mythical lost city. While this is an atypical example, it still bears similarities to the lengths someone with PTS is willing to go to prove that they can continue on alone. Lara’s mantra of “Just keep moving forward” is effective in the first game, where she needs to push through her fear to survive, but as stated above, in Rise of the Tomb Raider, forward movement both physically and mentally is used both to give her purpose, and because if one keeps moving, they never have to look at where they currently are, and most importantly, what’s behind them. Despite the trauma, Lara, like many survivors, gives only the barest of details regarding it, even when pressed, describing Yamatai as “something I went through”, seeing direct evidence of the immortal soul as “I saw something…” The only trauma she gives any detail on is the fate of her father, who apparently committed suicide, when young Lara being the first to find him, a trauma that was largely healed over, but reopened by the events of Yamatai, and exacerbated by the expedition to Siberia.

Have a Little Faith

Lara Croft is best described as a scientific atheist, someone who believes that everything can be explained by the sciences both hard and soft. It’s evident in the original Tomb Raider (2013) where when describing Himiko’s history as a queen who allegedly had magical power over the weather, Lara’s first response is “whenever a woman attains that kind of power, it is inevitably called witchcraft.” Until finally confronting Himiko at the final battle of Tomb Raider (2013) and seeing an immortal soul with her own eyes, her atheism was only beginning to falter, but from then on, taking on her father’s obsession to research immortality shook away any vestiges of non-belief.

Rise of the Tomb Raider primarily centers around Christianity and two opposing organizations: Trinity, the shadow organization invested in keeping the power of the Church in as few hands as possible, and the Remnants, followers of a Unitarian-esque religion more focused on helping humanity at large, community cooperation, and peaceful living, but still willing to rise up when threatened. Trinity is represented by Konstantin, a zealous and violent operative who believes himself chosen by God to serve Trinity due to stigmata on his hands, who expects complete and utter devotion to his faith from his men. The Remnants are led by Jacob, later revealed to be the Prophet, an immortal man who sought to return the purpose of religion to aiding humanity instead of accumulating wealth and power.

The McGuffin of the journey is the Divine Source, which supposedly can grant immortality, which Lara is obsessed with finding for largely vague reasons that swing from general benevolence to mankind, to redeeming the disgraced name of her family. The motive gets murkier as the journey continues, underlining that Lara is more blindly following a set purpose than any philosophy or goal. Her interactions with Jacob always have the feel of a skeptic grudgingly attending confession, primarily because Jacob’s line of questioning always goes to her motivations and reasoning for her obsession. As a survivor, speaking on her past and the painful reasons for her tunnel vision only stokes her to become defensive, or offer vague placating statements of her actions being for the greater good without any thought to the consequences or aftermath.

Faith is a tricky subject for survivors, who either surrender to it completely, or attempt to live defiantly of it, with few in between, but rarely is someone confronted, as Lara was, with direct evidence to contradict her atheism. Lara doesn’t end Rise of the Tomb Raider a faithful woman, or even a more spiritual woman, but her journey serves as a check for her to keep from sliding too far, becoming too distant, and considering the morality of her actions. When given the choice to retrieve the Divine Source, she elects to destroy it, having faith in her decision that humanity isn’t ready for what the Source would offer. Essentially, Lara rediscovers her faith, but not in any higher power, but rather her faith in herself.

At least until Shadow of the Tomb Raider comes out.

Ocean’s 8 (Film Review)

Grade: B

One of the best things to come out of Parks & Recreation was the concept of “Galentine’s Day”. Set on February 13th, it’s a day for women to get together, no matter age or relationship status, and celebrate female friendships. It’s a holiday that’s lived on past Parks & Rec, which concluded in 2015, and trends on social media on February 13th. Galentine’s is a welcome replacement of the usual methods that popular culture has portrayed the day before Valentine’s day: desperate women pinning their identities and self-worth on whether or not they’ll be alone on the 14th. Instead, it encourages women to claim the day for themselves, and celebrate the female friendships that are all too often portrayed in culture as adversarial.

It’s female friendships that are at the core of the female-led heist film Ocean’s 8, a film that is shown in many scenes to be a continuance of the Ocean’s storyline, rather than a reboot either hard or soft. Led by Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), a crew assembles to rob the annual Met Gala (link) in New York City of a targeted 6-pound diamond necklace valued at $150 million, a take that would come under Ocean’s 11’s take of $163 million, but split amongst less people. The roles of roper, hacker, fixer, lifter, and various grifters are filled by the all-star cast, with the requisite beats and scenes to further expand some of the characters, but with the same general broad strokes employed in the Clooney remake of Ocean’s 11.

The chemistry between the cast is visible, more so between some characters than others, likely because of needing to keep the action moving, and not having the screentime for “hangout” scenes popularized by Marvel films in recent years to let the characters talk to each other and develop, but still when the crew is together, they either talk to each other, or work as a cohesive unit. There are very few scenes of butting heads, with every member of the crew being used in roles where they’ll be the best fit. It’s part of why some critics have upturned their noses at the affair, possibly because they’ve never observed women working together as a group when their goals are in alignment.

For a heist movie to succeed, it has to succeed in different facets. First, violence is a no-no, nothing more than a punch, and nothing that’s putting anyone in the hospital if the act is performed by the heroes. In this facet Ocean’s 8 succeeds, as no one is ever in physical danger, save one scene where a character threatens an antagonist, but no physical harm is done. This is important, because a heist movie’s purpose is to be fun, to rob the ultra-rich without doing any harm to the other 99%. The successful chapters of the first three Ocean’s movies targeted casinos, a concept that most wouldn’t mind watching a fantastical heist of, especially one that never involves the drawing of a gun. Ocean’s 8 targets a museum, but is actually targeting Cartier, a jewelry behemoth with a history and reputation frequented by the very rich.

The second facet needed for a heist movie’s success is to feel like going to a magic show, to be wondered and amazed, but also to know how all the tricks were accomplished. This is done both with the original Ocean’s movies as well as the actual “Ocean’s 11 but with magicians” in Now You See Me. The key is to save the big surprise for the final reveal, which Ocean’s 8 does according to the heist formula.

The Bechdel Test will inevitably be invoked and in the general sense it passes with flying colors, but critics might take the film to task for the crew’s target being an ex-boyfriend and one crew member’s victory fantasy taking a guy she met online to Paris, but an attentive viewing can discredit any claims of faux-feminism. That the women talk to and work with each other with so few hiccups lowers the stakes, definitely, but doesn’t lower the quality. In Ocean’s 8, women are more than a prize for a leading man, or a momentary distraction of a guard, but instead solving problems either with creative thinking, or planning ahead.

While it’s not a perfect movie, the Ocean’s films weren’t either. (Ocean’s 12 felt like a pretty big stumble with it’s reveal that the heist was actually pulled in the first 20 minutes of the film, and the rest was misleading the audience as well as the villain.) Some characters were underused, some underdeveloped beyond character establishment in broad strokes, but there were funny moments where characters talk to each other like people (and show each other how to Tinder), not just thieves. Characters from the preceding trilogy make appearances to advise, but they don’t dominate the scenes they inhabit, and Bullock plays a much more calculating Ocean than Clooney’s. The plot takes the front seat over character development to keep the movie running 15 minutes shorter than the preceding entries, and with Soderbergh as only a producer instead of directing, the scene with Anne Hathaway’s Daphne living her dream to direct feels like a dig that “Directed by Gary Ross” is the first name in the credits.

Still, a heist movie is meant to be a magic show, a fun romp where you marvel at the tricks and see how they were done, to have your cake and eat it too. Hopefully, a sequel (with a female director), will give this cast the room it needs to develop into the A-grade ensemble we see flickers of, but for now, we’ll get the large popcorn and settle for the B.

Dhalgren (Saturday Book Club)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany

From a literary standpoint, Dhalgren is brilliant. Circular plots are difficult to pull off, especially true circular plots, where you can jump in at any point in the circle and still have the same feeling by the time you get back to the starting point. Delany, in this respect, fully succeeds, and I can appreciate the ambition and complexity of the work. Using an amnesiac protagonist with apparent mental illness, concentrating on the day-to-day happenings of a strangely beautiful city, plucking a an entire metropolis out of space and time, gifting some of its inhabitants with holographic projectors, having a society where all classes eventually mingle, it’s brilliant from a literary standpoint. Samuel R. Delany pulled off one of the most ambitious literary sci-fi projects ever.

But I still consider this novel a failure because it fails to answer one of the basic questions of urgency: Why could this story have only happened here?

At first glance, the question seems answered by the complexity of the setting itself, but in my reading, I found that the setting itself is rarely engaged, more concentrating on the interaction between the various characters. Before any argument about character interaction is raised, allow me to clarify my point with an example. Imagine MTV announced that the next installment in one of their long-running reality series, The Real World would be The Real World: Hell. MTV acquires a 3 bedroom loft in the city of Dis in the 6th ring of Hell, and recruits six strangers to live in it. The season is recorded, broadcasted, and the participants never leave the loft, and talk about nothing but the same class/race/sex issues that are discussed in every other incarnation of The Real World, and if there weren’t the usual landscape shots as fillers between “scenes”, you’d never know they were in Hell. While the issues the participants bring up may be poignant, you would still have to wonder why they didn’t just shoot the show in Brooklyn if they weren’t going to utilize Hell at all. I feel the same way about Dhalgren. It too could have easily been set in Brooklyn with little happening to the overall plot.

The Kid is amnesiac and is shown to have spent time in a mental facility, possibly schizophrenic. The entire plot could simply be The Kid’s hallucination of Bellona overlaying Brooklyn, hallucinations could cover the dryad and the various problems with the weather and sky, as well as the appearance of the gang members as monsters and the like.

The Richards who live in the Labry Apartments require little change as well. Mr. Richards could simply have lost his job but still keeping up the act of going to work and his family either oblivious or playing along (which is believable because this does happen in real life). The actions of Mrs. Richards to attempt to make it seem that everything is perfectly normal could be easily explained with the rape of her daughter and the unemployment of her husband. The continued efforts to maintain the status quo could be either a coping mechanism or simply a psychotic break.

The party in the sixth chapter which depends heavily on the interactions between gang members and high society hardly requires a setting at all, but could be just as easily explained as The Kid bringing gang members along to the party as he does in the book (again, believable, because this has happened. Tom Wolfe did it in Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, though in the former’s case, the party is in Manhattan, not Brooklyn).

In the end, it seems that the only purpose the setting might serve with its being cut off from space and time is to justify the circular nature of the plot and novel. However, when you have an amnesiac nameless schizophrenic as your lead character, you don’t need to bend the laws of quantum physics, you just have him start over again, telling the exact same story, or have him start at any given point, at which you can be assured he’ll eventually find his way back to the beginning.

Delany creates a beautiful setting, but without justifying the need for it, it ultimately feels like a waste.

Four on the Floor: Part Eighteen

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Part Eighteen

I have to wonder how much of all this that Pumpkin knew before. Fae? Dragons? Another necromancer? Then again, I’d have to ask myself if I would have believed him. He’s likely bored off his… Well, bored. I don’t even know what time it is since my phone’s likely being combed over by the police now.

Tasha at least won’t get pulled into this, since the phone’s not tied to her apartment, and the last thing I want is for the police to go knocking on her door with questions about a murder. The City’s not that bad, but there’s always some prick of a cop who, when asked if he’s ever shot anyone, will get that sparkle in his eye when he answers, “Not yet.” Also, even if they didn’t give her a hard time, I’d be homeless with Pumpkin on the curb or in the trash.

So I need to take the wins where I can find them.

Val was pissed, but he’s not bound to me anymore. He’ll get over it, and he got a sword in the deal, and apparently got to be the one to name me the Shadow Dancer. That’s probably a big deal, given the fanfare when it happened.

“Ajay?”

“A.J. Two letters.”

And then there’s the dragon, who is currently in the form of a quite aesthetically pleasing black man. I won’t take him back to Tasha’s because he’s exactly her type: tall, bass in the voice, head shorn of hair, dressed well, athletic build, and intelligent. I’m not sexually attracted to him, but I can definitely understand the appeal.

“Yes, of course.” We left the shell of the building a few minutes ago, and given all of the damage done to it, eventually someone’s going to come and investigate. They might not think “dragon”, and the Benedict isn’t a high-priority area for police, except that there were two squad cars outside of the building where the body was, and Shan probably sounded like a low-flying plane.

It’d only take a little curiosity to nudge an officer to come check it out. So, we both left the scene.

“So how does this work? You being a dragon, me being a sorcerer, all of that.”

“Specifically regarding?”

“Why didn’t you kill me? What I did was stupid. I walked into your path and didn’t do anything other than tell you to stop and land. I yanked your head down by the nose. I should be dead.”

I catch him smirking. “Yes. Yes, you should.” He doesn’t stop walking, but he looks to me as we cross a vacant lot. I don’t even know the cross-streets anymore. “But dragons are often forbidden from taking the life of a sorcerer. This is nothing new. There is always a new Ra’keth-“

“Wait, a what?”

He sighs. “Sorcerer king.”

“What are sorcerer queens called?”

Another sigh. “Ra’keth. You all tend to abuse your station no matter your gender. May I continue? Uninterrupted?”

“You’re not used to someone interrupting, huh?”

He turns his head in another direction, and spits at a knocked over, rusted, steel barrel. It melts away in seconds. “Not often, no.” He then smirks again, pointedly, at me.

I blink, unimpressed, and deadpan, “You still owe me a shoe, by the way.” Thank god for high school drama club, because holy shit, he doesn’t need to be a dragon to do that?

Also, my gait is still off, one Doc Marten, one socked foot.

The dragon doesn’t respond, he continues to walk, unimpeded. “There are always sorcerers who seek to use us for…” He stops, and glances at me. “Petty whims.”

“I’m investigating a murder.”

“And?”

“That’s not petty.”

“Hopefully not of the woman in the building I passed over?” Shan doesn’t wait for me to respond, he continues forward, instead. “It would seem the police, the human police at that, already have the matter well in hand. What can you offer that they cannot?”

“She was murdered. Likely by a sorcerer. The same one that sent you after me. There was some Sigil under the body.”

“Ah,” he says, nodding. “So this is a rivalry?”

“You’re asking the wrong question, Shan.”

“And the right one would be?” He raises a hand to preemptively wave me off. “Do not attempt to explain that this is all for some altruistic reason. No Keth is truly selfless. All of you think you know better.”

I stop walking. “Hey.”

Another sigh, and then after a few steps he turns to face me. “Yes?”

“Her spirit was bound in her body, she had been in so much agony that it drove her almost completely insane. In order to free her and send her on without her hurting anyone, I promised to find her killer. I’m just trying to keep that promise. I try to help the dead, the dead that can’t move on or can’t remember that they want to. Before this, I just talked to zombies and tried to help them, and now I’m doing stuff that’s powerful and I’m scared, okay, Shan?

I’m terrified. I’ve had a gun at my head, a sword pointed at my throat, and a dragon spitting acid at me, and this is just in the last twenty-four hours. I know I look like I’m keeping it together, but I’m just barely hanging on, okay? All I want to do is find the guy who killed her, and for that I’ll need your help because I can’t do this alone.”

The dragon closes the distance between us. “Dry your eyes, sorcerer. A Keth shows no fear. I’m not a fool, I could hear your heartbeat, scent your emotion. Humans cannot hide that. The one you seek? He wants you to be afraid.” He looks over my shoulder, only a foot between us.

I wipe under my eyes with a finger, find it wet. Shit, I was crying a little, there. “Sorry. I guess dragons are uncomfortable around a crying-“

In a blink, I’m in his arms, embraced almost painfully tight. He turns both of us around quickly, and I’m about to ask him what the Hell he’s thinking grabbing me like this when…

When it suddenly gets very, very hot. I clench my eyes shut, it’s starting to hurt from the heat. After a few seconds it passes, and I feel myself lifted, carried in fireman style. I open my eyes to see a long scorch mark, along with a building fire in the dead and dry plantlife. In the sky, flying, coming around for another pass, is another dragon.

Shan puts me down next to a short brick wall, the perimeter of what was once a factory property before everything left the Benedict or just died out. “Stay here, he’s not old enough to melt brick. I’ll keep him distracted, unless you…?”

“Who the fuck is that, Shan?”

“I disobeyed a Keth by not killing you. Your rival found someone else who would not.” He points toward the silver-scaled creature in the skies. “Am I to kill him, or drive him away?”

I’m still trying to process the fact that I’m not actually on fire.

“Sorcerer! I need an answer!”

Oh fuck. What do I do?