A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 27

A Generous Dragon (short fiction)

She smelled the goblins the moment they entered her lair. They were quiet. She had to give them that. Not quiet enough, but quieter than most. She might not have heard their feet clicking against the treasures covering her cave floor, but she heard them gathering loose coins and jewels into their sack. There was no way to keep her from hearing that.

She pretended to sleep. It amused her to have visitors. She took her time disposing of them. She catalogued how greedy one might become once confronted with her vast wealth. They all came with reasonable dreams, but as soon as they saw the piles of glittering treasures, they couldn’t resist taking more than they planned. She didn’t need to kill them. Most would’ve died trying to carry everything down her mountain.

These two were different. They said nothing. They filled their small sack and turned to leave. She thumped her tail across their path and exhaled a small jet of flame over their heads.

“Hello, little ones,” she said.

The bigger of the goblins drew a dagger from his belt and pushed the smaller one behind him.

She chuckled. “Oh, dear, I assume this is some enchanted weapon. A dragonslaying knife, perhaps?

The goblin lowered his blade. “Please, let us go. You have so much.”
“Indeed, I do.” She lowered her head to get a closer look at them. One snort knocked them both off their feet. “But how much would I have if I let every little thief stuff their little sacks? I’d be a pauper within a decade.”

“You’re a dragon. Why do you need treasure at all?” asked the smaller goblin.

The bigger one shushed his companion.

“Why do you need treasure?” she asked. “Why does anyone? Because it glitters. Because it shines. Because it offers dreams and joys and sorrows and pain to goblin and dragon alike.” She raked her talons through a mountain of coins. They ran down her fingers, nearly burying the goblins in an avalanche of gold.

“Because. That’s why. Nothing more complicated than that.”

“Please, let my brother go,” said the larger goblin. “He’s only here because of me.”

She spread her wings to cast darkness over them. “Then his death is on your head, not mine.”

“I know why you hoard,” said the smaller. “You’re not greedy. You’re cruel. You love luring people here just so you can torture and eat them.”

She shook her head. “I wish it were that, little one. I wish. It would make more sense. But I am not the monster you believe me to be. I am only a very old dragon, driven by ancient instincts, who has spent countless centuries gathering these shiny baubles because. Just because.”

“Aren’t you lonely?”

She looked to the cave entrance. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d left. She wasn’t sure she could even fit through it anymore. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness.

“It’s just a little bit,” he said. “We need it to feed our village.”

“A noble call for thievery, but once you taste it, you will want more. The gold doesn’t let anyone go. It’s a cage as surely as poverty.”

“Easy for you to say,” said the older brother. “You have the gold.”

She lowered her wings, thumped the ground with her great tail. “You’re right. I sit here, atop my mountain of riches and think you presumptuous for desiring what I have in abundance. Easy for me to judge you for your frailty.”

She lifted her tail.

“Go then. And may it bring you more peace than it brought me.”

The older goblin said, “Thank you.”

“Why? I only give you the tiniest portion of what I have.”

“It’s more than most would be willing to give.”

They left her to her glittering treasures. She was old, by the measure of her kind. Long after the goblin brothers were dead and gone, and their children, and their children’s children’s children had perished, she would still be. But even dragons did not live forever. Time, however centuries of it remained to her, was all she had and so much she’d squandered collecting these baubles.

She squeezed herself through the cave entrance, just barely, and covered her eyes from the burning sunlight. She’d get used to it. With a great heave, she launched herself into the sky, leaving her worthless glittering obsession behind her.

The Wizard Did It (short fiction)

Wren and Hess

In Wren’s experience, wizards came in two standard varieties. There were the frail thin ones, usually with long beards. And the young, voluptuous sorceresses who appeared to believe that wearing clothes hampered their magic. The suspect was the latter. Her cleavage spilled out of her top and the enchanted silk clinging to her supple flesh left little to the imagination. It might’ve proven distracting to another constable, but Wren wasn’t into that sort of thing. Her job had put her right off sorcerers and magicians and all the like. Nothing but trouble.

Hess, being a lizardman, was fifty percent immune to the sorceress’s charms. He was still a man though and noticeably distracted. Strange how even lizardfolk, whose females were mostly indistinguishable from males, were still mesmerized by a great pair of breasts.

“I demand my right to council,” said the sorceress.

“In a moment,” said Wren. “We just want to talk.”

The sorceress snorted. She wasn’t under arrest and not wearing the magic-impairing manacles that helped to keep her type predictable. She raised her hand, and Wren braced herself for something to explode or an army of imps to spring out from between her boobs and attack.

The sorceress smiled. “This is about that shopkeeper in Little Hollowtown, isn’t it? The one who was turned to stone?”

Hess nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

She ran her fingers around her red lips. “No, but I do know there’s a gorgon who lives on Baker Street.”

They’d checked the gorgon. She’d had an alibi.

“Petrifying someone is a stupid way for a gorgon to kill somebody if they wanted to get away with it,” said Wren.

“Exactly why a smart gorgon might do it,” replied the sorceress.

“With all due respect, Miss Shadowdagger—”

“It’s Shadowdagger-Grimsoul. My husband insisted I take his name and I insisted I keep mine. So why am I here? It’s because of my husband, isn’t it? I assure you, he’s a legitimate tradesman.”

Hess cracked a grin. Everyone knew Morsh Shadowdagger had a hand in every shady deal in town, but proving it was another thing. Wren didn’t obsess over Shadowdagger. There was always crime. There would always be crime. She didn’t worry about all of it. Only those little bits of it that came across her desk. Like a dwarf in Little Hollowtown doing a dead-on impression of a lump of granite wearing a terrified expression.

“My husband is a powerful person,” said Shadowdagger-Grimsoul. “I’m sure he’s already talking to your superiors about this.”

“I’m sure he is,” said Wren. “We have eye witnesses who say they saw you leaving the scene a little after midnight. Six hours later, the shopkeeper is dead and as far as we can tell, you were the last person to see him alive.”

“Eye witness testimony is hardly reliable proof.”

“Three separate gargoyles identified you,” said Hess.

Shadowdagger-Grimsoul’s smile faded. “You don’t say. They do so love to chatter, those gargoyles. I don’t suppose I have a right to know my accusers’ names?”

“Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything,” said Wren. “We were just wondering why you might be visiting a shop in the middle of the night?”

“Just some late night shopping. They have the most darling incense holders at Burdle’s shop.”

“We never told you the shopkeeper’s name,” said Hess.

“Hardly incriminating evidence. I shopped there. Of course I knew his name.” Shadowdagger-Grimsoul leaned forward. It was only enchantment that kept her in dress. Hess warbled involuntarily. “Would you like me to tell you what happened to that poor little shopkeeper?”

Wren said, “Are you volunteering a confession?”

The sorceress laughed. “No, but my dear Gendarme Wren, I am a master of the forbidden arts. I know things. It’s better that you don’t ask how. Such knowledge would only endanger your sanity.

She leaned back and her breasts stayed perky and upright. It was then that Wren was certain the sorcerer had sold her soul to some unnamable demon lord. That wasn’t strictly illegal, so it wasn’t any of Wren’s business.

Shadowdagger-Grimsoul put her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. “I see a shopkeeper, charming, earthy, attractive in a stubby, delightfully cheerful way. And I see him taking a lover. Someone forbidden, dangerous. She doesn’t love him, of course, but she finds him amusing. And he cannot resist her. He must have her. And when she offers herself to him, he is happy, even eager, to reciprocate.

“Ah, but it is doomed to tragedy, as all such dangerous affairs are. The woman’s husband has dealt with this before. He knows his wife loves her diversions, but he also knows people will talk. He sends a wizard to solve this problem, and alas, poor Burdle pays the price for his passions.”

She lowered her hands and frowned.

“Such a shame, really. Burdle was such a lovely little fellow.”

Half-an-hour later, Wren and Hess watched the sorceress climb into a carriage and ride away.

“We’ll never prove anything,” said Hess. “And if we do, we’ll never go to trial. And if we go to trial, we’ll never—”

“I know.” Wren glared at the carriage disappearing in the distance. “I hate it when they get away with it.”

“Forget it, Wren. It’s Hollowtown.”

Small Miracles (short fiction)

Divine Misfortune

“Thank you for your patience. Your call is important to us and will be answered based upon your current membership level. If you would like to improve response time, consider sacrificing a fatted calf.”

Eugene groaned. He’d sacrificed one chicken, and it’d been a bloody ordeal. He wasn’t doing that again, much less a full blown calf.

He sat in his car, stuck in a ditch on the side of a forsaken muddy road in the middle of nowhere, while a hard rain filled his head with a steady pitter patter. A deer stepped out of the woods, and Eugene wondered if it was a sign. All he had to do was catch it and offer it up to his god. Easier said than done. Even if by some incredible stroke of luck he managed to catch the animal, he didn’t have anything handy to do it in. He didn’t even carry a pocket knife.

The deer looked at him from across the way, mocking him. He jammed the horn, hoping to scare it away. It merely sauntered into the woods with indifference.

“Hello, Mr. Stein,” said a voice on the phone. “How may I be of service today?”

Eugene perked up. “It’s about time. I need a miracle.”

“I see. Can you explain the nature of your need?”

He did. He left out the extraneous stuff. It didn’t matter why he was here (business trip) or how he’d ended up on this patch of nowhere (wrong turn). He just needed a way out.

“Have you tried calling a towing service?” the operator asked.

“Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?” He swallowed his sarcasm. “I’m not getting any service out here. The only call that will go through is to you guys.” The gods had great reception, if you were lucky enough to have the right number.

“I see.”

She kept saying that. Like she really saw. Maybe she could. Maybe the operators on Mount Olympus or wherever the gods lived now that Mount Olympus had been turned into a vacation spa could watch everything from above.

“I can’t do that, sir,” she replied. “My omniscience is very limited.”
“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I can call a towing service for you, Mr. Stein.”

“That’s not a miracle,” he replied.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It’s relaying a message. According to my contract, I get one goddamn miracle a year. My year is almost up, and I haven’t gotten one yet.”

“I see.” He heard noises in the background. Voices. Laughing. Shuffling papers. Keystrokes. Were they laughing at him? Did the gods get their jollies by watching humanity struggle against a cruel universe?

Of course they did. They didn’t bother to hide it.

“Ah, here we are,” she said. “I’m afraid your service plan doesn’t quite cover this. You have our neophyte coverage. That allows one Class F minor miracle. This is more of a Class C. Not quite parting the waters or smiting your enemies, but still—”

“I just want to get a car out of the mud.”

“That’s the easy part, sir. However, you’re currently outside of your coverage zone. Dispatching any assistance, divine or otherwise, would incur a surcharge to your account.”

“Can’t you just snap your fingers and make it happen?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Mr. Stein. We’re gods, not fairy tale wizards.”

He groaned. “I just want to get back on a road I recognize. Is that too much to ask?”

“Okay, I shouldn’t really do this, but I can see you’re having a rough day, sir. I’ll requisition that miracle, but you will be required to burn fifty extra dollars in your next tribute.”

“Fifty?”

“Technically, it should be two hundred,” she said. “But fifty is the best I can do.”

“Fine. If that’s what it takes.”

“Very good, sir. Won’t take a moment.”

And it didn’t. The clouds parted. The rain slowed to a soft drizzle. Three burly angelic creatures with four lion heads each and a strange assortment of wings and limbs descended from the heavens. They lifted his car out of the mud and set it back on the road, then had him sign some paperwork before ascending into the sky again.

Smiling, Eugene drove back toward civilization. A few miles into the journey, a deer bolted across the road. Eugene swerved, smashing into a tree. The airbag punched him hard in the face.

He called his god again. The same operator answered immediately this time.

“Shall I contact that towing service now, sir?”

He nodded.

“Very good, sir.”

The Deep Below (short fiction)

“Are they really going to do it?” asked Burr. “Again?”

“It’s their way,” said Shad.

In the valley below, the human and orc armies clashed. Blood and steel, honor and glory. It was all they sought. All they ever sought. There had to be everyday humans and orcs, elves and dwarves. Those who didn’t live to fight and fight to live. Or so Burr assumed. He’d never met one of those sorts, but he’d seen the villages, whether built on the fields, carved into the great mountains, or across the broken plains. But those types didn’t seem to matter. In the end, it was always war that drove the surface races. Even the dwarves, who only thought they knew the sanctuary of the Deep Below.

Burr said, “How many times must they do it?”

“Forever,” said Shad.

“Will they never learn?”

“They haven’t yet.”

Burr sat on a rock and watched the battle. As much as he hated to admit it, he could see the appeal. Not for him or his kind. They wouldn’t have been any good at war if they’d decided to give it a try. But the idea of his race rising up from the Deep Below to wage glorious conquest on the foolish surface races, it did amuse him.

“You’re smiling again,” said Shad.

“Am I?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it. Throwing their lives and civilizations away like this.”

Burr didn’t try to explain to her. It was probably better she didn’t understand. There was something wrong with him that he did.

“Oh, they’re about to do it.” He leaned closer. This was their role, to bear witness to the end of yet another surface age.

“Bet’cha it’s the orcs this time,” said Shad.

“Maybe they won’t do it,” said Burr with some hope.

“They’ll do it.”

She was more cynical than him with good reason. They had the records of all the times things had gone past the tipping point. There was nothing to be done but watch.

The human priests raised their angelic voices, calling upon their ancient gods. Their gods, moved by their prayers, sent down a phalanx of winged warriors, glowing with divine righteousness. Their mere presence caused both orc and human to burn. Burr and Shad were beyond the notice of the gods and their servants and remained unharmed.

Burr covered his eyes from the light as the orc sorcerers countered by summoning their own terrible deities, manifesting as twisted mounds of gluttonous green flesh, crushing both armies indiscriminately.

“Told’ja they’d do it,” said Shad.

“Yes, but you said it’d be the orcs.”

“Doesn’t matter who starts it,” she said. “If not them, then someone else would.”

They watched the titanic struggle far below as gods, spurred by their own savage enthusiasm, unleashed more blind devastation upon heretic and follower alike. The gates were thrown wide, and once the invitation was given, the gods would cover this world with blood until their appetites were sated. Until there was almost nothing left, and the surface folk would rebuild, forgetting all the mistakes they made over and over again along the way.

“Mark it down,” said Burr. “End of the fourteenth age.”

Shad scribbled a note on her scroll. “We should go now.”

They headed back into the cave, leading down, down, down into the place neither human, nor orc, nor elf, nor any of the rest ever went. Nor their weird, reckless gods. Down to the Deep Below, while above the wars and indiscriminate death raged. The death of an old age. The birth of another.

“Maybe they’ll get it right the next time,” said Burr.

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

He’d like to believe otherwise, but maybe she was right.

Maybe it was just their way.

Harriet and Abraham (short fiction)

They dug him up a week after he died. People were still watching his grave, and that might have been a problem if he’d been buried there. But while no one was looking, a complicated shell game took place, and the corpse of the most famous dead man in America was shuffled off. Then he was buried in a sacred and sacrilegious location where magic lived and things happened that never should.

And then they dug him up.

His flesh was pale. His eyes hollow. A few bugs crawled in his beard, but Harriet had seen worse corpses rising from the dead. He wasn’t screaming. That was always nice. It was a good sign.

“Why aren’t I dead?” he asked.

Jacob helped the newly risen Abraham to his feet.

“Some folks are too important to die,” said Harriet.

“There’s a lot of work left to do,” said Jacob.

“I thought I was through.” Abraham rubbed his head, feeling for the bullet hole that had ended his life. His previous life. “I thought it was over. No, I prayed it was.”

“It’s never over,” said Harriet.

“Why me?” he asked. “Haven’t I given enough?”

“You know you haven’t,” she replied. “And you’re not the kind of man who would allow himself to believe otherwise.”

Abraham sighed, wiping the dust from his lapel. “I presume you are right, but I do wish it was otherwise.”

“We all do. You’ll rest, sir. One of these days, you’ll lay your head down for good. But not this day. In the meantime, you’ll carry on. Like we all do. And you’ll fight for as long as there is fight in you. And there’s fight in you because the magic here wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’t.”

Abraham measured Harriet silently. “And you? Are you . . . like me?”

“No, sir. Still on my first life,” she said with a smile. “Though there were times I thought it was over.”

He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t do more.”

“There’s always more to do,” she replied. “We fight on. With every breath we have. And for some of us, beyond. We might never win, but as long as we haven’t stopped fighting, we haven’t lost either.”

Abraham laughed. “You’re a most stubborn woman, I can see.”

“Stubborn as I need to be,” she replied.

Harriet and Lincoln (short fiction)

HARRIET AND LINCOLN

They dug him up a week after he died. People were still watching his grave, and that might have been a problem if he’d been buried there. But while no one was looking, a complicated shell game took place, and the corpse of the most famous dead man in America was shuffled off. Then he was buried in a sacred and sacrilegious location where magic lived and things happened that never should.

And then they dug him up.

His flesh was pale. His eyes hollow. A few bugs crawled in his beard, but Harriet had seen worse corpses rising from the dead. He wasn’t screaming. That was always nice. It was a good sign.

“Why aren’t I dead?” he asked.

Jacob helped the newly risen Abraham to his feet.

“Some folks are too important to die,” said Harriet.

“There’s a lot of work left to do,” said Jacob.

“I thought I was through.” Abraham rubbed his head, feeling for the bullet hole that had ended his life. His previous life. “I thought it was over. No, I prayed it was.”

“It’s never over,” said Harriet.

“Why me?” he asked. “Haven’t I given enough?”

“You know you haven’t,” she replied. “And you’re not the kind of man who would allow himself to believe otherwise.”

Abraham sighed, wiping the dust from his lapel. “I presume you are right, but I do wish it was otherwise.”

“We all do. You’ll rest, sir. One of these days, you’ll lay your head down for good. But not this day. In the meantime, you’ll carry on. Like we all do. And you’ll fight for as long as there is fight in you. And there’s fight in you because the magic here wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’t.”

Abraham measured Harriet silently. “And you? Are you . . . like me?”

“No, sir. Still on my first life,” she said with a smile. “Though there were times I thought it was over.”

He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t do more.”

“There’s always more to do,” she replied. “We fight on. With every breath we have. And for some of us, beyond. We might never win, but as long as we haven’t stopped fighting, we haven’t lost either.”

Abraham laughed. “You’re a most stubborn woman, I can see.”

“Stubborn as I need to be,” she replied.

Results May Vary (writing)

Another post inspired by 50 Shades of Grey? Sort of, but before you tune out, let me just say this isn’t really about that at all. Just a jumping off point.

Still reading? Cool.

So 50 Shades is being sold as a romance with BDSM elements that make it unique, and I can see that. It’s unlikely that Shades is doing anything that hasn’t been done other places, but it’s a relatively unexplored area in mainstream romance. Just as people who never really read fantasy were blown away by Harry Potter, though there’s nothing at its foundation that make the story of a boy at wizard school particularly original or surprising, for people who haven’t explored the more unusual corners of erotica, Shades must feel like something new and incredible. And that’s cool. I’m not here to talk about that.

Now, to that jumping off point:

Can a book that explores unpleasant aspects of human behavior without being exploitative?

The short answer is Yes.

The long answer is more complicated, and it doesn’t end at BDSM. There’s a fine line between exploration and exploitation. Take a look at something like Family Guy, a show that started out as a deconstruction of the family sitcom by inserting naughty humor. Family Guy even explored anti-humor, the notion of filling your show with long segments of non-jokes just to see what you can get away with. But over time, the crudeness and unpleasantness cranked up until crossing over the line into truly exploitative humor. Jokes about the foolishness of racism devolved into pure, unadulterated racist jokes. The non-jokes become more important than the jokes themselves. Under the guise of being a cultural mirror, Family Guy explores complicated issues in only the most superficial ways, usually mistakes cruelty for humor, and has a hell of a lot of rape jokes.

Shades is all about a BDSM relationship, and there’s a fine line between a BDSM relationship and a genuinely abusive one. I have no doubt that non-abusive BDSM relationships exist, but does Grey portray one? Or is it, in fact, romanticism of abuse?

Does American Sniper portray the harsh realities of war? Or does it glorify our nationalistic blood lust and desire for simple answers?

Can a video game like Spec Op: The Line be both a violent video game about shooting people while simultaneously being a criticism of that genre?

It’s a sticky wicket, all right, and not one always easy to pin down. Often because the audience is more than willing to misinterpret in favor of the more comfortable view. Another Clint Eastwood film, Unforgiven, is all about deconstructing the myth of the gunslinger, exploring the harsh realities of what it might mean to be a violent man. It very obviously declares that violence, even justified violence, takes a toll on a human’s soul.

And then it ends with a kickass shoot out, and much of the audience walks out thinking how badass Clint Eastwood’s damaged gunslinger is, not how broken he is.

Watchmen is all about how superheroes can be scary, dangerous, and downright abusive and damaging to a society if they actually existed. Many readers just think it’s about how awesome Rorschach is, even though his character is meant to be the most pathetic and dysfunctional among a cast of unhealthy, dysfunctional people.

Nope. It’s not easy. Not at all.

We absorb stories with our own expectations and hot buttons and no matter how much a story might try to get us to look at something from a different angle, we’re still prone to sticking to what we know and have been conditioned to want. Much of Watchmen‘s misinterpretation comes from the fact that it is a deconstruction of the superhero genre but most people who read it initially were fans of the superhero genre. So instead of realizing the story was about how dangerous superheroes would be, they instead decided the moral was Batman would be even more awesome if he mutilated criminals with a hatchet. Shades could be a story about sexual exploration, but for most, it’ll probably translate to “Sex should be rough to be good.” Not necessarily because the story says so, but because people tend to interpret stories in the most direct, pleasing way possible.

An anecdote from my own life can be found in Don Jon, the excellent film from Joseph Gorden Levitt. In it, he plays a man obsessed with superficial aspects of human relationships. Sex, sure, but even friendship and body image, all on the surface level. He falls for a woman who is this physical ideal, but never really connects with him as a person. And when he finds himself dissatisfied, he begins to question the relationships around him. In the end, he becomes a stronger, more realized human being who begins to understand how to truly relate to his friends and family. He ends up in a new relationship with an unlikely partner that is ill-defined but more intimate than any he’s had before.

My wife initially walked out of the film dissatisfied with the ending. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but then she realized that, while the movie has a happy ending, it wasn’t the expected happy ending. Our protagonists grows, learns, and becomes a better person. His life improves, and yet, it was no the ending she was conditioned to want. Now, my wife being, a lovely, intelligent woman, figured this out a few days later, and realized that was the entire point of the film. It was all about those expectations, how they get in our way, how they prevent us from being satisfied, how they keep us preoccupied. The film’s central theme was obvious and there, and she still missed it at first because, despite it all, she was still ready for that familiar ending.

I’m well-aware of this with some of my own writing. A Nameless Witch is all about a doomed romance. You know it’s doomed from the start. The narrator never claims otherwise. Yet there are those who are surprised by the ending, which I feel is the only ending the story could honestly have.  I won’t get into the details, but if you’ve read it, you know what I mean. Even stranger to me is Monster, where two people who dislike each other from page one of the book are still expected to end up together because they’re the protagonists and single.

So when someone writes a story with violence, criticizing how quickly we view violence as entertainment, is it hypocritical? Is it foolish? Does it serve any purpose or merely get lost in the echoing expectations of our culture? In the end, does 50 Shades of Grey have anything important to say about relationships or is it just more by-the-numbers romance with some bondage thrown in? And if it does have something to say, does it say what it thinks it says or does it betray another (accidental) theme?

I don’t know, but it’s just something I think about now and then.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

Monsters from the Id (writing)

My reservations about 50 Shades of Grey aside, I think it’s far too easy to dismiss something this popular and (let’s face it) absurd.  As a writer myself, I marvel at the substandard writing within the book and at a story that (at best) is little more than a kinky romance or (at worst) an unintentional exploration of a dysfunctional, broken relationship.  50 Shades is certainly not a story aimed at me.  Its lack of ninjas and dinosaurs makes that apparent.  And yet, the book is successful.  More successful than I’ll ever be.  While I have no doubt it’s more of a fad than a cultural touchstone, even as a fad, there’s something worth exploring there.  It’s easy to say “This sucks and therefore, I have nothing to learn from it”, but that’s simplistic.  As an artist, I want to speak to people.  I want people to be excited and enthralled by what I write.  I want the passion and obsessiveness of 50 Shades while writing something with more artistic oomph and, yes, a lot less of an ick factor.

There’s little doubt that 50 Shades is popular simply because of the cultural zeitgeist.  Things that are popular tend to become more popular.  Things that are obscure tend to stay obscure.  Call it the Conservation of Cultural Attention, but people tend to be attracted to things that their friends like, that their culture is talking about.  Even hipsters and trend avoiders are part of this because by avoiding popular things, they are playing the same game on the other side of the coin.  This is just the way it is, and it’s okay to admit.  Harry Potter is popular because Harry Potter is popular.  People love Batman because other people love Batman.  As much as we might like to believe ourselves beyond this herd mentality, that’s how it works.  That’s not to say that these characters and stories are popular only because of the herd, but it’s a factor and a more important one than most people are willing to acknowledge.

50 Shades benefits from this popularity snowball, but I don’t believe that’s the only reason it’s doing so well.  There’s another reason, and as a storyteller, I think it’s probably the most important element of storytelling.

Yes, for all its turgid prose and ridiculous characters, 50 Shades succeeds for exactly the same reason Harry Potter and The Grapes of Wrath succeed.  It taps into that most powerful element of storytelling and art:  The Emotional Core.  Freud (who was mostly a wacko who really got most things wrong) would’ve labeled it the Id.  And the Id is nearly everything.  Tap into that, and you can get away with practically anything.

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings, but we will gladly forgive the most glaring plot hole and goofiest bit of dialogue or characterization if it manages to reach our emotional hot buttons.  In the end, it is our passions that drive and compel us.  Everything else is just window dressing.

We need look no further than the blockbuster movies of the last few years.  People complain about the endless tide of reboots and remakes, and yet, they see them.  Even when given a choice, they seek them out.  We might all remark on how silly and mindless Bay’s Transformers films are, but it doesn’t stop us from seeing them.  When the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are rebooted into an almost unrecognizable mess, we still see them.  When given a choice between the intellectual (stories that make sense) versus the emotional (stories that emotionally manipulate us), we seek out the latter, not the former.

I’ve written often about the absurd non-stories at the heart of Star Trek: Into Darkness, Skyfall, and Godzilla.  And, yes, from a purely logical perspective, all these films (and more) are utter failures.  Characters run around for no clear purpose, do things that don’t make sense, and encounter inane obstacles.  Man of Steel juggles so many themes, dropping every one of them in the end, that you’d be hard-pressed to really summarize what the story is about other than “Sad Superman punches a bunch of bad guys and then isn’t sad anymore.”  And, yet, it doesn’t matter.

That’s the truth.  That’s what we writers must accept.

50 Shades might be a by-the-numbers romance with some half-assed domination and bondage thrown in.  Its characters are so broad as to be ridiculous.  A rich, handsome, distant man who doesn’t know how to love.  A child-like woman who, though being attractive and pleasant, has somehow gone her whole life without experiencing sexuality in much of any form.  Even their names: Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele are so absurd as to make one roll one’s eyes.  And this is coming from a guy who has had protagonists named Mack Megaton and Emperor Mollusk.

Those who criticize the story on that basis are entirely right.  There’s even a solid argument to be made about how it crosses from a traditional harmless romance story to a tale of abuse and a cliched exploration of why someone would be into BDSM in the first place.  I can certainly see both arguments, and I agree with them.  It’s frustrating to see such an abusive relationship romanticized, and I can imagine that anyone into BDSM would probably be sick to death of the assumption that being into that sort of thing is a sign they’re mentally damaged.  (I sure as hell hate when people think I must be an arrested adolescent because I like cartoons and kaiju, so it’s sort of the same thing.)

And yet, most people reading the story don’t care.  They don’t care about the writing.  They don’t care about the story.  They don’t think about it much, and when they do, they tend to focus on it in only the most superficial, emotionally satisfying ways.  Reading, more than most mediums, is a deeply personal experience, filtered through one’s own perceptions, experiences, and biases.  And so, let’s get down to it:

Most people don’t give a damn about good or bad prose.  Even people who read regularly.  Yes, I know that’s absurd, but it’s true.  For most people, as long as the prose doesn’t get in the way, they’re happy.  The other end of that are people who love prose so much that they don’t care about much else, but let’s put those people aside for now.  For most readers, prose is meant to be functional, unobtrusive.  That’s unsurprising.  Most people have not spent much time thinking about prose.  They view writing the same way they view plumbing.  It gets the job done.  They don’t really care how.  If you’re a plumber, you can see a series of pipes and understand its complexity and how it keeps everything working.  If you’re not, you just know there are pipes, and as long as they aren’t leaking, they don’t draw much of your attention.  That’s how most people view prose.  As a writer, I might work for five minutes on a paragraph upon which everything hinges, and a reader just might as easily skim through it without much concern.

Most people don’t care aboutcharacters except in the broadest possible terms.  They find a character to relate to and care about, latch onto them, and just go forward.  Subtle relationships are a waste of time.  The romance genre thrives because it is so broad and simple, but so did Westerns and cop movies from the 80′s where a maverick cop had to take on a sinister villain who is motivated by his desire for money and power.  Sometimes, if a writer wants to pretend to be subtle, they’ll throw in some extraneous motivation.  Batman is relatable because his parents died tragically, but there could just as easily be a dozen other motivations for this billionaire who dresses up like a bat to fight criminal scum.  And that’s okay.  Complicated people are (in truth) rare in this world, difficult to write, and more frustrating than interesting in the end.  Nobody is really there to watch Batman cry over his parents chalk outlines.  They’re there to watch him punch weirdos in the name of justice.  So it is with 50 Shades.  The BDSM isn’t important.  The abusive elements just skim across the reader.  But the “passion”, the simplistic interaction between these two characters is all that really matters.

Most people don’t care about plot.  They’re perfectly happy with a series of events, one after another, that have some loose connection to one another.  For most people, a simulated plot (see: Godzilla and Into Darkness) is just as satisfying and pretty much indistinguishable from an actual story.  Godzilla, in particular, is a great example of a plotless story where characters wander from point A to point Z with nary a clear motivation or purpose and where our protagonist is our protagonist because . . . well, someone hast to be so it might as well be this cardboard puppet as anyone else.

And, yes, you have no idea how frustrating it is to have said all the above.  As a writer, I work hard on all those elements, and more and more, I’ve come to realize how unimportant they are.  Perhaps that’s why so many writers are frustrated by 50 Shades.  It’s not that it’s a bad book.  It’s a bad book that reminds us that most everything we try to do as artists just might be a colossal waste of time.  It’s like making Oscar bait.  You could try to come up with a really subtle and interesting story.  Or you could just write something about an English guy involving WW2 and call it a day.

The lesson (painful as it might be) to be gleaned from 50 Shades is that the Id is king.  You can screw up nearly everything else, and you can still get by.  Hell, you might even be wildly successful.  Hollywood has figured out that it’s far more sensible (from a capitalist perspective) to simply remake something people have fond memories for or to brand yourself so successfully that the audience is already on your side.  Star Wars will make a billion dollars, and it’s pointless to even wonder if quality is important.  It simply isn’t.  All that matters is that it’s Star Wars.  Not that this means it will be bad.  It just means it doesn’t matter from a pure commercial perspective.

None of the above is meant to excuse the flaws of bad storytelling, nor to shield them from criticism.  50 Shades does have bad prose, flat characters, and some really unpleasant aspects of abuse and dysfunctional relationships.  Godzilla is terrible.  Man of Steel is pretentious nonsense.  Into Darkness has the depth of a Superfriends episode.  We can and should discuss these works, how they affect us, how they fail.  And, yes, how they succeed to.  Art, like everything else, is a complicated business, and it’s good to acknowledge that.

So feel free to call 50 Shades out on its absurd failures, but just remember:

It’s all about the Id.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

50 Shades of Conventional Gender Roles (commentary)

I’m not here to judge anyone’s lifestyle choice. Well, not most anyone. But there is something profoundly creepy about the version of romance portrayed by 50 Shades of Gray. I’m not talking about the notion of BDSM. I’m just talking about the idea that romance is a thing to be forced upon us, that a relationship is about one person (usually a man) conquering another (usually a woman). Is this healthy? Is this a way a modern relationship should develop?

I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t appeal to me, but I’m not the target audience. I don’t care if people read books I find creepy. That’s cool. But the idea that this is “erotic” is as ridiculous to me as the cliches of male-targeted porn can be. In that world, women are just ready to have sex at a moment’s notice, with no consequence or thought. It’s absurd, and a fantasy. But it is definitely not a healthy way to approach real sexuality.

Fantasy is fantasy. I enjoy fiction where monsters step on cities, and it doesn’t mean I want to watch cities get stepped on in real life. So if someone wants to read about unhealthy relationships, even fantasize about them, I don’t really have a problem with that.

Yet there is a small difference here I sometimes can’t get over. Porn is hardly ever about real relationships, and many of the classic steamy fictions of the past have portrayed the dangerous and negative sides of such relationships. Fatal Attraction, Body Heat, Basic Instinct, all explore the dangers of sexual attraction and manipulation. Sure, they do so for drama more than an overarcing theme, but still, 50 Shades is about one person who controls and manipulates and dominates another, and it is portrayed as something healthy and positive.

I won’t even begin to get into the gender politics of this. There are certainly men who like to be dominated, and yet, you wouldn’t know it from mainstream fiction. Such men are weak-willed, pathetic, foolish. There are women who like to dominate. Such women are harpies, dangerous vixens, and untrustworthy.

But reverse it, make the man the dominator, make the woman the dominated, and it’s a mainstream “erotic romance” with a Valentine’s Day release.

Pretty creepy.

It seems that, in the end, this isn’t a story with edge, but an old fashioned throwback. John Wayne throws the little lady over his shoulder and drags her away, and it’s harmless fun. It’s even romantic and playful. Christian Gray drags a woman into his bed, lacks even the basics of treating a human being like a human being, and then everyone swoons.

Same ol’ gender roles.

Same ol’ message.

Men, you should be strong for your woman because she needs you to tell her how to feel, how to be. She needs you to break in her sexuality rather than discovering it on her own.

Women, you should learn that, in the end, a strong man will stoke your fires. The passions within you cannot be awakened without someone to dominate you into surrendering control.

Yeah. Lot of dangerous bullshit there.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

 

Colorblind Casting (writing)

We need to acknowledge that race matters, and that it matters a lot. As wonderful as the notion of being “Colorblind” is, it accidentally (and sometimes even intentionally) minimizes the experiences people might have that are unique to them. As much as some people might like to believe otherwise, your skin color, ethnic perceptions, and gender have a profound and lasting impact on who you are. It’s not always fair, but it’s undeniable.

I used to believe that it was possible to write a character as “neutral” and still be true to them. I still do believe it, I suppose. Especially if it’s not particularly relevant to the story being told. Thor cast Idris Elba as Heimdall and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun the Grim. Both excellent choices, and while it’s always welcome to see more ethnic diversity in our stories (especially superheroes, who have been lily white for far too long), it would’ve seemed unnecessary for the characters to talk about it. Part of this is also simply because Thor, as a fantasy film, can get away with the idea that the Asgardians are past racism. The other part is that Heimdall and Hogun are only supporting characters. There story isn’t the one we are there to watch.

But the idea of colorblind casting, while noble in a way, is also a dismissal of the realities that shape our lives. Hancock had Will Smith as a black superhero who had been around, immortal, for decades. The question never really came up about how this might have affected the civil rights movement, and I can see how they might want to sidestep the issue. But at the same time, it seems like an unnecessary cheat. After all, Hancock didn’t have to be immortal. He could’ve just as easily been Smith’s real age. So why make him around for such fascinating and pivotal moments of history without even mentioning it? The truth is that the writers didn’t care about that. So they didn’t address it.

I get that. When I wrote Divine Misfortune, I didn’t even mention that Teri and Phil Robinson are black. I’ll admit that it’s a cop out, and just as I feel regret over my sometimes unpleasant treatment of Loretta’s weight in Gil’s All Fright Diner, I still wish I’d done something to acknowledge their ethnicity. Nothing too extravagant or distracting. In my worlds, racism exists, but in a less obnoxious form. Hey, it’s fantasy. I’m allowed. But I still should’ve mentioned it, should’ve included something to make it noteworthy, to say that as assimilated to white culture (for lack of a better term) as the Robinsons are, they’ve still had to put up with some inconveniences from being black.

Granted, we all have our problems. I don’t want to imply that white Americans have it easy. Just that, by virtue of our ethnicity, we all have different experiences. With my last name, I get more Spanish sales calls than most white folks, I assume, and having grown up surrounded by brown-skinned people, I hardly notice them as unique. That’s part of my background. It shaped who I was and how I look at the world. Heck, I don’t even speak Spanish, but I also don’t find it to be strange to hear. Less to do with my ethnicity than my geography.

And yet, when I was a kid I lived in Massachusetts for a year, and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. My ethnicity mattered, and it was probably the first time it was a unique feature. I don’t doubt it affected how others treated me, along with other elements like being from Texas and being just a loner in general. My name, Martinez, shaped my experience, and while I didn’t get called names, I was definitely an outsider for many reasons.

I used to write as neutrally as possible with my characters, but as time goes on, I find myself compelled to incorporate those elements I once tried to ignore. When I wrote Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, I wanted Helen’s minotaurism to be important. Not her sole defining trait or even her most important one, but something that influences her. Being a young woman with minotaurism was also important. It wasn’t meant to be just a gimmick. Helen is seven feet tall, covered in fur, with a cow-like face. That’s going to affect her. It would be dishonest to expect otherwise.

To understand that, I had to understand what that meant. Like I said before, I don’t particularly care for racism in real life, so I tend to mute it in my books when it shows up. Helen has a couple of advantages. She lives in a world of magic, and everyone is pretty used to such things. However, I also wanted minotaurism to be unusual, even for this universe. In essence, it’s more of a very rare medical condition than an ethnicity. Helen’s ethnicity is Greek, though that’s overshadowed by the minotaurism. It’s also something she can’t hide. It’s obvious to everyone, and it’s the first thing anyone will notice about her. She knows it. She has no choice to accept it, but it’s still frustrating. Add to this that being that tall, super strong, and not a size zero are generally not things society values in women, I had this image of a person conflicted with many of the things she has to deal with.

Yes, Helen deals with them well because she’s been dealing with them since she was born. I wanted Helen to be well-adjusted, smart, capable. I didn’t want her to hate who she was or be ashamed of it. Sometimes, maybe a little embarrassed, a little self-conscious. Like we all can be. Helen is more than a minotaur, but being a minotaur has had a big influence on her. To write otherwise would’ve been a cheat.

Troy is Asian-American, and that’s had an effect on him as well. It doesn’t come up a lot because Troy is a confident, awesome guy. He’s so awesome that even racism isn’t likely to slow him down. But there are moments in the story, here and there, where it’s mentioned. Like when someone wanted to date him because she liked Chinese guys even though Troy is Japanese. Even his overachieving family is something of an acknowledged cliche. Troy is defined mostly by being nearly perfect, but I didn’t ignore his ethnicity. Not entirely.

The problem becomes a question of balance. I don’t mind colorblind casting in my protagonists. When Denzel Washington was cast as The Equalizer, it didn’t strike me as noteworthy that a black man was playing a character formerly played by a white actor. And I do think it’d be amazing to see more white superheroes recast as other ethnicities. I might even go see a Spider-Man movie where he was played by a black or Asian actor. Though probably not because I actually dislike Spider-Man with surprising intensity. I think the new Fantastic Four movie looks dreadful, but I am pleased to have Michael B. Jordan as the new Human Torch. And if the movie decides not to make a big deal about it, I’m cool with that. More diversity is always welcome.

But what if one wants to address it? As a Mexican-American, have I any right to comment on the African-American experience? Writing about minotaur women is one thing. I can’t screw that up too bad, but is it a minefield better avoided. All my stories feature female characters prominently (as both protagonists and supporting characters), and is it something I screw up? I’ll admit, most my women characters are like me in that they don’t know a lot about fashion and aren’t particularly feminine. Constance Verity (of my new trilogy) has spent so much time adventuring that she’s more comfortable fighting mummies than putting on makeup. It’s reasonable, and it certainly makes my work easier. But is it yet another cop out?

Honestly, it depends on how important you want to make it. Humans come in a startling variety. Perhaps the biggest disservice we can do is simply define anyone by a simple label. One of the easiest ways to do that is to introduce more diversity, acknowledged or not. I take every story on a case-by-case basis. I measure what the character needs, what the story needs, and what elements work. I don’t mind introducing some diversity simply for diversity’s sake, and I don’t mind drawing attention to it either. It all depends.

But it does matter. It matters to have more non-white, non-male characters in our stories. It’s good to just do it and not make a big deal about it, but it’s also important to make a big deal about it too. As a writer, I want to bring more diversity to my stories. Yes, I mostly do that by writing about moon monsters, space squids, and minotaur women, but if among all the weirdness, I squeeze in some real life diversity, that can only be a good thing. I’m at the point in my career where I’d rather screw up trying to be more inclusive than play it safe.

Because damn it, diversity matters.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE