Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 193
October 10, 2013
More Wacky Morality
I barely survived the kindergarteners last night. I had no energy and not much in the way of lesson plans. The main thing we had to do was work on the song we're singing in church the Sunday after next. My problem child was in full-on brat mode, and it spread to all the other kids. When we were singing the song, he started doing it in funny voices and then making up his own crude words. The other kids followed suit. I shut off the music and gave them the full guilt treatment, reminding them that when we sing in church, we're singing to God and asking if that's how they talk to God. That settled them down enough that we were able to practice together with the preschool choir. I'm still worried about what they'll do in front of an audience. Problem Child is the type who would choose that time to act out and get attention.
Otherwise, Beethoven saved my bacon. We had a rhythm stick day, first seeing if we could copy rhythms. Then I showed them how music can sound like other things, and we made a rainstorm using the sticks. And then I put on the "Tempest" movement of the 6th Symphony, and it turns out last year wasn't a fluke. They listened to it in rapt near-silence. I still had more than five minutes left, so we got out the crayons, passed out paper and had them draw what the music sounded like to them. I may check the Peter and the Wolf CD out of the library and start introducing them to that, bit by bit. Small children seem remarkably receptive to classical music if you present it to them as something cool rather than treating it like musical broccoli that they should only consume because it's good for them. If I can just instill a love for music in general in these kids, I figure I'll have done my job.
I've been thinking more about yesterday's wacky morality post and realized even more weirdness with the Star Wars universe. Supposedly, it would start Luke down the path to the Dark Side if he killed the Emperor to save his friends, the Rebel forces, the Ewoks and pretty much the whole galaxy in general. And yet, killing the Emperor to save his son was what redeemed Darth Vader and turned him away from the Dark Side. So apparently the same action can either doom you or save you, depending on where you start, and personal motives are better than big-picture motives? And it also seems that shooting down fighter pilots or shooting stormtroopers has nothing to do with your dark vs. light status (since no moral questions were ever raised about that), but killing the person who's sending them into battle will make you evil. Moving that into our world, it's like saying it was perfectly okay to mow down all the German troops (many of whom were conscripted) and bomb German cities, but it would have forever darkened your soul to take out Hitler one-on-one.
I don't know if this is really a black and white vs. shades of gray issue. It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, there's the view that the villains are bad and should be dealt with accordingly. On the other, there's the idea that villains act one way and heroes act another way, and if a hero acts like a villain (regardless of motive), it's bad, but if a villain ever acts like a hero, then it's good. So killing is bad for the hero, except for killing the villain's minions, which is okay. But if the villain kills the right person, he's redeemed.
This issue may be why Grimm was my favorite of the fairy tale shows. I think they've shown Nick to be a pure white hat because he's taken a cop's approach to his family legacy, treating each creature he comes across as an individual case. He's not "kill 'em all" like his ancestors, but rather befriends and helps those who need help and deals with the ones who are a threat, whether they're a threat to humans or to other creatures. He may feel some remorse when he's forced to kill, especially when it's someone acting more out of biological imperative than out of sheer malice, but there's no implication that he's turning toward any kind of dark side when he does so. He's a good person trying to help the greater good, even if that sometimes gets messy, and I don't get the impression that we're expected to question his morals.
Otherwise, Beethoven saved my bacon. We had a rhythm stick day, first seeing if we could copy rhythms. Then I showed them how music can sound like other things, and we made a rainstorm using the sticks. And then I put on the "Tempest" movement of the 6th Symphony, and it turns out last year wasn't a fluke. They listened to it in rapt near-silence. I still had more than five minutes left, so we got out the crayons, passed out paper and had them draw what the music sounded like to them. I may check the Peter and the Wolf CD out of the library and start introducing them to that, bit by bit. Small children seem remarkably receptive to classical music if you present it to them as something cool rather than treating it like musical broccoli that they should only consume because it's good for them. If I can just instill a love for music in general in these kids, I figure I'll have done my job.
I've been thinking more about yesterday's wacky morality post and realized even more weirdness with the Star Wars universe. Supposedly, it would start Luke down the path to the Dark Side if he killed the Emperor to save his friends, the Rebel forces, the Ewoks and pretty much the whole galaxy in general. And yet, killing the Emperor to save his son was what redeemed Darth Vader and turned him away from the Dark Side. So apparently the same action can either doom you or save you, depending on where you start, and personal motives are better than big-picture motives? And it also seems that shooting down fighter pilots or shooting stormtroopers has nothing to do with your dark vs. light status (since no moral questions were ever raised about that), but killing the person who's sending them into battle will make you evil. Moving that into our world, it's like saying it was perfectly okay to mow down all the German troops (many of whom were conscripted) and bomb German cities, but it would have forever darkened your soul to take out Hitler one-on-one.
I don't know if this is really a black and white vs. shades of gray issue. It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, there's the view that the villains are bad and should be dealt with accordingly. On the other, there's the idea that villains act one way and heroes act another way, and if a hero acts like a villain (regardless of motive), it's bad, but if a villain ever acts like a hero, then it's good. So killing is bad for the hero, except for killing the villain's minions, which is okay. But if the villain kills the right person, he's redeemed.
This issue may be why Grimm was my favorite of the fairy tale shows. I think they've shown Nick to be a pure white hat because he's taken a cop's approach to his family legacy, treating each creature he comes across as an individual case. He's not "kill 'em all" like his ancestors, but rather befriends and helps those who need help and deals with the ones who are a threat, whether they're a threat to humans or to other creatures. He may feel some remorse when he's forced to kill, especially when it's someone acting more out of biological imperative than out of sheer malice, but there's no implication that he's turning toward any kind of dark side when he does so. He's a good person trying to help the greater good, even if that sometimes gets messy, and I don't get the impression that we're expected to question his morals.
October 9, 2013
Wacky Morality
I think I'm starting to recover, as I managed to sleep late this morning, which means I'm unwinding. The knee is only slightly stiff and not at all painful. I can walk and manage the stairs normally. I'm still not sure about anything more intense, which could make children's choir tonight interesting. If the improvement continues, I may attempt the beginning ballet class tomorrow night as a substitute for the class I missed last night. We'll see. It might be wiser to give the knee an entire week off.
I was reminded yesterday that I never did any posts inspired by WorldCon panels. I guess I went straight from WorldCon to preparing for FenCon, and my brain never caught up. The main panel that inspired lots of blogworthy thoughts was, oddly enough, the one on Star Wars. David Brin said some really thought-provoking things about the morality in that universe that I think also apply to the way morality is perceived in general in a lot of modern entertainment. He also had a very interesting thesis about Yoda being the most evil character in the series because at just about every critical turning point, he either did something or refused to act, which resulted in things turning out the wrong way. And there are some crazy things like assigning the training of the most potentially powerful Jedi ever to the rookie who's barely finished his own training or letting the only remaining potential Jedi grow up with no training at all, when they're supposed to be the last hope.
But the main thing that made me think was the weird morality that stacks the deck against the good guys. Brin talked about how in the confrontation with the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor is gloating about the number of people he's about to kill, and the gist of it is that Luke killing the bad guy to stop him from doing bad stuff will be what makes Luke turn evil. That reminded me of the wacky morality in the TV series Once Upon a Time, where killing the evil sorceress who's about to wipe out the entire town and who killed her mother and set most of the things that destroyed her life in motion leaves a "black spot" on Snow White's heart. As in the Star Wars universe, the villains can run amok, then do one good thing and be totally redeemed, but the good guys will go bad if they actually do something to stop the bad guys from running amok.
I think they're trying to show how good, sweet and nice Snow White is, but to me she looks like a terrible ruler who puts her own emotions ahead of the good of her people. They intercut the "current" story with flashbacks from the fairytale past, and those are non-linear, so you see events out of order. We saw the bit where they'd actually caught the evil queen and put her on trial, but Snow White wouldn't execute her, and they knew they couldn't hold someone with her power in prison, so they just let her go. Since then, we've learned this came after she slaughtered a whole village for revenge and held another whole village hostage. Since they let her go, she's enacted a curse on their whole world that yanked everyone out of their lives and left their world in ruins, and she's killed even more people. But executing her after a trial would have darkened the good guys, while letting her keep hurting innocent people is perfectly okay?
It's hard enough to be a hero without all sorts of wacky rules about what a hero is allowed to do, even to a villain and even to help protect innocent people. If you can't kill a villain in order to keep the unrepentant villain from hurting more people, how are you supposed to win?
This doesn't come from the original tales, where the villains were thoroughly punished. Cinderella's stepsisters got their eyes poked out by birds. Villains might also get put in barrels studded with nails and dragged through town. Fairytale heroes were supposed to be kind to animals, the poor, old people and those who weren't obviously attractive, but they were under no obligation to let villains walk all over them. I think some of the problem comes from poor planning, so that the power balance or competence balance between the hero and the villain is off, and that means shifting the rules around to keep the hero from winning until the story is over. If one action by the hero could end the story and stop all the misery, it's easier to come up with a reason why the hero can't just take that one action than to revise the story to keep things more in balance so that it takes more than just that one action.
I was reminded yesterday that I never did any posts inspired by WorldCon panels. I guess I went straight from WorldCon to preparing for FenCon, and my brain never caught up. The main panel that inspired lots of blogworthy thoughts was, oddly enough, the one on Star Wars. David Brin said some really thought-provoking things about the morality in that universe that I think also apply to the way morality is perceived in general in a lot of modern entertainment. He also had a very interesting thesis about Yoda being the most evil character in the series because at just about every critical turning point, he either did something or refused to act, which resulted in things turning out the wrong way. And there are some crazy things like assigning the training of the most potentially powerful Jedi ever to the rookie who's barely finished his own training or letting the only remaining potential Jedi grow up with no training at all, when they're supposed to be the last hope.
But the main thing that made me think was the weird morality that stacks the deck against the good guys. Brin talked about how in the confrontation with the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor is gloating about the number of people he's about to kill, and the gist of it is that Luke killing the bad guy to stop him from doing bad stuff will be what makes Luke turn evil. That reminded me of the wacky morality in the TV series Once Upon a Time, where killing the evil sorceress who's about to wipe out the entire town and who killed her mother and set most of the things that destroyed her life in motion leaves a "black spot" on Snow White's heart. As in the Star Wars universe, the villains can run amok, then do one good thing and be totally redeemed, but the good guys will go bad if they actually do something to stop the bad guys from running amok.
I think they're trying to show how good, sweet and nice Snow White is, but to me she looks like a terrible ruler who puts her own emotions ahead of the good of her people. They intercut the "current" story with flashbacks from the fairytale past, and those are non-linear, so you see events out of order. We saw the bit where they'd actually caught the evil queen and put her on trial, but Snow White wouldn't execute her, and they knew they couldn't hold someone with her power in prison, so they just let her go. Since then, we've learned this came after she slaughtered a whole village for revenge and held another whole village hostage. Since they let her go, she's enacted a curse on their whole world that yanked everyone out of their lives and left their world in ruins, and she's killed even more people. But executing her after a trial would have darkened the good guys, while letting her keep hurting innocent people is perfectly okay?
It's hard enough to be a hero without all sorts of wacky rules about what a hero is allowed to do, even to a villain and even to help protect innocent people. If you can't kill a villain in order to keep the unrepentant villain from hurting more people, how are you supposed to win?
This doesn't come from the original tales, where the villains were thoroughly punished. Cinderella's stepsisters got their eyes poked out by birds. Villains might also get put in barrels studded with nails and dragged through town. Fairytale heroes were supposed to be kind to animals, the poor, old people and those who weren't obviously attractive, but they were under no obligation to let villains walk all over them. I think some of the problem comes from poor planning, so that the power balance or competence balance between the hero and the villain is off, and that means shifting the rules around to keep the hero from winning until the story is over. If one action by the hero could end the story and stop all the misery, it's easier to come up with a reason why the hero can't just take that one action than to revise the story to keep things more in balance so that it takes more than just that one action.
October 8, 2013
Coming Attractions
I'm more mobile today -- mobile enough to make a grocery store/library run, but probably not mobile enough for ballet. The knee no longer really hurts, and I can walk normally, but it's still stiff and not quite up to anything more than ordinary walking, so I think I'm going to continue taking it easy. Heat seems to help, so I will probably spend much of the day with the heat wrap thing wrapped around it. I mostly got caught up with last week's TV yesterday, so today I might try doing some writing, if I can make my brain focus. I might need one more day of winding down mentally.
I had semi-joked about wanting next weekend to be rainy so I can have a good stay-at-home-and-relax time, but now it looks like I'm really going to get it. It won't also be a good cold snap like we had last weekend, but at least it should be nice and gray for curling up with a good book or two, listening to music and maybe doing some book brainstorming.
And now my brain has gone totally blank. I'm afraid that I don't have the mental energy for the meaty posts that are brewing after the weekend, but I don't really know of anything else to say.
On second thought, there may not be writing today.
Some discussion you might look forward to in the future:
"White hat" heroes vs. "black hat" heroes (I'm already doing some of this in my writing posts, but you can expect a lot more discussion here)
Why folklore makes a good basis for fantasy fiction, and which areas are still there to be tapped
How fantasy is evolving and how that evolution is marketed (and accepted -- or not)
What's cool on TV now
A final word of advice: If you're playing improv games and the one comes up where you're expected to make up lyrics on the fly, and you can't even write lyrics when given ample time, a big, high note to back up someone else finishing the song always works.
I had semi-joked about wanting next weekend to be rainy so I can have a good stay-at-home-and-relax time, but now it looks like I'm really going to get it. It won't also be a good cold snap like we had last weekend, but at least it should be nice and gray for curling up with a good book or two, listening to music and maybe doing some book brainstorming.
And now my brain has gone totally blank. I'm afraid that I don't have the mental energy for the meaty posts that are brewing after the weekend, but I don't really know of anything else to say.
On second thought, there may not be writing today.
Some discussion you might look forward to in the future:
"White hat" heroes vs. "black hat" heroes (I'm already doing some of this in my writing posts, but you can expect a lot more discussion here)
Why folklore makes a good basis for fantasy fiction, and which areas are still there to be tapped
How fantasy is evolving and how that evolution is marketed (and accepted -- or not)
What's cool on TV now
A final word of advice: If you're playing improv games and the one comes up where you're expected to make up lyrics on the fly, and you can't even write lyrics when given ample time, a big, high note to back up someone else finishing the song always works.
October 7, 2013
Convention Recovery
Today is recovery day from FenCon. I was going to try to go over and help with the final clean-up, but I apparently overdid the work I did tearing down last night because my bad knee is non-functioning this morning. Walking is a slow and painful process. It may loosen up throughout the day with rest and gentle movement, but by then it will be too late for me to be able to help.
In spite of today's physical pain, I think this may have been my favorite FenCon so far. Part of it may have been the later than usual date, which meant my ragweed allergies weren't in full force, so I was able to actually enjoy the convention. I wasn't sick, like last year. Thanks to a video I did for the opening ceremonies, I was more famous and recognized than I've ever been (nearly a decade of novels and I get mildly recognized, one four-minute video and I got fannish adoration from famous people). They kept me very busy on panels, so that I always had something going on during the day, and when I wasn't working, I was helping the tech crew or the staff lounge. I also seemed to interact more with the guests of honor, which I often don't get the chance to do. I had a really nice lunch chat with Teresa Nielsen Hayden. She was very active on a Usenet writing forum I used to frequent, and though she understandably didn't remember me (I don't know if I ever got up the nerve to post), the fact that I remembered her got the conversational ball rolling. I spent a fair amount of time with Charles Vess, helping him with a computer issue, and he gave me chocolate, so I think I'm now a forever fan. I'm not a very visual person, so art isn't a big thing for me, but I did buy a copy of the print of artwork he did for the convention because something about it spoke to me and I think it will need to find a place on my office wall. Or maybe my bedroom wall. Anyway, it will need to go somewhere once I finish whatever redecorating I decide to do.
In spite of being a music person, I've never managed to hear much of the musical programming at the convention, but I made a point of hearing Heather Dale after listening to her sound check. Just checking the microphones, she had a lovely voice and excellent pitch (I have pitch issues), so I had to hear her actually perform. And then I had to buy a CD. We chatted for a while, and she guided me to one that actually fits perfectly with what I'm currently writing because it's all songs inspired by folklore about fairies -- and not the cute kind. I have a feeling I will end up getting more of her music and becoming a raging fangirl.
Meanwhile, I now have a celebrity endorsement for my chocolate chip cookies, as I fed Amber Benson after a panel we had together. We also geeked out over Harry Potter together on the panel, agreeing that we kind of want to crawl inside the books.
I ended up having a lot of fun with the Whose Line is it Anyway game, although I'm still not great at improv. I was the one playing the "hostess" in the party guests game, and I did manage to guess them all. I saw cameras in the audience, so there will likely be photos surfacing.
I got lots and lots of blog fodder ideas from the various panels I was on, so you can look forward to that over the coming weeks.
Here's a nice photo essay the local newspaper did about the convention (My PR coup). You may have to go through a screen offering you a subscription, but just click on the "free version" button. The Doctor Who panel I moderated is included. I was the crazy person who decided to include the Dalek on the panel (he didn't say much). I'm the one in the red top toward the middle of the panel.
In spite of today's physical pain, I think this may have been my favorite FenCon so far. Part of it may have been the later than usual date, which meant my ragweed allergies weren't in full force, so I was able to actually enjoy the convention. I wasn't sick, like last year. Thanks to a video I did for the opening ceremonies, I was more famous and recognized than I've ever been (nearly a decade of novels and I get mildly recognized, one four-minute video and I got fannish adoration from famous people). They kept me very busy on panels, so that I always had something going on during the day, and when I wasn't working, I was helping the tech crew or the staff lounge. I also seemed to interact more with the guests of honor, which I often don't get the chance to do. I had a really nice lunch chat with Teresa Nielsen Hayden. She was very active on a Usenet writing forum I used to frequent, and though she understandably didn't remember me (I don't know if I ever got up the nerve to post), the fact that I remembered her got the conversational ball rolling. I spent a fair amount of time with Charles Vess, helping him with a computer issue, and he gave me chocolate, so I think I'm now a forever fan. I'm not a very visual person, so art isn't a big thing for me, but I did buy a copy of the print of artwork he did for the convention because something about it spoke to me and I think it will need to find a place on my office wall. Or maybe my bedroom wall. Anyway, it will need to go somewhere once I finish whatever redecorating I decide to do.
In spite of being a music person, I've never managed to hear much of the musical programming at the convention, but I made a point of hearing Heather Dale after listening to her sound check. Just checking the microphones, she had a lovely voice and excellent pitch (I have pitch issues), so I had to hear her actually perform. And then I had to buy a CD. We chatted for a while, and she guided me to one that actually fits perfectly with what I'm currently writing because it's all songs inspired by folklore about fairies -- and not the cute kind. I have a feeling I will end up getting more of her music and becoming a raging fangirl.
Meanwhile, I now have a celebrity endorsement for my chocolate chip cookies, as I fed Amber Benson after a panel we had together. We also geeked out over Harry Potter together on the panel, agreeing that we kind of want to crawl inside the books.
I ended up having a lot of fun with the Whose Line is it Anyway game, although I'm still not great at improv. I was the one playing the "hostess" in the party guests game, and I did manage to guess them all. I saw cameras in the audience, so there will likely be photos surfacing.
I got lots and lots of blog fodder ideas from the various panels I was on, so you can look forward to that over the coming weeks.
Here's a nice photo essay the local newspaper did about the convention (My PR coup). You may have to go through a screen offering you a subscription, but just click on the "free version" button. The Doctor Who panel I moderated is included. I was the crazy person who decided to include the Dalek on the panel (he didn't say much). I'm the one in the red top toward the middle of the panel.
October 4, 2013
Convention Time!
I'm getting ready to head to FenCon. It was a little unnerving when they were still working on the hotel yesterday afternoon as we were setting up. They'd done a major remodeling project that was supposed to be done by this weekend, but there were still rooms that were gutted and they were still running electrical wires and hanging light fixtures late into the night. It will be exciting to see how much is done this morning. I was up there until nearly 11, helping hang things from the ceiling in the main ballroom and setting up some of the stage lighting, after spending much of the afternoon helping test microphones and slicing things in the hospitality suite. I guess I was trying to see how many departments I could be involved with.
I've got some cookies in the oven now, and then I have to go over early to provide some Mac tech support to one of the guests. I just took a really good look at my programming schedule, other than glancing at it to see that I had programming, and my, but I'll be busy. I've got panels on Doctor Who, Star Trek, fantasy in general, other TV stuff, heroes and villains, etc. They're also doing a geeky version of Whose Line is it Anyway that I somehow got drafted for. I don't think well on my feet (I need a lot of pondering time), so that should be interesting.
And now I'd better get dressed and get over there so I can pretend to play computer guru. A full report on convention fun will be coming next week.
I've got some cookies in the oven now, and then I have to go over early to provide some Mac tech support to one of the guests. I just took a really good look at my programming schedule, other than glancing at it to see that I had programming, and my, but I'll be busy. I've got panels on Doctor Who, Star Trek, fantasy in general, other TV stuff, heroes and villains, etc. They're also doing a geeky version of Whose Line is it Anyway that I somehow got drafted for. I don't think well on my feet (I need a lot of pondering time), so that should be interesting.
And now I'd better get dressed and get over there so I can pretend to play computer guru. A full report on convention fun will be coming next week.
October 3, 2013
PR Flashbacks and Convention Prep
The FenCon fun is about to begin in earnest. Once I wrap up a few things, I'll be heading over to help set up. Then tomorrow the convention begins. I've had more success in my PR efforts this year, and it's reminding me of my love/hate relationship with that field. There is a kind of high you get when you're promoting something you really believe in and you manage to find just the right person to pitch it to. It's also fun playing knowledge resource, the one who can find the right information to help a reporter. That's sometimes enough to make up for all those pitches that are totally ignored. I spent a lot of yesterday helping a photo assignments editor pick the right event during the convention to send a photographer to. I don't think I want to go back to work at a PR job, though. Doing this once a year is enough.
I've decided to read excerpts from the book currently in search of a good home for my reading. I've edited together snippets from the introductory scenes of the major characters. I may need to do a little more internal trimming, as my last read-through came to about 23 minutes, and I have about a 25-minute slot (30 minutes, with time to clear the room and let the next person in). I need a little more breathing room than that. There may also be cookies, if that helps entice people.
I got a week off from the kids because instead of having choir, they had a special kid-oriented worship service. I went because they asked choir directors to be there in case there were kids whose parents were at other activities, and it was really cute. They let the kids take the lead on a lot of things, and you haven't seen adorable until you've seen a four-year-old playing usher and passing the offering plate, very very earnestly.
Now I need to read through my reading excerpt one more time, check the video using my TV as a monitor, then head over to the convention hotel. Fortunately, it's not that far away.
I've decided to read excerpts from the book currently in search of a good home for my reading. I've edited together snippets from the introductory scenes of the major characters. I may need to do a little more internal trimming, as my last read-through came to about 23 minutes, and I have about a 25-minute slot (30 minutes, with time to clear the room and let the next person in). I need a little more breathing room than that. There may also be cookies, if that helps entice people.
I got a week off from the kids because instead of having choir, they had a special kid-oriented worship service. I went because they asked choir directors to be there in case there were kids whose parents were at other activities, and it was really cute. They let the kids take the lead on a lot of things, and you haven't seen adorable until you've seen a four-year-old playing usher and passing the offering plate, very very earnestly.
Now I need to read through my reading excerpt one more time, check the video using my TV as a monitor, then head over to the convention hotel. Fortunately, it's not that far away.
October 2, 2013
The Reluctant Hero
I'm still talking about types of heroes, and this week the spotlight is on the reluctant hero.
In a way, every hero should be at least a little bit reluctant for at least part of the story. A refusal of the call to adventure is even a part of the hero's journey. Being a hero is difficult. Not just anyone can do it, and showing the hero wrestling with the decision helps demonstrate that this isn't something that can be taken lightly. But there are varying degrees of reluctance.
Some of the more "comic book" style heroes -- the larger-than-life superheroes -- may show little reluctance. They've accepted that heroism is their calling, and they leap into the fray when they're needed. Even so, the origin stories for these heroes usually involve some moment of reluctance, refusal or self-doubt before they take on the cape and tights in earnest. Today's audiences may be a little less accepting of this kind of hero, though. The more recent superhero movie adaptations have put more emphasis on the heroes wrestling with or running from their fates. Even James Bond in his latest movie spent some time just hanging out before he was forced back into action. Being "relatable" is important in today's fiction, and it may be hard for many people to relate to a hero who doesn't at least stop to think before taking on the role of hero.
The "refusal of the call" may also come at different parts of the journey. An eager, naive hero who desperately wants to be a hero and have adventures may jump at the chance, with no hesitation, only to waver when things prove to be more difficult than he expected. He may even try to back out and return home, only to find that it's too late, that he's in this up to his ears and has no choice but to complete the journey, so that he spends the rest of the story, up to the final turning point where he learns a valuable lesson, reluctant.
Another common reluctant hero trope is the hero who just wants to be left alone. He may have already had his moment of heroism that wasn't as glorious as they make it out to be, or he may have suffered a great loss, and now he wants to look out for himself, without having to worry about anything else. When something happens that makes him needed, he tries to avoid it. He tries to stay out of the way and claims it's none of his business. He may try to play mentor and coach someone else into taking on the hero's role while staying out of it, himself. But eventually his better nature and sense of duty win out, and he joins the fray. We see this a lot in Westerns, where our loner hero is usually an embittered Civil War veteran who lost his family and who has moved out west to be left alone, until the nearby town is threatened by bandits, etc. Or there's The Road Warrior, in which Mad Max would prefer to be left alone but gets drawn into the fight to help save the community. At the end, this hero may join the community or continue his loner ways until he's needed again.
This may also happen with someone who feels he's a failure -- he tried being a hero but failed, or his efforts backfired. Now he doesn't want to get involved because he's afraid he'll fail again or fears he's no good for anyone. The last person he tried to help died, and he doesn't want to risk that again. He'll fight getting involved because he really does believe that it's better for everyone that he stay out of it. This kind of hero may take something extreme to get him back in action, like a dire situation that only he can deal with combined with a swift kick in the pants from a sidekick. His story becomes a redemption story as he makes up for his past failures with his heroism and emerges reborn as a changed man.
The reluctant hero can verge on being an anti-hero if he's a person who would normally be doing non-heroic things but who finds himself going against his own nature to help others. This is the Han Solo type. We're told that he was a smuggler, but during his entire time in the story, he's doing heroic things, even though he keeps insisting he's only doing it for money until he can't help but come back to join the final battle.
I think the reluctant hero is popular because he reacts the way we might imagine we'd react in a crisis -- we might complain and resist or be afraid, but when we're really needed, we might pull ourselves together and do the right thing. There's also a lot of potential for a growth arc, where we can see the hero be transformed. If he's already perfect and willing at the start, there's nowhere for him to go.
In a way, every hero should be at least a little bit reluctant for at least part of the story. A refusal of the call to adventure is even a part of the hero's journey. Being a hero is difficult. Not just anyone can do it, and showing the hero wrestling with the decision helps demonstrate that this isn't something that can be taken lightly. But there are varying degrees of reluctance.
Some of the more "comic book" style heroes -- the larger-than-life superheroes -- may show little reluctance. They've accepted that heroism is their calling, and they leap into the fray when they're needed. Even so, the origin stories for these heroes usually involve some moment of reluctance, refusal or self-doubt before they take on the cape and tights in earnest. Today's audiences may be a little less accepting of this kind of hero, though. The more recent superhero movie adaptations have put more emphasis on the heroes wrestling with or running from their fates. Even James Bond in his latest movie spent some time just hanging out before he was forced back into action. Being "relatable" is important in today's fiction, and it may be hard for many people to relate to a hero who doesn't at least stop to think before taking on the role of hero.
The "refusal of the call" may also come at different parts of the journey. An eager, naive hero who desperately wants to be a hero and have adventures may jump at the chance, with no hesitation, only to waver when things prove to be more difficult than he expected. He may even try to back out and return home, only to find that it's too late, that he's in this up to his ears and has no choice but to complete the journey, so that he spends the rest of the story, up to the final turning point where he learns a valuable lesson, reluctant.
Another common reluctant hero trope is the hero who just wants to be left alone. He may have already had his moment of heroism that wasn't as glorious as they make it out to be, or he may have suffered a great loss, and now he wants to look out for himself, without having to worry about anything else. When something happens that makes him needed, he tries to avoid it. He tries to stay out of the way and claims it's none of his business. He may try to play mentor and coach someone else into taking on the hero's role while staying out of it, himself. But eventually his better nature and sense of duty win out, and he joins the fray. We see this a lot in Westerns, where our loner hero is usually an embittered Civil War veteran who lost his family and who has moved out west to be left alone, until the nearby town is threatened by bandits, etc. Or there's The Road Warrior, in which Mad Max would prefer to be left alone but gets drawn into the fight to help save the community. At the end, this hero may join the community or continue his loner ways until he's needed again.
This may also happen with someone who feels he's a failure -- he tried being a hero but failed, or his efforts backfired. Now he doesn't want to get involved because he's afraid he'll fail again or fears he's no good for anyone. The last person he tried to help died, and he doesn't want to risk that again. He'll fight getting involved because he really does believe that it's better for everyone that he stay out of it. This kind of hero may take something extreme to get him back in action, like a dire situation that only he can deal with combined with a swift kick in the pants from a sidekick. His story becomes a redemption story as he makes up for his past failures with his heroism and emerges reborn as a changed man.
The reluctant hero can verge on being an anti-hero if he's a person who would normally be doing non-heroic things but who finds himself going against his own nature to help others. This is the Han Solo type. We're told that he was a smuggler, but during his entire time in the story, he's doing heroic things, even though he keeps insisting he's only doing it for money until he can't help but come back to join the final battle.
I think the reluctant hero is popular because he reacts the way we might imagine we'd react in a crisis -- we might complain and resist or be afraid, but when we're really needed, we might pull ourselves together and do the right thing. There's also a lot of potential for a growth arc, where we can see the hero be transformed. If he's already perfect and willing at the start, there's nowhere for him to go.
October 1, 2013
Breathing Time
I can't believe it's October. It doesn't feel like October. This year has gone by really quickly. I'm lost sometime in June or July. We still have some lingering summer, so it doesn't quite feel like fall, but that will come in a couple of weeks, and then it will be my favorite time of year.
Thinking this way got me started thinking about this time of year fifteen years ago. I went to a conference in Houston the first weekend of October, then when I went back to work, a former client who'd gone to work at a PR agency called me and asked me to lunch. It turned out that one of the companies I'd been doing PR for had consolidated their public relations at one agency, the one this person now worked for, and they wanted me to come work there to handle this client. I'd been intensely unhappy in my job for a while because of the way the agency where I worked was managed. The boss was a lot like Michael Scott on The Office, but more of a frat boy type. When I first went to work there, they seemed to judge everything based on your seniority at the company, so I had people supervising me who had a lot less experience than I did. But I stuck it out, and soon I had the seniority, but that didn't seem to count for much when a new person was suddenly promoted over my whole department, and she not only had less seniority, she had less experience, and she had zero people skills (to people below her -- she was great at sucking up to the boss). It didn't take much to make me want to leap. By the beginning of the next week, I'd accepted a job offer and handed in my resignation.
I'd learned from the last time I changed jobs that taking some time off in between jobs was a good idea, so I set my start date for the beginning of November, which gave me a week off plus my two-weeks notice. But because I was essentially working for The Firm, where leaving was considered a betrayal, I was supervised in packing up my office and then walked to the door when I resigned. That gave me most of October off, and it was sheer bliss.
I got a little taste of what it would be like to write full-time. I did do a lot of stuff around the house, as I'd moved in the previous summer and wasn't entirely done unpacking and settling in, but I got to set my own schedule. I took long walks to think and spent a lot of time reading and writing. I've recommended doing a trial run before making the leap to writing full-time, and this only made me want it more. The main thing for me wasn't so much the writing time as it was the time to breathe. Most of writing is thinking, and most of it happens away from the pen/keyboard. That's the time I was missing. Taking long walks and looking at the fall colors really is an important part of the writing process, and the time I spend writing is more productive if I've also had ample breathing time.
Little did I know that just a little more than three years later I'd be doing this full-time, for real. Since I'm not on a tight deadline this year, I need to remind myself of that year and how good it was for me to take the time to enjoy my favorite part of year.
Of course, that can't start until after FenCon. Then Fall Fest will begin!
Thinking this way got me started thinking about this time of year fifteen years ago. I went to a conference in Houston the first weekend of October, then when I went back to work, a former client who'd gone to work at a PR agency called me and asked me to lunch. It turned out that one of the companies I'd been doing PR for had consolidated their public relations at one agency, the one this person now worked for, and they wanted me to come work there to handle this client. I'd been intensely unhappy in my job for a while because of the way the agency where I worked was managed. The boss was a lot like Michael Scott on The Office, but more of a frat boy type. When I first went to work there, they seemed to judge everything based on your seniority at the company, so I had people supervising me who had a lot less experience than I did. But I stuck it out, and soon I had the seniority, but that didn't seem to count for much when a new person was suddenly promoted over my whole department, and she not only had less seniority, she had less experience, and she had zero people skills (to people below her -- she was great at sucking up to the boss). It didn't take much to make me want to leap. By the beginning of the next week, I'd accepted a job offer and handed in my resignation.
I'd learned from the last time I changed jobs that taking some time off in between jobs was a good idea, so I set my start date for the beginning of November, which gave me a week off plus my two-weeks notice. But because I was essentially working for The Firm, where leaving was considered a betrayal, I was supervised in packing up my office and then walked to the door when I resigned. That gave me most of October off, and it was sheer bliss.
I got a little taste of what it would be like to write full-time. I did do a lot of stuff around the house, as I'd moved in the previous summer and wasn't entirely done unpacking and settling in, but I got to set my own schedule. I took long walks to think and spent a lot of time reading and writing. I've recommended doing a trial run before making the leap to writing full-time, and this only made me want it more. The main thing for me wasn't so much the writing time as it was the time to breathe. Most of writing is thinking, and most of it happens away from the pen/keyboard. That's the time I was missing. Taking long walks and looking at the fall colors really is an important part of the writing process, and the time I spend writing is more productive if I've also had ample breathing time.
Little did I know that just a little more than three years later I'd be doing this full-time, for real. Since I'm not on a tight deadline this year, I need to remind myself of that year and how good it was for me to take the time to enjoy my favorite part of year.
Of course, that can't start until after FenCon. Then Fall Fest will begin!
September 30, 2013
Hitting the High Notes
I made it through the weekend, and now I have to face a crazy week. For this convention, I'm on the staff as well as being a guest, so I get to help with set-up, I've got my PR job to do, and I'm helping with some other projects. But I still need to figure out what to wear, what I should say in my panels and what to read for my reading.
The what to read part is a challenge because it's hard to find scenes from books 5-7 of the Enchanted series that aren't spoilers for people who haven't read them, and people are still discovering that these books exist. I've already read the opening scene from the next new book a couple of times (though it is somewhat different now). Maybe I'll do something from the book that's currently in search of a good home. I may bring several selections and let whatever audience shows up decide.
My big personal triumph for the weekend was hitting a high B-flat on my own in front of an audience. I've never done that before. I hit that note a lot at home or in my car, and I've sung it as part of a choir, with everyone around me also hitting it. I haven't done that a lot lately, as for the past ten years or so I've been singing the second soprano part in choir. I'm not technically a mezzo soprano, but I can read music and find the harmony notes that aren't melody, and I'm willing to sing second. Once a choir director learns that you can sing second and are willing to, you're singing second forever (since most of the soprano section usually consists of people who don't really read music but who can sing the melody and people with the Diva Gene who can't bear not to sing the big glory notes). That means that when the sopranos get to the really high notes, I'm usually singing a lower note in the chord. But this Sunday, I was singing with a quintet and was the only soprano. The song ended with the soprano line on an E-flat, but then there were little parenthetical notes written above that, going up to a G and then a B-flat, and the choir director said to do those if I could. I did the G in rehearsals on Wednesday because that one is easy. Then I practiced and found that the B-flat wasn't so hard. It just takes confidence, and that's the sticking point because I get terrible stage fright about singing. Plus, this was early in the morning when I could probably sing bass. But I warmed up pretty well, and then when we ran through the song, I did it, and I was still able to do it when we sang during the service. I resisted the urge for a fist pump, but I'll admit that I was buzzing a little all day. I don't think I'm cured of the stage fright, but a good performance experience does help stop the downward spiral of fear, where fear makes me perform badly, which makes me even more afraid for the next time.
I would like to get some writing done this week, but given my schedule, I have to admit that it may not happen. Next week I suspect there will be serious Cave Time after being around people all this week. Is it bad that although I'm looking forward to the convention, I'm also looking forward to the weekend after the convention, when I can hole up in my house and not do anything? I'm already hoping for rain that weekend. I have books I want to dive into.
The what to read part is a challenge because it's hard to find scenes from books 5-7 of the Enchanted series that aren't spoilers for people who haven't read them, and people are still discovering that these books exist. I've already read the opening scene from the next new book a couple of times (though it is somewhat different now). Maybe I'll do something from the book that's currently in search of a good home. I may bring several selections and let whatever audience shows up decide.
My big personal triumph for the weekend was hitting a high B-flat on my own in front of an audience. I've never done that before. I hit that note a lot at home or in my car, and I've sung it as part of a choir, with everyone around me also hitting it. I haven't done that a lot lately, as for the past ten years or so I've been singing the second soprano part in choir. I'm not technically a mezzo soprano, but I can read music and find the harmony notes that aren't melody, and I'm willing to sing second. Once a choir director learns that you can sing second and are willing to, you're singing second forever (since most of the soprano section usually consists of people who don't really read music but who can sing the melody and people with the Diva Gene who can't bear not to sing the big glory notes). That means that when the sopranos get to the really high notes, I'm usually singing a lower note in the chord. But this Sunday, I was singing with a quintet and was the only soprano. The song ended with the soprano line on an E-flat, but then there were little parenthetical notes written above that, going up to a G and then a B-flat, and the choir director said to do those if I could. I did the G in rehearsals on Wednesday because that one is easy. Then I practiced and found that the B-flat wasn't so hard. It just takes confidence, and that's the sticking point because I get terrible stage fright about singing. Plus, this was early in the morning when I could probably sing bass. But I warmed up pretty well, and then when we ran through the song, I did it, and I was still able to do it when we sang during the service. I resisted the urge for a fist pump, but I'll admit that I was buzzing a little all day. I don't think I'm cured of the stage fright, but a good performance experience does help stop the downward spiral of fear, where fear makes me perform badly, which makes me even more afraid for the next time.
I would like to get some writing done this week, but given my schedule, I have to admit that it may not happen. Next week I suspect there will be serious Cave Time after being around people all this week. Is it bad that although I'm looking forward to the convention, I'm also looking forward to the weekend after the convention, when I can hole up in my house and not do anything? I'm already hoping for rain that weekend. I have books I want to dive into.
September 27, 2013
My Outdoor Oasis
Where did this week go? It really feels like Monday was yesterday. I didn't get any writing done, but it was still a very productive week. For one thing, I made a four-minute movie. That involved editing the video footage, editing a separate audio track and then synchronizing the two; adding some sound effects; adding a few minor visual effects; and creating a background music track. All while learning two software applications.
Meanwhile, I also did some PR work for FenCon and seem to have secured a spot in the newspaper's weekend Guide for the relevant weekend. Then there was choir stuff, including a lesson plan for the kindergarten choir and learning my part for a quintet. Yesterday, errands and flu vaccine. No wonder the week went quickly.
Next week will be even more insane. It starts tomorrow with the final FenCon meeting and some of the technical set-up. I'm singing at two church services Sunday, as well as leading the preschool/kindergarten Sunday school music time. I have baking to do for the convention, more set-up, and then the convention itself starting Friday.
Today I may try to do a little fine-tuning on the video so I can show it to the committee tomorrow, then I want to rewrite a scene in the book I've been neglecting. It will be a knitting and television evening before an early(ish) bedtime so I won't be crabby for Saturday's meeting. I'm kind of allergic to meetings to begin with, and if I'm tired or hungry, there's a high risk of homicide.
In the meantime, to soothe us all, some garden-type photos. I often talk about my patio, so here's a picture. I need to trim the Evil Alien Vine that is making inroads on the patio, and one of my plans is to get better chairs that aren't badly stained (at this point, I've given up on keeping them clean enough to sit in and just throw a beach towel over them). It's my own little outdoor oasis.
The vine on the trellis behind the table is this summer's gardening triumph, my moonflower vine, grown from seeds. This photo was taken at a different time because it blooms at night. I caught this just as the blossoms were starting to open.
And here's a more fully open blossom. They smell lovely. I hope to have a window of opportunity when it's still blooming but after it's not too hot to sit out on the patio in the evenings when the vine is blooming.
Meanwhile, I also did some PR work for FenCon and seem to have secured a spot in the newspaper's weekend Guide for the relevant weekend. Then there was choir stuff, including a lesson plan for the kindergarten choir and learning my part for a quintet. Yesterday, errands and flu vaccine. No wonder the week went quickly.
Next week will be even more insane. It starts tomorrow with the final FenCon meeting and some of the technical set-up. I'm singing at two church services Sunday, as well as leading the preschool/kindergarten Sunday school music time. I have baking to do for the convention, more set-up, and then the convention itself starting Friday.
Today I may try to do a little fine-tuning on the video so I can show it to the committee tomorrow, then I want to rewrite a scene in the book I've been neglecting. It will be a knitting and television evening before an early(ish) bedtime so I won't be crabby for Saturday's meeting. I'm kind of allergic to meetings to begin with, and if I'm tired or hungry, there's a high risk of homicide.
In the meantime, to soothe us all, some garden-type photos. I often talk about my patio, so here's a picture. I need to trim the Evil Alien Vine that is making inroads on the patio, and one of my plans is to get better chairs that aren't badly stained (at this point, I've given up on keeping them clean enough to sit in and just throw a beach towel over them). It's my own little outdoor oasis.
The vine on the trellis behind the table is this summer's gardening triumph, my moonflower vine, grown from seeds. This photo was taken at a different time because it blooms at night. I caught this just as the blossoms were starting to open.
And here's a more fully open blossom. They smell lovely. I hope to have a window of opportunity when it's still blooming but after it's not too hot to sit out on the patio in the evenings when the vine is blooming.
