Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 20

There and Back Again

In The Force Awakens Maz Kanata knows Finn is lying because she has a lot of experience. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you see the same eyes in different people.” In the same way, books mimic life by having people go through the exact same events. In real life, or in fiction, people never change. Each kind of person appears again and attaches themselves to a someone in the book who they feel is at their same point in life.

As a character or situation weakens and loses value, it is appealing to the more fringe people of society, eventually vanishing and becoming dropped. When a character just honestly isn’t meaningful anymore, but there were once so many people invested, it becomes interesting to the immature until it’s just so silly we’ll let it go. Some of the most insidious, treacherous, selfish people always attach themselves to a quiet underdog character, because these people always look to conceal themselves in real life and they do so when reading as well. And so on and so on.

When I examined my characters in that level of detail, I found this complete little world emerging out of 9 books. A world I’d never thought to look for. That’s a number of books, actually, and the characters and situations are beginning to accumulate. I started to recognize them as similar to many other characters I’ve seen, which meant they were at the same stages of development. And that meant they had people attached to them and I could know who those people were. This suddenly made my job as an author a lot easier. I was going about it quite wrong and doing far too much work. I don’t have to find readers. I just have to go on creating characters that mimic a stage in their lives.

And there will be more updates. 

Links Within Links

For years I couldn’t seem to write a genre. Other authors weren’t always bound to just one type of story, but they did write in genres (such as writing both historical romance and high fantasy.) My stories were all over the place and rarely in the same genre twice.

I normally also write in an auditory way. How people sound so their “voices” are authentic was the most important thing to me. Visual is the last way in which I prefer to think. But when I was examining my characters as if I was going to choose actors for a movie, things began to jump out at me and I saw the books aren’t disparate but are instead part of one long story. One whole world.

People don’t usually like more than one of my books anyway. Usually a person loves one; kind of likes another; actively doesn’t like a third; and ignores the rest. So my audience isn’t built for loyal genre reading either. But that kind of approach is typical when thinking of a long series with a lot of storylines—people latch onto one or two and follow them, finding the others to be for someone else.

Another reason not to leave out any of the books is because they are all part of one story. Even if one area is almost universally viewed as rather boring, it isn’t usually left out. For instance, Star Wars has many plots, characters, planets, and situations in it. Even those that are uninteresting to almost everyone, such as C-3PO, are never trimmed because they contribute a detail to the overall story.

And there will be more updates.

The Characters of My Books

When I was examining my books one last time, something hit me. I started to think of casting the characters in a very serious way. Not just vaguely their hair color, clothing, or height. Something really detailed. When I did that, lots of things exploded about the characters and the position the stories held relative to each other.

So I drew up a list of every character in each story, as if I were casting them. When you choose a person, you have to be (obviously) completely fleshed out. In a way, thorough. You can’t pick an actor’s hair and not the rest of him. You’re going to have a complete person here. Even little characters on the side who appear for like, ten seconds, have to be complete for that ten seconds. They can’t just be a foggy blur like smoke.

It was a really, really interesting experience. I realized the stories couldn’t be sorted in the simple way I’d been doing before. Not that that was a bad idea from my POV. It made me able to organize them a little better and make necessary changes or rewrites. But I found I couldn’t just get rid of books or keep just some. Because there might be a character in one book that was literally the only thing people liked in the story—but they DID like this character very much. They DID care about him/her a lot.

So, I’ll put all the books back on an equal footing. I’ll be selling them on the website hopefully soon anyway.
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And there will be more updates. 

A Thread of Mystery

The books on my website are now pretty much sorted, but I’m putting off promotion because I want to go over them again with a fine-tooth comb and get them perfected for audiences. It’s okay for them to not be ready yet, since they were already published years ago without being perfect.

I’ve got mostly general adult fiction and Palladia is YA. YA is one of the most specialized genres, actually, and YA is more a matter of tone than content (unless the content is inappropriate for kids altogether, in which case the book is more for an adult pretending to read YA than for any kind of actual young reader.) YA books just tend to have a tone, whereas a book for kids doesn’t even if it uses the same ages, or older ages. So I think Palladia is quite distinctive from my other books. 

I’ve noticed that almost all the plots I’m using have a mystery angle. I hadn’t been aware of that before, but recently I’ve been paying a lot of close, analytical attention to my surroundings—to details, shades of meaning, hints, possible deductions, and so forth. I realized I was suddenly thinking like a mystery author. I then noticed a particular area of my stories that I’d taken for granted before. So, coming up I’ll be doing an exploration of my books from the angle of finding a mystery in them.

And there will be more updates.

Lists, Lists, and Mysterious Books

I’ve found that when I use the words “mystery” or “detectives” or hint at discussing a plot that might be concealed or characters who might be connected to crime, the post gets a LOT more views. So I’ll be talking about that starting next week. But for now, I’ll just review the books I have and what I’ve done with them.Facets of Fantasy was an early story collection that went through 2 phases. Like many people’s early writing, it was imitative, didn’t have much of a voice, and held nothing really special. It was easy for people to feel this collection should define me, since it was often the first book of mine they read. That’s nonsense and it was just beginner work.Ryan and Essie is going to get a new cover and has been emerging over time. It took a long time to be completed, an unusually long time for me to publish it once it was done, and I’m comfortable with continuing to let it grow quietly.Bellevere House remains in the twilight zone for the time being. I’ll post about it now and then, but it no longer has an individual page or category.The Chronicles of Palladia is only partially done. Palladia overall is an important part of my work and really showcases the subtle murkiness of “YA” fiction as there’s a tone in it that makes it “YA” and not for kids even though parts of the story feel so young.Everwood is kind of a funny blip. It’s an odd story—sort of funny, but about this complete idiot. She really is the stupidest girl in history and I’m not completely sure why I thought of this story. But it’s sort of entertaining and I packaged it with one of the Facets stories (the one that went best with it) to make a book long enough to print.A Year with the Harrisons is poking along gently. It’s a delightful, very sweet story. It meanders along peacefully, part The Andy Griffith Show and part Little Women. In spite of most characters being adults, I actually feel it’s very much appealing to kids too, which startles me when I consider how it was initially marketed in the past.The Test of Devotion was needed at the time it was published. There were a lot of things going on in my family life at home and the symbolism of westerns helped me to manage this difficult time. Although it’s actually one of my best-written stories, it’s not the best-written books that stay with us—it’s the ones that we need.Victoria: A Tale of Spain is evolving a tiny bit. The idea has changed from something dramatic and historical into more of a crime-mystery story and I’d like to add a touch of Christian content to Victoria’s personality as well. Most of the books I’m keeping are Christian (rather than the vaguer “clean”) and reaching out to God through her adventures is probably something Victoria should be doing.  
And there will be more updates. 

The Lifetime Preparation Award

This trophy, if there is such a thing, should go to Palladia. As I’ve mentioned, people don’t usually ask what my motives are for writing, but they have asked me to justify something specific I said or did. (They assume they know my overall motive.) But my motive for writing Palladia is very simple, although it may not be known about—the story was so deeply buried in my psyche I didn’t know it was even there. For a long time I thought it was another long fantasy story I was doing, or maybe a couple of other stories. And then when it first began, it was a little short novella on its own that I didn’t believe had any connection to anything else I’d written.

I’ve always wanted to tell a certain story. That is why I write—because I have a story to tell. I just haven’t told it yet. The books I’ve sorted out to keep on my website all hold little pieces of it or provide perspective on it (Which is why I kept them.) But the Story is yet to be written. And after months of working on many other things, for archive purposes, I realized Palladia could be this story. When I was younger I wanted to write the Kind-of-Book-That-Gets-Made-Into-A-Movie. It’s long, sometimes it’s a series, there’s a lot to it, it seems to have hundreds of characters, and people relate to it. They feel it’s not just a story. It’s something that matters to people.

I would see posters and ads for such things all the time—staring faces of actors and actresses looking down at me above covers of big books that people cared about. Like Harry Potter, which was a phenomenon long before I published anything. Not that I read Potter, but the thought would flash through my mind like a perpetual beeping siren “I want to be like that.” When I told people this, they would chuckle mildly and believe they’d disguised that from me. Of course, I hadn’t published anything then. It’s been many years since I was that 19-year-old girl who wanted her books made into movies. I’ve gone down a lot of roads in life and gone through lonely times, busy times, hard times, stupid times. And all along the way, the Story continued to be written. Every place I’ve ever been has grown a part of it.

And there will be more updates.

Yes, Yes, It's Hot

The title of this blog post is pretty self-explanatory. It’s mid-July now and my home is starting to look like a savannah. I’ve lived here much longer than many people have been alive (ha, so if you’re younger than I am, you have less experience and know less. You have also not seen as many hot, hot summers, although I’m not sure that that’s a point against you.)

Anyway (tee hee, rambling here) we’ve been swimming once a week over the last month. We missed swimming or did it rarely for several years and we found it really was something we liked doing. Just dipping in a local splashy pool for a while until you work up a comfortable scent of chlorine, then find a little chair, put a towel on it, and watch the little kids hop around and yell. At least, that’s what I do. My sister goes and sits under a fountain that drops huge buckets of water on her head.

I have been very tired recently and am possibly getting slow and belated heat tiredness, especially since we swim in the bright-and-sunny afternoon. Two years ago we went to the pool on the 3rd of July, lay beside it for hours, and came home with horrible heatstroke the next day. Which was the 4th of July. So we couldn’t enjoy the food at all, we felt run over by a truck, and my dad was talking about some movie and I couldn’t even answer him. I was just in a dazed stupor that felt sick. Since that time I’ve been more careful and I’ve never felt like THAT again. That was weird. But still—lots of sun can get into your brain.

Which is why I’m writing about it, obviously.

And there will be more updates.

Failure and Writers (Surprisingly It Isn't There)

After writing and writing and writing for years, I bounced around and worked on a lot of stuff. A lot of it honestly weaker and more boring than what I’d like to do. But you have to start somewhere. Think of all the authors you’ve heard of or admire. Most likely they’re well-known—or you like them—for just a handful of the things they’ve published. Just 5 or 6 books out of dozens they might have written. Only 2 or 3 of those really, really spoke to people—and possibly spoke to you. The rest is just keeping busy. Just learning skills, writing more and more, building a portfolio. You can’t expect too much from these works if you write them and if you’re living with an author (of any age or experience level) you can’t expect too much either.

Often if an author doesn’t have that book right away, relatives and friends are far too willing to get impatient and throw in the towel on them. Or at least, put lots and lots of pressure to “accomplish” something soon. This is very faulty thinking and often so much impatience betrays a desire for the person to give up. Other times, it comes from simply not understanding how the process works. Writing is something you have to invest in over a long time and if people live with you, they are also investing in it. When I wrote all these now weaker or more uninteresting works, even works that weren’t successful, I was “accomplishing” something. I was building up credits and activity.

After a long time, that body of work simply starts to reach a tipping point where bit by bit you’ve chipped away enough that people know you’re there. Every little bit adds to the picture. It doesn’t matter if even a decade has gone by with no discernible “breakthrough.” For an author, that is absolutely normal. It often takes even longer than that. It’s also common in other forms of entertainment, and in pretty much every walk of life actually.

At least when it comes to authors, patience is still a virtue. And people who don’t practice it are doing wrong.

And there will be more updates.

The Language of The Harrisons

In A Year with the Harrisons, I didn't care overly much about correct speech, going at all times for a very natural-sounding flow of language. The way people really speak isn't correct whatsoever, and I don't get a thing out of stiff fictional dialogue. Having characters with perfect speech patterns, never an error of grammar, syntax, or word usage, is like having characters with all their flaws ironed out. I don't think I'd like to marry a perfect man. I wouldn't know what to talk to him about. And characters with perfect speech are like perfect anything else-not real. 

I actually don't care much about language overall. When anyone mentions "editing" I know it's only a veiled way of saying they thought the story was boring and they didn't overly like it. Books that interest readers never, ever get the dreaded editing conversation, no matter how flawed they are. (Or how filled with actual errors.) I was amazed by how many typos were in the old Facebook document of A Year with the Harrisons, typos that were never mentioned, whereas even a few tiny errors were discussed seriously in other stories. That's because, whatever its weaknesses, people did think Harrisons was interesting. And being interesting makes so many, many things in a book suddenly forgivable. 

Language communicates what we care about. If we care about it, we don't care how it is said--as everyone with a small child overlooks that their little gifts to Mom are clumsy, crayon-drawn, and illegible. She sees only the most lovely thing and just exactly what she wanted. But since no one is allowed to say a book is boring these days (because that conversation, once started, would never end) we notice their "errors," "editing," and "typos." 

And there will be more updates. 

Don't Ask, Don't Know

The first invalid assumption you can make is that things are opposed to each other. In my earlier post I talked about “Fat One vs. Thin One” mentality, drawing from the argument about extreme body types for women. These two women are not enemies. They are working together to distract from the millions of overlooked other women, with overlooked bodies and overlooked feelings about body image.

Result? No one ever asks; Why aren’t THOSE women ever shown in media? I look like a typical woman. Why do no actresses and models look like ME? (Not like someone fat. Like ME.)

The same is true of Star Wars, for example. Instead of asking, “Why didn’t the fans like the prequels” or “why are they kicking recent Star Wars actresses off of Instagram” people should ignore this whole argument and ask, “Why do you care about Star Wars at all? How can cheesy action movies inspire so much hysteria?”

Books vs. Movies, another golden Fat One/Thin One. Instead of arguing because “the movie can NEVER be as good as the book” you should ask, “The movie is an acted-out version of a book. What are you getting out of the book that the movie can’t offer?”

For my books, the same is true. People have never asked me WHY I wrote any of my books. They have often compared me to other people, other authors, or just other young women in what they believed was my situation. They’ve often also set up my writing against an imaginary other life I might be very suited to. (THIS IS ANOTHER FAT ONE/THIN ONE!) But they’ve never asked me WHY I want to write or what was my motive behind doing a particular story.

You see, if you create arguments that aren’t there, you will be talking about something that doesn’t matter, and you’ll never get to the truth. If you wanted to find out something, you should have been asking another question from the start.

And there will be more updates.