Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 229
April 17, 2012
Communing with Butterflies
It's my second favorite time of year, and the ideal kind of weather for this time of year, when it's still cool at night and in the mornings and warms up a bit in the afternoon. I love fall the most, when the weather is like that but the leaves are turning, but spring, when the flowers are blooming, is also lovely. Since it was that kind of day and I had no pressing deadlines, I headed over to the river for a long walk. I hadn't been over there since November, and it's amazing how much it's changed. Instead of the fall after a long drought it was spring after a wet winter. The leaves and grass were lush and green, the water level was much higher, and I could see that all those bridges on the walking path weren't just decorative because there were some ponds and streams. There were lots of wildflowers blooming and the butterflies were running amok.
In fact, the butterflies startled me with their boldness. It was like going to an urban park and being mobbed by squirrels expecting to be fed. As soon as I sat down to eat my picnic lunch, a butterfly landed on me and sat there a while. Later, I had one sitting on my arm for a good five minutes. It seemed to be staring me in the face (maybe it saw its own reflection in my glasses). When I resumed my walk, I had a swarm following me, and several landed on me. At one point, I was walking with at least three butterflies sitting on me -- one on my shoulder, one on my leg and one clinging to my belt loop. That one hung around for a long time. I was starting to wonder if it was going to follow me home. I'm not used to butterflies being that assertive. But it wasn't just me. A jogger passed me at one point -- a big, muscled guy with a buzz haircut and a US Marines "pain is weakness leaving the body" t-shirt -- with a cloud of butterflies following him. I thought it best to wait until he was well out of earshot before I burst into giggles at the image. Now I'm afraid that I'll mentally insert a cloud of butterflies around every Marine they show on NCIS.
While I was sitting and communing with the butterflies, I did some reading, trying to get into a book. I'd checked it out of the library because the cover description rang all my chimes -- an interesting arc for the main character that would force her to change her entire perspective and a leading man who sounded just like my type. Only I halfway suspected them of accidentally putting the wrong cover on the book because that wasn't the book I was reading (though the names did match). The story promised on the cover didn't even start until halfway through the book, and then it really didn't get going until near the end. The book described on the cover is likely going to be this book's sequel. It was very infuriating, and the just my type guy was a pretty bland and generic version of the type, so I doubt I'll bother with the sequel. Now, though, I want to write the book described on the cover. I think I'd build a totally different world, and the central plot is pretty generic, so I might even be able to get away with it. I did find myself mentally griping that something like this can get published when they won't buy my books, and at least this time most of the Amazon reviews seemed to agree with me. Aside from making the main characters more interesting and less generic, it would have helped if it hadn't spent so much time on the villain, showing us how evil he was. I found myself saying, "Yes, I know you're evil, but can we get on with it?" I need to have a reason to want the main character to win more than I need a reason to want the villain to lose, and part of the plot is that the main character doesn't know the villain is evil and she's hoping he'll help her when she gets into a bad spot. I thought it would have been more interesting for that to come as a surprise to the reader as much as it's a surprise to the character, but it just makes the main character look dumb about not realizing his real nature when the book spends so much time with the villain doing his "I feel evil, oh so evil!" number.
But now that I've finished that book and have only one short one left from the library, I can get the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I may have jokingly griped about it, but when I finished A Clash of Kings I wanted to immediately go to the library and get the next one. I do kind of need a scorecard to follow the characters -- maybe one of those message boards like we used to have at my old job so the receptionist could keep track of us. There was a grid with the names of the staff down one side and then categories like "In," "Out for the day," "Lunch," and "Meeting," and we moved the little magnetic disc to the appropriate spot. But for this series it might be "Dead," "Captured," "Missing," "Changed sides" and "In Battle." This might also be the first series I've read in which I not only need a list to keep track of who's dead, but I also find myself wanting to maintain a hit list of the characters I want to die, who never seem to be the ones who actually do die. And it's a good thing I didn't trudge to the library in the rain on Sunday after finishing the previous book because the copy at my branch is checked out. I now have one from the central library on hold. I wonder how long it will take them to get it to my branch.
It might be fun to read that book while surrounded by butterflies. The incongruity would be amusing. "Oh no, everyone's dying or suffering horribly. But look! Butterflies!"
In fact, the butterflies startled me with their boldness. It was like going to an urban park and being mobbed by squirrels expecting to be fed. As soon as I sat down to eat my picnic lunch, a butterfly landed on me and sat there a while. Later, I had one sitting on my arm for a good five minutes. It seemed to be staring me in the face (maybe it saw its own reflection in my glasses). When I resumed my walk, I had a swarm following me, and several landed on me. At one point, I was walking with at least three butterflies sitting on me -- one on my shoulder, one on my leg and one clinging to my belt loop. That one hung around for a long time. I was starting to wonder if it was going to follow me home. I'm not used to butterflies being that assertive. But it wasn't just me. A jogger passed me at one point -- a big, muscled guy with a buzz haircut and a US Marines "pain is weakness leaving the body" t-shirt -- with a cloud of butterflies following him. I thought it best to wait until he was well out of earshot before I burst into giggles at the image. Now I'm afraid that I'll mentally insert a cloud of butterflies around every Marine they show on NCIS.
While I was sitting and communing with the butterflies, I did some reading, trying to get into a book. I'd checked it out of the library because the cover description rang all my chimes -- an interesting arc for the main character that would force her to change her entire perspective and a leading man who sounded just like my type. Only I halfway suspected them of accidentally putting the wrong cover on the book because that wasn't the book I was reading (though the names did match). The story promised on the cover didn't even start until halfway through the book, and then it really didn't get going until near the end. The book described on the cover is likely going to be this book's sequel. It was very infuriating, and the just my type guy was a pretty bland and generic version of the type, so I doubt I'll bother with the sequel. Now, though, I want to write the book described on the cover. I think I'd build a totally different world, and the central plot is pretty generic, so I might even be able to get away with it. I did find myself mentally griping that something like this can get published when they won't buy my books, and at least this time most of the Amazon reviews seemed to agree with me. Aside from making the main characters more interesting and less generic, it would have helped if it hadn't spent so much time on the villain, showing us how evil he was. I found myself saying, "Yes, I know you're evil, but can we get on with it?" I need to have a reason to want the main character to win more than I need a reason to want the villain to lose, and part of the plot is that the main character doesn't know the villain is evil and she's hoping he'll help her when she gets into a bad spot. I thought it would have been more interesting for that to come as a surprise to the reader as much as it's a surprise to the character, but it just makes the main character look dumb about not realizing his real nature when the book spends so much time with the villain doing his "I feel evil, oh so evil!" number.
But now that I've finished that book and have only one short one left from the library, I can get the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I may have jokingly griped about it, but when I finished A Clash of Kings I wanted to immediately go to the library and get the next one. I do kind of need a scorecard to follow the characters -- maybe one of those message boards like we used to have at my old job so the receptionist could keep track of us. There was a grid with the names of the staff down one side and then categories like "In," "Out for the day," "Lunch," and "Meeting," and we moved the little magnetic disc to the appropriate spot. But for this series it might be "Dead," "Captured," "Missing," "Changed sides" and "In Battle." This might also be the first series I've read in which I not only need a list to keep track of who's dead, but I also find myself wanting to maintain a hit list of the characters I want to die, who never seem to be the ones who actually do die. And it's a good thing I didn't trudge to the library in the rain on Sunday after finishing the previous book because the copy at my branch is checked out. I now have one from the central library on hold. I wonder how long it will take them to get it to my branch.
It might be fun to read that book while surrounded by butterflies. The incongruity would be amusing. "Oh no, everyone's dying or suffering horribly. But look! Butterflies!"
Published on April 17, 2012 09:09
April 16, 2012
Weekend Viewing
I must have had a rougher weekend than I realized because I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning in spite of going to bed fairly early the night before. Then again, it was very good sleeping weather, cool and a bit crisp after days of mugginess. It was the kind of day when it would have been silly to force myself out of bed for no real reason other than that it was time to get up. There may be walking this afternoon because it's the perfect weather for it.
It was the weekend of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, so a lot of my weekend viewing was related. There were some good documentaries on the Discovery Channel, History Channel (yes, actual history on the History Channel!) and on PBS. I'm not really obsessed with that story, but it's one of those events where I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I keep trying to imagine what it would have been like to be there and what I would have done in that situation, but it's so far beyond anything I can imagine that I can't ever really get there. I end up with mutually exclusive hopes for myself -- I'd hope that I'd be brave and self-sacrificing enough to help others, but then I'd also hope that I'd be clever and resourceful enough to survive. I was rather amused by one of the Discovery Channel shows, which followed one of James Cameron's expeditions to the wreck. He may be a jerk, but he's a big geek about this stuff, and watching him get excited when they found one of the staterooms that they re-created for the movie was fun. They'd built their sets from photos, but then he saw the real thing at the bottom of the ocean, and it was still very much like his set, down to the clock that was still on the mantelpiece with the hands stuck at the time of the sinking.
I also watched the British miniseries written by the writer behind Downton Abbey (some were calling it Drownton Abbey) that was on ABC, and I rather liked it, but mostly because of the format. It was four episodes, with three shown back-to-back on Saturday, and when they hit the iceberg before the 45-minute mark in episode one, I was wondering how they'd fill in the next three hours. It turned out that each episode covered mostly the same events, but each time from a different perspective, so that we'd get the context behind something we merely saw in passing in the previous episode. I've always wanted to do something like that in a book. The miniseries also gave us a preview of the next Doctor Who sidekick, as that actress had a medium-sized role in this. She was mostly cute and perky, so it was hard to judge, and of course it all depends on the character they write for her, but she didn't make me cringe.
On another viewing note, I didn't realize it until I saw something about it this morning, but Eureka is returning tonight to SyFy for its final season. I'd thought this was a summer series, but I guess they're burning it off in the spring and will bring on something new this summer. So, if you thought you had to wait until July for the cliffhanger to be resolved, you're kind of in luck.
It was the weekend of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, so a lot of my weekend viewing was related. There were some good documentaries on the Discovery Channel, History Channel (yes, actual history on the History Channel!) and on PBS. I'm not really obsessed with that story, but it's one of those events where I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I keep trying to imagine what it would have been like to be there and what I would have done in that situation, but it's so far beyond anything I can imagine that I can't ever really get there. I end up with mutually exclusive hopes for myself -- I'd hope that I'd be brave and self-sacrificing enough to help others, but then I'd also hope that I'd be clever and resourceful enough to survive. I was rather amused by one of the Discovery Channel shows, which followed one of James Cameron's expeditions to the wreck. He may be a jerk, but he's a big geek about this stuff, and watching him get excited when they found one of the staterooms that they re-created for the movie was fun. They'd built their sets from photos, but then he saw the real thing at the bottom of the ocean, and it was still very much like his set, down to the clock that was still on the mantelpiece with the hands stuck at the time of the sinking.
I also watched the British miniseries written by the writer behind Downton Abbey (some were calling it Drownton Abbey) that was on ABC, and I rather liked it, but mostly because of the format. It was four episodes, with three shown back-to-back on Saturday, and when they hit the iceberg before the 45-minute mark in episode one, I was wondering how they'd fill in the next three hours. It turned out that each episode covered mostly the same events, but each time from a different perspective, so that we'd get the context behind something we merely saw in passing in the previous episode. I've always wanted to do something like that in a book. The miniseries also gave us a preview of the next Doctor Who sidekick, as that actress had a medium-sized role in this. She was mostly cute and perky, so it was hard to judge, and of course it all depends on the character they write for her, but she didn't make me cringe.
On another viewing note, I didn't realize it until I saw something about it this morning, but Eureka is returning tonight to SyFy for its final season. I'd thought this was a summer series, but I guess they're burning it off in the spring and will bring on something new this summer. So, if you thought you had to wait until July for the cliffhanger to be resolved, you're kind of in luck.
Published on April 16, 2012 09:38
April 13, 2012
Encountering the Invisible Man
This morning was errand day, and thus the late post. But now I have enough groceries for the next couple of weeks. I bought a lot of produce, and now I must eat it all. This is a tricky time of year for menu planning because I'm transitioning from "winter" foods to "summer" foods, and neither really seem right. Winter foods are too heavy but summer foods aren't totally in season yet. There aren't even any recipes I'm really dying to try. But I do need to eat more vegetables, and thus I have cauliflower, broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts.
I had a rather strange moment as I left the grocery store. A store employee was nearby, and as I entered the parking lot he said, "Ma'am, can you see me?" At first, I worried that maybe I'd been lost in my own little world and snubbed him, but then when I looked over at him, he indicated his orange safety vest, and I said that yes, I did see him. He said, "The right answer was: 'Hey, who said that?'" I told him I had superpowers that allowed me to see invisible things. It turned out that he'd been reprimanded for going into the parking lot to retrieve shopping carts without wearing the safety vest, and he was snarking about the orange vest being the only thing that kept him from being invisible. It sounded like someone had been spreading some management around in that store because I also overheard some of the people in the bakery griping about some nitpicky reprimand they'd been given.
I think there's a story in there about some magical item that can make an invisible person visible, like the opposite of an invisibility cloak. Or maybe not so much invisible to visible, but from overlookable to someone everyone notices.
And, yes, you know you're a writer when going to the grocery store triggers story ideas.
I really must start working on something or I'll go mad. Yesterday, I vacuumed the house, even though it was already clean, and then rinsed out the vacuum's filters. But I'm in an awkward position of waiting to hear back on a few things, and anything I start would then have to be put on hold to work on something more pressing. I guess I can do brainstorming and plotting/planning so my subconscious can keep working on it while I deal with whatever else comes up next. Today, my subconscious will have to work while I do some baking. I have to keep moving or my thigh muscles might lock on me. Last night's ballet class was really tough. As the teacher said, if it were easy, there'd be more guys doing it. And I think I need a new Live Journal ballet icon saying something to that effect: "Ballet: if it were easy, there'd be more guys doing it."
I had a rather strange moment as I left the grocery store. A store employee was nearby, and as I entered the parking lot he said, "Ma'am, can you see me?" At first, I worried that maybe I'd been lost in my own little world and snubbed him, but then when I looked over at him, he indicated his orange safety vest, and I said that yes, I did see him. He said, "The right answer was: 'Hey, who said that?'" I told him I had superpowers that allowed me to see invisible things. It turned out that he'd been reprimanded for going into the parking lot to retrieve shopping carts without wearing the safety vest, and he was snarking about the orange vest being the only thing that kept him from being invisible. It sounded like someone had been spreading some management around in that store because I also overheard some of the people in the bakery griping about some nitpicky reprimand they'd been given.
I think there's a story in there about some magical item that can make an invisible person visible, like the opposite of an invisibility cloak. Or maybe not so much invisible to visible, but from overlookable to someone everyone notices.
And, yes, you know you're a writer when going to the grocery store triggers story ideas.
I really must start working on something or I'll go mad. Yesterday, I vacuumed the house, even though it was already clean, and then rinsed out the vacuum's filters. But I'm in an awkward position of waiting to hear back on a few things, and anything I start would then have to be put on hold to work on something more pressing. I guess I can do brainstorming and plotting/planning so my subconscious can keep working on it while I deal with whatever else comes up next. Today, my subconscious will have to work while I do some baking. I have to keep moving or my thigh muscles might lock on me. Last night's ballet class was really tough. As the teacher said, if it were easy, there'd be more guys doing it. And I think I need a new Live Journal ballet icon saying something to that effect: "Ballet: if it were easy, there'd be more guys doing it."
Published on April 13, 2012 11:40
April 12, 2012
More on Mystery: Romance
Taxes are done, and now I can move on to the other nagging tasks in my life.
I learned last night that the worst time to have a bad foot cramp is when you're holding two little girls in your lap. I think I scared them a bit, but I had to stand up and get my foot flat on the floor immediately or I'd start screaming (and that would also have been scary). The foot is not designed to curl into a fist. It's still twitchy this morning, which may make ballet interesting tonight. Oh, and we didn't resort to twirling and dancing, but we played a lot of musical chairs. We did a variation where when kids started being eliminated, we started a second circle and had two games going, and when there were approximately even numbers in each group, we had it so that getting "out" meant joining the other group, so no one was ever really out. They just went back and forth between groups. We still had the kids who were frantically trying to win (who would fight tooth and nail to get a chair) and the kids who were practically fighting to get out (they'd just stand there near a chair and refuse to get in it), and then the kids who seemed to have no idea what to do. There were also rhythm sticks and lots of noise, and I earned my glass of wine.
Since I get twitchy (and not just my feet) if I'm not plotting something, we're back to planning the mystery series. Today's topic: romance. I've found in reading what people have to say about various mystery series that while they read each book for the mystery in that plot, they buy the next book more because they want to see how the main characters' personal lives progress. Mostly, that has to do with the romantic subplots. One thing I find interesting is that in all the mystery series I've read, I haven't found any that handle the ongoing romantic relationship in the standard TV way -- the will they/won't they, where there's one main couple from the start that are total opposites in many ways -- or maybe even in opposition -- and who spend a lot of time bickering while having "chemistry," and over time they may almost get together a few times, but then have roadblocks flung in the way. They may or may not ever actually get together, and by the time they do get together, it's nearly impossible to do it in a way that pleases all the fans. See Remington Steele, Moonlighting, The X-Files, Bones, Castle, and just about every male/female partner team on TV.
Not that not having this is a bad thing, but the mystery book series do something almost as bad: the triangle. There are usually two main romantic possibilities in the sleuth heroine's life, and she's drawn to both of them or torn between them. In some series, she wavers back and forth between them. In some, she's involved with one but is tempted by or drawn to the other and I get the feeling she's going to start with one and maybe end with the other. Quite often, there's the good boy vs. bad boy thing, where one guy is the cop she runs into during her investigations and the other is the just slightly shady or mysterious one who's generally on the side of right but who isn't bound by the same regulations as the cop. A motorcycle and longish hair may be involved. Otherwise, if there's just one guy, it seems like the relationship is established in the first book, and from there it's more of a "Nick and Nora" thing, where they work together as a team with no doubt about their romantic relationship.
I would rather avoid either of those models, but I don't know how much is genre convention and if something different would fly. The current TV mystery relationship model I like best is what they've done on Haven, where it wasn't an obvious done deal from the start that the two main characters would get together, but it also wasn't a will they/won't they thing or a triangle. They hit it off from the start, but with just about zero sexual tension. She had a more flirtatious relationship with the bad boy, but it never came across like she was actually romantically interested in him, and we later learned that he had a plot-related agenda in cozying up to her (though I doubt he'd have rejected her if she'd taken his flirting seriously). The main guy was dating someone else for a while, and his partner was supportive in that and even played wingman for him, then was compassionate in the aftermath of the breakup, which was what really solidified their friendship. The outside relationship that usually is used as a temporary romantic roadblock for the main couple in this case was a stepping stone for them. Then later she started dating someone else, and though he was kind of hurt because he had started developing feelings for her by then, he was still supportive and was nice to the boyfriend, then was there for her in the breakup. Again, what could have been the romantic roadblock was actually a stepping stone because it showed her the real worth of her partner, that he was the one who was always there for her, who trusted her absolutely and who "got" her on a fundamental level. Plus, with their crazy jobs and schedule, they were always having to run off to work, which meant leaving any other romantic interest and running toward each other. As we left them at the end of last season, they were finally getting together. I guess if we translated this into a series of mystery novels, that would have been at about book 12 (since I figure you could fit two episodes into a standard-length book), which is a really, really slow build now that I think about it -- except in the world of the series, in which both seasons so far have taken place in one summer, so all this has happened in a few months.
So maybe something not that slow, but still, I like the idea of the slow development with the person who's always there while they still interact with other people and even have other involvements, but with those other involvements being less Mark Harmon opening the door (the big roadblock in Moonlighting that derailed the relationship) and more steps along the way to finding the right person who was there all along. Then once the main couple gets together, if the series continues beyond that I wouldn't want them breaking up and making up or her being drawn to someone else. I figure once you're sleeping with someone, you need to stop getting yourself into compromising positions with another person who really turns you on. I really don't like the going back and forth between guys, which has turned me off from a couple of mystery series, where it feels kind of like the author is afraid to commit, for fear of turning off the readers who pull for the other guy.
I guess the result of what I would want to do would be a slightly slower build than I did with Katie and Owen -- though there was still a lot more relationship development and conflict that happened after that first real kiss in book 2 -- but still along those lines. I refuse to include a long-haired guy who rides a motorcycle, though. I might even get crazy and mix things up and have the seemingly super-nice guy be the one who's slightly shady and the one who's a little more rough around the edges be the boy scout. I don't know yet. My heroine is very clear to me, but the people surrounding her are still blurry.
I learned last night that the worst time to have a bad foot cramp is when you're holding two little girls in your lap. I think I scared them a bit, but I had to stand up and get my foot flat on the floor immediately or I'd start screaming (and that would also have been scary). The foot is not designed to curl into a fist. It's still twitchy this morning, which may make ballet interesting tonight. Oh, and we didn't resort to twirling and dancing, but we played a lot of musical chairs. We did a variation where when kids started being eliminated, we started a second circle and had two games going, and when there were approximately even numbers in each group, we had it so that getting "out" meant joining the other group, so no one was ever really out. They just went back and forth between groups. We still had the kids who were frantically trying to win (who would fight tooth and nail to get a chair) and the kids who were practically fighting to get out (they'd just stand there near a chair and refuse to get in it), and then the kids who seemed to have no idea what to do. There were also rhythm sticks and lots of noise, and I earned my glass of wine.
Since I get twitchy (and not just my feet) if I'm not plotting something, we're back to planning the mystery series. Today's topic: romance. I've found in reading what people have to say about various mystery series that while they read each book for the mystery in that plot, they buy the next book more because they want to see how the main characters' personal lives progress. Mostly, that has to do with the romantic subplots. One thing I find interesting is that in all the mystery series I've read, I haven't found any that handle the ongoing romantic relationship in the standard TV way -- the will they/won't they, where there's one main couple from the start that are total opposites in many ways -- or maybe even in opposition -- and who spend a lot of time bickering while having "chemistry," and over time they may almost get together a few times, but then have roadblocks flung in the way. They may or may not ever actually get together, and by the time they do get together, it's nearly impossible to do it in a way that pleases all the fans. See Remington Steele, Moonlighting, The X-Files, Bones, Castle, and just about every male/female partner team on TV.
Not that not having this is a bad thing, but the mystery book series do something almost as bad: the triangle. There are usually two main romantic possibilities in the sleuth heroine's life, and she's drawn to both of them or torn between them. In some series, she wavers back and forth between them. In some, she's involved with one but is tempted by or drawn to the other and I get the feeling she's going to start with one and maybe end with the other. Quite often, there's the good boy vs. bad boy thing, where one guy is the cop she runs into during her investigations and the other is the just slightly shady or mysterious one who's generally on the side of right but who isn't bound by the same regulations as the cop. A motorcycle and longish hair may be involved. Otherwise, if there's just one guy, it seems like the relationship is established in the first book, and from there it's more of a "Nick and Nora" thing, where they work together as a team with no doubt about their romantic relationship.
I would rather avoid either of those models, but I don't know how much is genre convention and if something different would fly. The current TV mystery relationship model I like best is what they've done on Haven, where it wasn't an obvious done deal from the start that the two main characters would get together, but it also wasn't a will they/won't they thing or a triangle. They hit it off from the start, but with just about zero sexual tension. She had a more flirtatious relationship with the bad boy, but it never came across like she was actually romantically interested in him, and we later learned that he had a plot-related agenda in cozying up to her (though I doubt he'd have rejected her if she'd taken his flirting seriously). The main guy was dating someone else for a while, and his partner was supportive in that and even played wingman for him, then was compassionate in the aftermath of the breakup, which was what really solidified their friendship. The outside relationship that usually is used as a temporary romantic roadblock for the main couple in this case was a stepping stone for them. Then later she started dating someone else, and though he was kind of hurt because he had started developing feelings for her by then, he was still supportive and was nice to the boyfriend, then was there for her in the breakup. Again, what could have been the romantic roadblock was actually a stepping stone because it showed her the real worth of her partner, that he was the one who was always there for her, who trusted her absolutely and who "got" her on a fundamental level. Plus, with their crazy jobs and schedule, they were always having to run off to work, which meant leaving any other romantic interest and running toward each other. As we left them at the end of last season, they were finally getting together. I guess if we translated this into a series of mystery novels, that would have been at about book 12 (since I figure you could fit two episodes into a standard-length book), which is a really, really slow build now that I think about it -- except in the world of the series, in which both seasons so far have taken place in one summer, so all this has happened in a few months.
So maybe something not that slow, but still, I like the idea of the slow development with the person who's always there while they still interact with other people and even have other involvements, but with those other involvements being less Mark Harmon opening the door (the big roadblock in Moonlighting that derailed the relationship) and more steps along the way to finding the right person who was there all along. Then once the main couple gets together, if the series continues beyond that I wouldn't want them breaking up and making up or her being drawn to someone else. I figure once you're sleeping with someone, you need to stop getting yourself into compromising positions with another person who really turns you on. I really don't like the going back and forth between guys, which has turned me off from a couple of mystery series, where it feels kind of like the author is afraid to commit, for fear of turning off the readers who pull for the other guy.
I guess the result of what I would want to do would be a slightly slower build than I did with Katie and Owen -- though there was still a lot more relationship development and conflict that happened after that first real kiss in book 2 -- but still along those lines. I refuse to include a long-haired guy who rides a motorcycle, though. I might even get crazy and mix things up and have the seemingly super-nice guy be the one who's slightly shady and the one who's a little more rough around the edges be the boy scout. I don't know yet. My heroine is very clear to me, but the people surrounding her are still blurry.
Published on April 12, 2012 08:58
April 11, 2012
Therapeutic Twirling
My house is still clean. My taxes are almost done -- I've filled out a draft set of forms in pencil and now need to run the numbers one more time and fill out the final set in ink and then put them in the mail. I get a nice-sized refund this year since I made very little money last year but paid estimated taxes based on the previous year. Let's just say that writing novels is not necessarily a fast track to fame and fortune, and anyone who justifies pirating books because authors are wealthy is ill informed and ignorant. I'd bet that most people who posted my books for illegal download or who illegally downloaded them made more money than I did last year (and they had something to do with me making little money).
Doing my taxes makes me crabby (which is why I tend to put it off). On the up side, it's easier to read A Clash of Kings as a break from doing my taxes because it suddenly becomes relatively cheerier. I'm in the mood for stabbings and beheadings. I'm thinking of making a character chart so I can X off people when they die.
Now I have to name a book because I've found that there was something in the air and everyone else seems to have used the title I had in mind, and fairly recently. I don't mind using one that came up in a different genre more than a few years ago, but I don't think it's such a great idea to use one that gets you a couple of pages worth of Amazon search results, and all the books on the first page of results came out in the past year. Now I'm trying to think of what we did to check titles before Amazon. I automatically run my title ideas through the Amazon search engine to see if they've been used before, when, where, by whom, and how frequently.
I have to deal with the preschoolers tonight, but I don't have a choir rehearsal. That means that after dealing with the preschoolers, I can lie back on the sofa, put my feet up and have a glass of wine. The preschoolers all have a raging case of spring fever and are literally bouncing off walls. The attention span has shrunk to about thirty seconds. We can get halfway through a song and they're suddenly going, "Squirrel!" (sometimes literally, if they happen to be looking out a window and see a squirrel run past). We may resort to giving up and just playing music and letting them dance. That means I'd probably better put my hair up because the little girls like twirling around and make me do pirouettes for them. It's nice to know that no matter where I am in my life or career, I can awe preschoolers with my awesomeness just for knowing a lot about Disney princesses, Star Wars and ballet.
And now I think I've procrastinated long enough. Back to the drudgery of taxes, and then I can celebrate being done for another year. You know, I think I may have spring fever along with the preschoolers. I may need to go twirl.
Doing my taxes makes me crabby (which is why I tend to put it off). On the up side, it's easier to read A Clash of Kings as a break from doing my taxes because it suddenly becomes relatively cheerier. I'm in the mood for stabbings and beheadings. I'm thinking of making a character chart so I can X off people when they die.
Now I have to name a book because I've found that there was something in the air and everyone else seems to have used the title I had in mind, and fairly recently. I don't mind using one that came up in a different genre more than a few years ago, but I don't think it's such a great idea to use one that gets you a couple of pages worth of Amazon search results, and all the books on the first page of results came out in the past year. Now I'm trying to think of what we did to check titles before Amazon. I automatically run my title ideas through the Amazon search engine to see if they've been used before, when, where, by whom, and how frequently.
I have to deal with the preschoolers tonight, but I don't have a choir rehearsal. That means that after dealing with the preschoolers, I can lie back on the sofa, put my feet up and have a glass of wine. The preschoolers all have a raging case of spring fever and are literally bouncing off walls. The attention span has shrunk to about thirty seconds. We can get halfway through a song and they're suddenly going, "Squirrel!" (sometimes literally, if they happen to be looking out a window and see a squirrel run past). We may resort to giving up and just playing music and letting them dance. That means I'd probably better put my hair up because the little girls like twirling around and make me do pirouettes for them. It's nice to know that no matter where I am in my life or career, I can awe preschoolers with my awesomeness just for knowing a lot about Disney princesses, Star Wars and ballet.
And now I think I've procrastinated long enough. Back to the drudgery of taxes, and then I can celebrate being done for another year. You know, I think I may have spring fever along with the preschoolers. I may need to go twirl.
Published on April 11, 2012 15:17
April 10, 2012
Musings on a Day Off
I guess I'm really not good at relaxing unless there's something else I should be doing. I did some reading but got very fidgety. Every chapter or so I'd be up looking for something to do. I found a web site with vocal warm-up exercises and the vocal parts for some opera arias and then determined that I probably have more of a Mozart voice than a Puccini voice. I might even be a mezzo-soprano rather than a soprano. It's tricky to figure it out exactly because I have a soprano range and it's easier for me to sing high than it is for me to sing low, but my lower range sounds better. I sing second soprano in choir, mostly because I read music well enough to sing harmony, but occasionally get switched to the first part when they need a big high note, but then the men tend to really like it when I sing low. Given my size and my voice, if I'd pursued this seriously, I'd have probably spent my career playing boys in comic operas (female mezzo-sopranos or sopranos seem to play most of the boy roles). Apologies to my neighbors for all the warbling. I'd forgotten I had windows open while I was singing.
Then since my mom brought me some kale, I made kale chips, which was kind of an experiment. They were pretty good -- not a direct substitute for potato chips (because when you want chips, you really want chips) but a much healthier alternative when you just want something salty and crunchy.
I also re-cleaned the house from Sunday's activities. Now I'm actually almost kind of eager to get to something resembling work, even if it does involve finishing my business taxes and rewriting a marketing plan. Then I can really enjoy any goofing off I do instead of doing those things.
I think I need to start writing another book before I go mad. During all the recent lottery mania, people were talking about whether or not they'd quit their jobs if they won that kind of money. I don't think I can quit my job. It would be nice not to have to worry about making a living with my work, but I don't think I could stop writing. I might not try to deal with publishers and might even just write for my own amusement, but if I'm not writing I feel a little lost.
I'm getting really close to getting on Wikipedia to find out what happens to the various characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire series so I can either give up reading entirely or so I can relax and know who it's safe to cheer for. But then the series isn't complete, so I can't know everyone's ultimate fate. I'm just at the point where something good has to happen to somebody, soon, please, before I can't take it anymore. I get that this is a tough world and these are tough circumstances, but some nice person could get at least a few minutes of real happiness without all kinds of dread hanging over their head without it totally ruining the sense of tension and conflict. However, Carmina Burana makes good background music for reading these books. Until I start singing along.
Then since my mom brought me some kale, I made kale chips, which was kind of an experiment. They were pretty good -- not a direct substitute for potato chips (because when you want chips, you really want chips) but a much healthier alternative when you just want something salty and crunchy.
I also re-cleaned the house from Sunday's activities. Now I'm actually almost kind of eager to get to something resembling work, even if it does involve finishing my business taxes and rewriting a marketing plan. Then I can really enjoy any goofing off I do instead of doing those things.
I think I need to start writing another book before I go mad. During all the recent lottery mania, people were talking about whether or not they'd quit their jobs if they won that kind of money. I don't think I can quit my job. It would be nice not to have to worry about making a living with my work, but I don't think I could stop writing. I might not try to deal with publishers and might even just write for my own amusement, but if I'm not writing I feel a little lost.
I'm getting really close to getting on Wikipedia to find out what happens to the various characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire series so I can either give up reading entirely or so I can relax and know who it's safe to cheer for. But then the series isn't complete, so I can't know everyone's ultimate fate. I'm just at the point where something good has to happen to somebody, soon, please, before I can't take it anymore. I get that this is a tough world and these are tough circumstances, but some nice person could get at least a few minutes of real happiness without all kinds of dread hanging over their head without it totally ruining the sense of tension and conflict. However, Carmina Burana makes good background music for reading these books. Until I start singing along.
Published on April 10, 2012 16:30
April 9, 2012
Holiday
I think today will be a holiday because I had a rather busy weekend. Actually, in my plan for the year I gave myself this day as a holiday, so maybe I should follow my plan. I sang for three services Easter morning, and it was mostly hard stuff. We went all-out classical, with a prelude taken from Verdi's Requiem and the Easter church scene from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana. Then I hosted my first family holiday meal, since my parents came over and we had Easter lunch at my place. It wasn't a big, fancy dinner, as I'm not really equipped for that and had been at the church all morning, but I did still host a family holiday meal. Does that mean I'm now a grown-up?
Now it's a nice grayish, fairly cool day, my house is clean, and I think I'm going to do some reading. I may do a little brainstorming work (trying to come up with a title for something), and I need to make some major adjustments to the Plan for World Domination based on decisions made last week (you don't often find nukes available that cheaply, and then once you have nuclear capability, it's much easier to recruit a better class of henchmen, and then that means changing the whole plan). But mostly, I'm going to rest because this year is going to turn out to be pretty busy.
Now it's a nice grayish, fairly cool day, my house is clean, and I think I'm going to do some reading. I may do a little brainstorming work (trying to come up with a title for something), and I need to make some major adjustments to the Plan for World Domination based on decisions made last week (you don't often find nukes available that cheaply, and then once you have nuclear capability, it's much easier to recruit a better class of henchmen, and then that means changing the whole plan). But mostly, I'm going to rest because this year is going to turn out to be pretty busy.
Published on April 09, 2012 16:10
April 6, 2012
Accomplishments
My accomplishment of the morning was figuring out what to wear for Easter. I'm in the choir, so I spend the morning in a choir robe and no one sees my clothes other than when I'm entering and leaving the building or when I'm hanging out with the choir between services. The choir loft has been chilly lately, but it can get sauna-like in those polyester robes, so I don't want to wear anything too heavy or that can't be easily washed. Still, it's Easter, so I feel like I should look semi-nice, and my usual mostly black and red wardrobe doesn't seem right. I had a very vivid dream last night in which I found a skirt in my closet that would work perfectly with a purple t-shirt I have, except I don't actually have the skirt from my dream. I did decide on something and tried it all on, so I can have it staged and ready to go for when I have to leave the house ridiculously early Sunday morning.
My accomplishment yesterday was getting an almost clean house. The loft, my bedroom and the bathroom are now all tidied up. There's still some decluttering and organizing to do, but the space is mostly clear. It's a little unnerving. I think I was getting a wee bit obsessive, though. I had to restrain myself from going over the bathroom cabinets with furniture polish. Not that it doesn't need to be done, but I do still need to get to the living room and kitchen/dining room. That's mostly in the tidying up category, plus doing the floors, so it shouldn't take me all day (famous last words!). Now we'll see if I can manage to continue the sorting/decluttering and maintain the current level of clean. The office is going to take a bit longer, but that's a door I can shut.
I'm rather looking forward to having it all done today and then lying on the sofa and just enjoying my surroundings. I should have picked up some fresh flowers when I was out yesterday. I've discovered the spot in the grocery store where they sell the "day old" flowers, and while some of the blooms have gone bad, you can take a bouquet apart and make a new arrangement.
Next week I'll have to get back on a more usual work schedule, as I have some planning to do and some brainstorming. Stay tuned for some announcements in the near future.
And now to finish the house cleaning in time that I can let myself rest before I have to go sing for a Good Friday service.
My accomplishment yesterday was getting an almost clean house. The loft, my bedroom and the bathroom are now all tidied up. There's still some decluttering and organizing to do, but the space is mostly clear. It's a little unnerving. I think I was getting a wee bit obsessive, though. I had to restrain myself from going over the bathroom cabinets with furniture polish. Not that it doesn't need to be done, but I do still need to get to the living room and kitchen/dining room. That's mostly in the tidying up category, plus doing the floors, so it shouldn't take me all day (famous last words!). Now we'll see if I can manage to continue the sorting/decluttering and maintain the current level of clean. The office is going to take a bit longer, but that's a door I can shut.
I'm rather looking forward to having it all done today and then lying on the sofa and just enjoying my surroundings. I should have picked up some fresh flowers when I was out yesterday. I've discovered the spot in the grocery store where they sell the "day old" flowers, and while some of the blooms have gone bad, you can take a bouquet apart and make a new arrangement.
Next week I'll have to get back on a more usual work schedule, as I have some planning to do and some brainstorming. Stay tuned for some announcements in the near future.
And now to finish the house cleaning in time that I can let myself rest before I have to go sing for a Good Friday service.
Published on April 06, 2012 16:23
April 5, 2012
No One Is Safe
It turns out that I really dodged a bullet with those storms. Just a few miles north of me, they had baseball-sized hail. There were leaves and twigs all over the ground from the trees being shredded, all the houses had tarps on the roofs, especially over skylights, and there were a lot of cars with smashed-out windows that looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to them. The preschoolers were very excited about the whole thing. Kids are so resilient. I could tell from the way they talked that they'd been really scared when it was happening, but by the next day it had become something really exciting to talk about. I have a clay tile roof, so I don't have to worry much about hail damage (my contractor neighbor says it could probably take a direct strike from a meteorite), but I do have a skylight. Maybe I should get a tarp to have handy in case the skylight ever gets knocked out.
I had my own tiny bit of storm damage: when the ground gets really wet, the ants decide to take shelter in my house. Oddly, they only go to the front of the house. I've never seen one in the kitchen where the food is. This time, they were marching along my bedroom wall, behind my bed, and I couldn't figure out where they were going because the trail stopped behind my nightstand. I don't eat in my bedroom or keep food there, so I wasn't sure what was drawing them. And then I opened a nightstand drawer and saw that they were swarming on my cough drop stash. I guess they had sore throats. I threw out the cough drops, took everything out of the drawer and cleaned it out, and that seemed to do the trick for a while, but then they were back, but wandering around kind of confused. And then I remembered a Phineas and Ferb episode about ants where they'd talked about them communicating with pheromones (see, it is educational!), and I figured this was the ant equivalent of there being a lot of tweets about this really rocking party. These ants were the ones who showed up after the cops had already broken up the party, and they were just wandering around going, "Dude, where's the party?" I needed to delete those tweets. So I took everything out of the drawer again and rubbed the whole thing, inside and out, with furniture polish, then polished the whole nightstand, including the back, and I sprayed rug shampoo on the carpet in the area where the ant trail was. That seemed to do the trick. There were a few stragglers this morning that I let live so maybe they could tweet that the party had been broken up. And then I got a new can of ant spray (I had just run out) to spray along the likely entry points. I guess you could say I found my inner Dalek: "Exterminate!"
But now since that part of my room is ridiculously clean, it makes the rest of the house look bad, so I think today will be a cleaning frenzy day. It's already mostly clean, but it's at that mostly clean state that makes any clutter or dirt look even worse. Then I can spend the weekend relaxing in my clean house.
Speaking of killing things … After finally finishing A Game of Thrones, I found a commentary that made me think of another plot-driven vs. character-driven issue. The commentary mentioned the fact that in these books, it becomes clear that no one is safe. Any character, no matter how major that character seems to be, may be killed at any point in the book. Some of the commenters on the post thought that was one of the great things about the series. Other commenters said that was why they quit reading because they reached the point where they just couldn't take it.
I would suspect that it's the plot-driven readers who love that no one is safe because it makes the events more exciting and suspenseful if you don't know who will live or die, if even a seemingly main character is as much at risk as the secondary characters or villains. But character-driven readers may have a problem with that. Up to a point, it's kind of cool to have that degree of suspense -- until it's one of "your" characters who gets killed, which then greatly diminishes your emotional investment in the book or series. Plus, if you get the message that no one is safe, then you're going to emotionally withdraw from all of the characters, for fear of really suffering if they die, and if you aren't letting yourself care about anyone, you'll stop caring about the book or series. Some of the commenters to that post mentioned reaching a certain point in the series and then reading the Wikipedia summary to find out what happened to the people they cared about without having to actually go through it all. I can kind of see myself heading in that direction. Nobody I really cared about has died yet, but there are some characters whose deaths would send me to Wikipedia, depending on how/why/when they happen and whether any new characters have come along to start taking their place. If you're going to kill the "hero," I need to know immediately who the new hero will be.
That's a big part of the appeal of the romance genre -- whose readers I would guess are more likely to be character-driven because they're reading for the characters' emotional responses to situations. You know that the two main characters will be alive at the end and that they'll end up together. It's more about the journey of how they get to that place than about the destination. I don't need quite that amount of guarantee. One of the reasons I liked the chick lit genre was that there was a guaranteed happy ending, but you couldn't tell from the first scene exactly what the ending would be. I can even take character deaths if they happen for the right reasons and at the right points in a story. If my favorite character dies heroically near the end, I can deal with it. I probably won't finish reading the book if my favorite character dies near the middle for no good reason other than to make it clear that nobody is safe. Pulling an Atonement -- the "Ha, you thought you were reading a romance, did you? Well, get a load of this!" thing -- is Right Out. (Seriously, that book pissed me off so very, very much. I actually threw it when I got to the end.) Then there's the issue that in order to make readers care about someone dying, the person who dies has to be someone who is liked. The counterargument to that is that if you kill off all the characters people like, then they have no more reason to be interested in your story. If the people you wish would die are the only ones left, it's no fun anymore.
Now to go make the rest of the house be as clean as the now ant-free zone.
I had my own tiny bit of storm damage: when the ground gets really wet, the ants decide to take shelter in my house. Oddly, they only go to the front of the house. I've never seen one in the kitchen where the food is. This time, they were marching along my bedroom wall, behind my bed, and I couldn't figure out where they were going because the trail stopped behind my nightstand. I don't eat in my bedroom or keep food there, so I wasn't sure what was drawing them. And then I opened a nightstand drawer and saw that they were swarming on my cough drop stash. I guess they had sore throats. I threw out the cough drops, took everything out of the drawer and cleaned it out, and that seemed to do the trick for a while, but then they were back, but wandering around kind of confused. And then I remembered a Phineas and Ferb episode about ants where they'd talked about them communicating with pheromones (see, it is educational!), and I figured this was the ant equivalent of there being a lot of tweets about this really rocking party. These ants were the ones who showed up after the cops had already broken up the party, and they were just wandering around going, "Dude, where's the party?" I needed to delete those tweets. So I took everything out of the drawer again and rubbed the whole thing, inside and out, with furniture polish, then polished the whole nightstand, including the back, and I sprayed rug shampoo on the carpet in the area where the ant trail was. That seemed to do the trick. There were a few stragglers this morning that I let live so maybe they could tweet that the party had been broken up. And then I got a new can of ant spray (I had just run out) to spray along the likely entry points. I guess you could say I found my inner Dalek: "Exterminate!"
But now since that part of my room is ridiculously clean, it makes the rest of the house look bad, so I think today will be a cleaning frenzy day. It's already mostly clean, but it's at that mostly clean state that makes any clutter or dirt look even worse. Then I can spend the weekend relaxing in my clean house.
Speaking of killing things … After finally finishing A Game of Thrones, I found a commentary that made me think of another plot-driven vs. character-driven issue. The commentary mentioned the fact that in these books, it becomes clear that no one is safe. Any character, no matter how major that character seems to be, may be killed at any point in the book. Some of the commenters on the post thought that was one of the great things about the series. Other commenters said that was why they quit reading because they reached the point where they just couldn't take it.
I would suspect that it's the plot-driven readers who love that no one is safe because it makes the events more exciting and suspenseful if you don't know who will live or die, if even a seemingly main character is as much at risk as the secondary characters or villains. But character-driven readers may have a problem with that. Up to a point, it's kind of cool to have that degree of suspense -- until it's one of "your" characters who gets killed, which then greatly diminishes your emotional investment in the book or series. Plus, if you get the message that no one is safe, then you're going to emotionally withdraw from all of the characters, for fear of really suffering if they die, and if you aren't letting yourself care about anyone, you'll stop caring about the book or series. Some of the commenters to that post mentioned reaching a certain point in the series and then reading the Wikipedia summary to find out what happened to the people they cared about without having to actually go through it all. I can kind of see myself heading in that direction. Nobody I really cared about has died yet, but there are some characters whose deaths would send me to Wikipedia, depending on how/why/when they happen and whether any new characters have come along to start taking their place. If you're going to kill the "hero," I need to know immediately who the new hero will be.
That's a big part of the appeal of the romance genre -- whose readers I would guess are more likely to be character-driven because they're reading for the characters' emotional responses to situations. You know that the two main characters will be alive at the end and that they'll end up together. It's more about the journey of how they get to that place than about the destination. I don't need quite that amount of guarantee. One of the reasons I liked the chick lit genre was that there was a guaranteed happy ending, but you couldn't tell from the first scene exactly what the ending would be. I can even take character deaths if they happen for the right reasons and at the right points in a story. If my favorite character dies heroically near the end, I can deal with it. I probably won't finish reading the book if my favorite character dies near the middle for no good reason other than to make it clear that nobody is safe. Pulling an Atonement -- the "Ha, you thought you were reading a romance, did you? Well, get a load of this!" thing -- is Right Out. (Seriously, that book pissed me off so very, very much. I actually threw it when I got to the end.) Then there's the issue that in order to make readers care about someone dying, the person who dies has to be someone who is liked. The counterargument to that is that if you kill off all the characters people like, then they have no more reason to be interested in your story. If the people you wish would die are the only ones left, it's no fun anymore.
Now to go make the rest of the house be as clean as the now ant-free zone.
Published on April 05, 2012 17:26
April 4, 2012
From Wish to Goal
So, yesterday got a little interesting around here. We had two major storms hit the area simultaneously, in nearly parallel tracks, resulting in at least twelve tornadoes (though they're still getting the official count verified). I spent the afternoon watching the news coverage to see stuff like semi trailers flying through the air (that link is to a slide show of stills taken from the news helicopter footage, but there are links on the site to the video). Then it turned out that one of the storms was heading on a direct path to me, so I started making my disaster preparations. I moved the computer to the laundry hamper cabinet in the downstairs bathroom (the most likely spot to survive) and moved my old featherbed and some pillows into the downstairs bathroom to be ready to jump in the tub and pull the featherbed over me. Then I sat and watched the radar on TV with my cell phone, a flashlight and my Walkman with radio in my lap. The tornado in that storm apparently jumped back into the clouds a bit southwest of my area and didn't come back down until it was northeast of me, so I just got a lot of rain and some hail, but it made for a harrowing afternoon until all the storms had moved on. Miraculously, although there was a lot of damage, there were no deaths and no major injuries. As far as they can tell, only one person was taken to a hospital, and that was a baby who was in a house that was totally demolished, and they were checking her out as a precaution (but she just had bumps and bruises).
So, anyway, after all that excitement, a writing post.
Last time, I talked about how a character with a dream or a wish seems to hook readers into a story. In Hero's Journey terms, that would come in the "Ordinary World" segment, before the story really kicks off. It's part of the character's day-to-day existence to dream of something different or better. Then the "Call to Adventure" happens and the hero has to develop a goal. You could consider a goal a dream with some planning and action behind it. The story goal may not spring directly from the dream/wish, but there's generally some relationship to it. The funny thing is, when people are presented with the opportunity to go after their dream, they often resist, maybe because a dream is safe but a goal can be scary. It can be hard work or even dangerous, and once you try, there is the potential for failure. You don't fail in a dream or wish, but you can fail to achieve a goal. However, a wish doesn't make a story. You need a goal to have a story.
So, Cinderella may sing about a dream being a wish your heart makes, but it's just some vague wish about not being in her present awful circumstances. Then she learns about the ball and decides she wants to go. Now she has a goal. Fairy tales (and even the Disney movie versions) can be a bit vague as to the precise motivation, so we don't know for certain that Cinderella is thinking specifically that if she meets the prince and he falls in love with her, that could be her ticket out of her horrible life. It seems more like she just wants to get away for that one evening and not be the only girl in the entire kingdom who's not at the ball. Depending on the version of the story, she then starts to plan. In the Disney version, she makes her own ballgown, then has to rely on her fairy godmother when the wicked stepsisters destroy it. In some versions, the stepmother sets out a series of impossible tasks that she has to do before she can go, and she then gets her animal friends to help her. Now we have a story.
For an example of being not so thrilled at actually getting that vague wish, we have our old friend Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. He wants off his uncle's farm to go to some space academy, and he's so captivated by the idea of space battles that (in scenes deleted from the final film) he's become like the boy who cried wolf, so when he actually sees a space battle happening over his home world, no one will even look because they assume he's imagined it. This is a kid you know spends a lot of time imagining himself as a dashing space pilot doing battle against the evil Empire. And yet when Obi Wan asks him to come with him to help rescue the princess, which sounds like exactly what he's been wanting to do, he makes excuses for why he can't leave the farm -- he has responsibilities (those same responsibilities he was previously trying to shirk). We don't really get into his head to know why he resists, but one good reason may be that it's dangerous. He could get killed. There's also the possibility that he won't be as good in reality as he is in his dreams. Plus, it's not quite the same thing he was planning -- he wanted to go to the academy, taking it gradually, but Obi Wan wants him to jump in head-first. It's actually circumstances that force his hand. When his uncle and aunt are killed, he has no more excuses. Then he accepts the goal to rescue the princess, which later turns into the goal to destroy the Death Star.
Going a bit meta here, the same thing applies to writing. When you're an author, it seems like half the people you meet say they've always wanted to write a book or that they will write a book someday. Very few people actually do so. Even fewer finish it. Fewer than that take steps toward publication. For most people, it remains a wish or a dream -- they think about being a writer, maybe even imagine having booksignings or being on TV talk shows. In order to actually get a book published, you have to turn it into a goal and develop a plan. You have to write. You have to learn about your craft, whether from trial and error, from taking classes or from reading books about writing. You have to be willing to rewrite and revise. You have to take the risk of failure in submitting a book for publication or in putting a book out there electronically. While you're just dreaming, you can imagine being wildly successful. When you do it, there's always that chance that it won't work, which does sort of dampen the dream. Still, what's better, knowing you tried or never moving beyond a wish?
So, anyway, after all that excitement, a writing post.
Last time, I talked about how a character with a dream or a wish seems to hook readers into a story. In Hero's Journey terms, that would come in the "Ordinary World" segment, before the story really kicks off. It's part of the character's day-to-day existence to dream of something different or better. Then the "Call to Adventure" happens and the hero has to develop a goal. You could consider a goal a dream with some planning and action behind it. The story goal may not spring directly from the dream/wish, but there's generally some relationship to it. The funny thing is, when people are presented with the opportunity to go after their dream, they often resist, maybe because a dream is safe but a goal can be scary. It can be hard work or even dangerous, and once you try, there is the potential for failure. You don't fail in a dream or wish, but you can fail to achieve a goal. However, a wish doesn't make a story. You need a goal to have a story.
So, Cinderella may sing about a dream being a wish your heart makes, but it's just some vague wish about not being in her present awful circumstances. Then she learns about the ball and decides she wants to go. Now she has a goal. Fairy tales (and even the Disney movie versions) can be a bit vague as to the precise motivation, so we don't know for certain that Cinderella is thinking specifically that if she meets the prince and he falls in love with her, that could be her ticket out of her horrible life. It seems more like she just wants to get away for that one evening and not be the only girl in the entire kingdom who's not at the ball. Depending on the version of the story, she then starts to plan. In the Disney version, she makes her own ballgown, then has to rely on her fairy godmother when the wicked stepsisters destroy it. In some versions, the stepmother sets out a series of impossible tasks that she has to do before she can go, and she then gets her animal friends to help her. Now we have a story.
For an example of being not so thrilled at actually getting that vague wish, we have our old friend Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. He wants off his uncle's farm to go to some space academy, and he's so captivated by the idea of space battles that (in scenes deleted from the final film) he's become like the boy who cried wolf, so when he actually sees a space battle happening over his home world, no one will even look because they assume he's imagined it. This is a kid you know spends a lot of time imagining himself as a dashing space pilot doing battle against the evil Empire. And yet when Obi Wan asks him to come with him to help rescue the princess, which sounds like exactly what he's been wanting to do, he makes excuses for why he can't leave the farm -- he has responsibilities (those same responsibilities he was previously trying to shirk). We don't really get into his head to know why he resists, but one good reason may be that it's dangerous. He could get killed. There's also the possibility that he won't be as good in reality as he is in his dreams. Plus, it's not quite the same thing he was planning -- he wanted to go to the academy, taking it gradually, but Obi Wan wants him to jump in head-first. It's actually circumstances that force his hand. When his uncle and aunt are killed, he has no more excuses. Then he accepts the goal to rescue the princess, which later turns into the goal to destroy the Death Star.
Going a bit meta here, the same thing applies to writing. When you're an author, it seems like half the people you meet say they've always wanted to write a book or that they will write a book someday. Very few people actually do so. Even fewer finish it. Fewer than that take steps toward publication. For most people, it remains a wish or a dream -- they think about being a writer, maybe even imagine having booksignings or being on TV talk shows. In order to actually get a book published, you have to turn it into a goal and develop a plan. You have to write. You have to learn about your craft, whether from trial and error, from taking classes or from reading books about writing. You have to be willing to rewrite and revise. You have to take the risk of failure in submitting a book for publication or in putting a book out there electronically. While you're just dreaming, you can imagine being wildly successful. When you do it, there's always that chance that it won't work, which does sort of dampen the dream. Still, what's better, knowing you tried or never moving beyond a wish?
Published on April 04, 2012 16:28