Sidney Blaylock Jr.'s Blog, page 70

Heroes are NOT Bland–A passionate defense of the Hero

E3 is happening this week.  I’m a huge video game player and I will be highlighting things that I”m interested in and talking about them periodically over the coming weeks.

Below you will find the trailer for a game I’m interested in called, Tom Clancy’s The Division.  The trailer is at once both depressing and stirring.  Have a look for yourself:

GameTrailers, has a show called “Let’s All Go To The Trailers,” that showcases effective and evocative game trailers.  You can find their website here:  http://www.gametrailers.com/shows/lets-all-go-to-the-trailers

In the latest episode, “United Division,” one of the trailers that they discuss is Tom Clancy’s The Division.  What concerns me is that they decide that EVERYONE (from the villains–both sets–all the way down to the victim that is being protected) are MORE interesting than the bland heroes.  The heroes, it is argued, are the LEAST interesting part of the trailer.

I cannot DISAGREE more.  It’s probably not fair for me to pick on them because I have seen this sentiment expressed over and over again for the past six to seven years, but the way they expressed this idea just made me shake my head and fixed firmly in my mind WHY I WRITE.

Too often in the past few years, I’ve heard the term “Shades of Gray,” to reference characters who are flawed and who are complex and who have both good and evil inside them.  It is commonly argued that these are the current “models” that we should base our heroes on, but I couldn’t disagree more.  In many instances, these characters are not heroes.  Heck, they’re not even anti-heroes.  They are straight up thugs and villains, given one or two “heroic” traits and then paraded as people who we should feel sympathy for and who we should root for in stories (Walter White from Breaking Bad, I’m looking directly at you).

These are people whose actions most of us would abhor should we encounter them in real life, but critics adore them and cite them as “complex characters.”  They kill, they lie, they cheat, they skirt rules, or simply break them, and yet, they are the pillars around which we hang our stories.  I first noticed this villain as hero in the genre world after watching Pitch Black several years ago.  I won’t spoil the movie, but it definitely falls into this category.

Yet, the hero is SUPPOSED to be the one who struggles.  To do what is right even though you are under intense pressure is FAR MORE interesting TO ME than to do what is wrong because it is quicker and easier and watch the results of those actions.

At any time, a character can give up, take the easy way out, but once that character does, then the character gives up any sense of agency. They become a pawn of their addictions, afflictions, abuses, and the critics adore them for it.  However, a character that is a pawn is a character without agency.  A character without agency is one that is manipulated by the plot.  We call those stories Deus Ex Machina–God from a Machine.  The writer intervenes to save his characters.  When we have villains that masquerade as heroes, the heroes lose their agency–their ability to struggle.  They suffer–and that is where the sense of drama comes from as we watch them go from excess to excess–but do they actually struggle?   How can they when they’ve all ready given in to their baser natures?

As much as I like Jason Bourne and Matt Damon’s portrayal of him, I dislike the lack of portrayal of him earning his abilities.  In the first movie, he was a superman with INNATE abilities.  We never saw him earn them, we never saw him STRUGGLE to get them.  We learned later who he was and that caused him to suffer.  However, I felt (and will always feel) MORE for Luke Skywalker than Jason Bourne.  I SAW Luke sweat as Yoda trained him.  I SAW him fail as Yoda tried to inculcate a sense of “faith” into him and watched as he failed even as Yoda succeeded in raising the X-Wing fighter.

And yet, it was Luke who had to make the HARD choice to face Darth Vader again, knowing what he knew about Vader.  It was Luke who, having lost his own hand, realized just how close he was to following Vader down the same path, it was Luke, who understood that faith that Yoda had taught him could be applied not just to Luke’s abilities, but also to a person, Vader.  The whole story hinged on Luke surviving and making HARD CHOICES.  Yes, those chose are HARD, but necessary.  I don’t remember once Vin Diesel’s character in Pitch Black having to make a HARD CHOICE.  Everything was given to his character, everything was easy.  Life isn’t easy–everything is a struggle–and I thought that critics wanted COMPLEXITY.  It seems to me, that a truly complex character is one that must struggle and fail and struggle and fail until they finally “get it” and struggle and succeed.  How complex a character can one truly be if they never struggle and all we see is the suffering of a character that is in a spiral?

I see the allure of the villain as character.  Everything is easy.  Just follow your heart’s desire and everything will either be given to you and you’ll be awesome (Bourne) or everything will spiral out of control and we’ll enjoy watching the fall (Walter White).  Yet, to me, this type of character and (by extension) this type of fiction doesn’t appeal to me because nothing in my life has EVER been easy.  This then is the most unrealistic type of fiction (even more so than genre work) because it is a lie that I can see through, and how can a fiction that one can see through tell me anything about the world I live in?  Isn’t that why we, as writers, work so hard to hide the fictions that we write–so that we can then reveal the TRUTHS about the world we live in?

So, Schedule . . .

. . .  And this is why I try not to predict how long things will take.  My goal was to update the blog on Wednesdays and Sundays, but this just isn’t going to work (for now).  I’ll try smaller updates mostly daily and see if this works better.  So, without further ado:

Goodreads.com: So, thanks to my story being published in Fae, I’ve now become a Goodreads “author.”  I’m not a very active social media person, but I’ve ALWAYS gravitiated ot any place that has books or sites that make books their primary focus.   As such, I’m trying to learn my way around the Goodreads site and familiarize myself with all that I can do there.  I’m adding more and more of my collection to the site, writing reviews, and rating books.  I’ve even discovered that I can add my writing there.  Unfortunately, putting new writing there would constitute publication, so you’ll probably see things that I’ve previously published go up on that site, but it’ll probably go there first before it goes up here on the blog.  Their editor is a lot easier to use for uploading stories.  I would highly encourage BEGINNING writers to check out that feature, but remember: once you post it for EVERYONE to see, you’ve used up your First Publication Rights.  From there, you can only sell Second Publication Rights (Reprints) and those typically earn you less money and there are fewer places to market reprints.  I also encourage anyone interested in books to come, look around, and see what’s available.  While you’re there, come take a look at my author’s page:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Like this blog, it is a work in progress, but I’ll be adding on to it over the coming months.  Hope you like!

Miscellany

Hi All!

This post is going to be a miscellany (hence the title) of various topics that I have been meaning to blog about in the past weeks.  Each will be short (just a paragraph long) so consider this a short burst with a lot of information.  Hopefully, this will tide you over until the next blog post, which leads nicely into the next topic–

Schedule: Now that summer is almost upon us (the unofficial start to summer in the U.S. anyway), I’m going to try to be more regular with the blog.  My goal is every Sunday and Wednesday.  These were my off days at my previous job before I started teaching and I just seem to be more alert and disciplined toward writing on these days (for the most part).  So it seems like a natural fit to start to try a regular schedule using those days.  Even though school technically has one more week to go, I’m going to kick off my “regular” blog schedule today (Sunday) and see how it goes.  One warning: grades will probably be due this week.  My blog schedule depends on me staying current with grading.  If I get behind in grading, then I may miss a day (Wed.) to get grades done and finished for the school year.

Citizen X Update: So, I’m almost finished with the “Working Draft” of Citizen X.  I am on Scene 5 of 5.  I’m hopeful that by the next blog post (or next update, whichever comes first), I’ll be able to let you know that I’ve finished.  I’m just trying to keep my nose to the grindstone, but I do see a light at the end of the tunnel for this story.

I, Mag Update: While working on Citizen X, I actually started the rough draft of another story (fantasy) called I, Magi. It is a short-story, but I haven’t decided if that is the next story I will work on or not.  I don’t usually start a story until I finish one, so this one is a bit of an aberration.  I also don’t decide on which story I’m going to work on until I’ve finished the story I’m writing, so that is why I’m unsure of whether I’ll begin on I, Magi, or work on something else.  Stay tuned–whatever I decide to work on next will get announced here.

First Novel: Okay, deep breath time: I’m going to seriously attempt my first novel this summer.  I had a “Pixar moment” where I came up with three (3!) book ideas at once.  I roughed out the 1st book, and I’m in the middle of roughing out the 2nd one, and will begin the 3rd up hopefully at the end of this week.  I’m planning on deciding which of the three novels to start shortly after school is officially out for the summer.  Two of the projects are Sci-Fi and the third is Fantasy.  As I write this, I’m leaning on going Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Sci-Fi in terms of what to write, but I’ve not really made a decision and I reserve the right to change at any time.

Fae Cover Reveal: I decided not to participate in the cover reveal for Fae (officially) because of the fact that I couldn’t be sure I’d have time to be online much this week since it is the last week of school.  Better, I thought, to keep my options open.  The cover reveal will happen this week.  Should I have time, I will definitely post here a picture of the image and any other information that I can find.  If I can’t post, then please follow the World Weaver Press link this week to find out the great cover that WWP has for this book.  I’m very excited!

A Dog: In non-writing news, I’m planning on adopting a dog this summer.  I’d planned to adopt one last summer, but before I found one, I started teaching.  I knew teaching would be an adjustment and I did not want to add too much at once, so I held off.  Now, however, I think this would be the perfect time to find a pet to adopt as I will have two full months to train a dog before school starts again.  My last pet was a shelter dog and that’s where I’m starting my search, but I will branch out, if necessary.  I’ll post pics here if I can find a new BFF this summer.

I have more, but I’ll save them for the next time (hopefully, this Wednesday, but will see).  Check back!

FAE Release Date: July 22, 2014!

 

Hi, Everyone!

I know that it has been a while since I published a blog post (I did warn this blog would be on an irregular schedule), but I have wonderful news to share: Fae, an anthology edited by Rhonda Parrish has a release date: July 22, 2014.  My story, “Faerie Knight” is one of the stories inside this new anthology from World Weaver Press.  I’m VERY excited as this marks my very first “book” publication.  I’ve been published before, but there is nothing quite like the feeling of being able to say that your work is inside a “book.”  Below is the World Weaver Press listing for the upcoming title.  They also have quite a few other interesting anthologies–be sure to check them out by clicking on the World Weaver Press link.

 

Fae anthology edited by Rhonda Parrish.

Meet Robin Goodfellow as you’ve never seen him before, watch damsels in distress rescue themselves, get swept away with the selkies and enjoy tales of hobs, green men, pixies and phookas. One thing is for certain, these are not your grandmother’s fairy tales.

Fairies have been both mischievous and malignant creatures throughout history. They’ve dwelt in forests, collected teeth or crafted shoes. Fae is full of stories that honor that rich history while exploring new and interesting takes on the fair folk from castles to computer technologies and modern midwifing, the Old World to Indianapolis.

Fae covers a vast swath of the fairy story spectrum, making the old new and exploring lush settings with beautiful prose and complex characters. Enjoy the familiar feeling of a good old-fashioned fairy tale alongside urban fantasy and horror with a fae twist.

With an introduction by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, and all new stories from Sidney Blaylock Jr., Amanda Block, Kari Castor, Beth Cato, Liz Colter, Rhonda Eikamp, Lor Graham, Alexis A. Hunter, L.S. Johnson, Jon Arthur Kitson, Adria Laycraft, Lauren Liebowitz, Christine Morgan, Shannon Phillips, Sara Puls, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.

Publication date: July 22, 2014.

Release date: July 22, 2014 (ebook and paperback)
Genre: Fantasy / Horror
Length: Anthology, approx. 250 pages
Trade paperback: $14.95; ebook $7.99
ISBN-13 (trade paperback): 978-0692207918
ISBN-10 (trade paperback): 0692207910
ASIN (ebook):
B&N (ebook):
Kobo (ebook):
Goodreads Listing/Reviews

 

 

Destiny Gameplay Video

Here is the short version (2:47) of the Destiny Gameplay Video from E3 2013. If you like what you see, be sure to go to YouTube and find the longer (12 minute) video to see what the fuss is all about.

Destiny is currently due to be released 9/9/14 (and yes, I’ve already preordered this one). Its my video game equivalent of Sanderson’s Words of Radiance.

Destiny Update from MoreConsole (via YouTube)

More Console breaks down weekly updates from the Bungie Community. This week’s update is great because it gives a GREAT introduction to the world/setting of the game. If video games are not you’re cup of tea, skip to the setting and world setup (@ 6:45) for a Master Class in World Building 101.

I usually do a “introductory draft” (just for me) that does EXACTLY what this introduction to Destiny does. I have two (unannounced) projects: Deep Blue and PSIber where I’ve done this type of world building. I hope that during the summer, I can revive those projects in different forms based on seeing that I was on the right track with World Building.

Destiny is now probably my most awaited SF/Fantasy project now that I’ve read Words of Radiance. I’ll also try to upload the E3 2013 video that shows gameplay for those who are interested. Again, if you aren’t interested in video games, this post might seem a little odd, but if things come together like I hope, then Destiny could be a major Science Fiction universe that resonates through multiple media spaces.

I finished reading Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson this weekend!

I finished Words of Radiance last night–here is my review from GoodReads.com:

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

I’ll keep this brief and spoiler-free: I really liked it, then I really hated it, and, by the end, I loved it. I have been waiting for this book every since I finished the 2nd read of the Way of the Kings. The first read of the Way of Kings didn’t really grab me, but the second read did. I’ve been hooked every since.

When I first started reading this one, I liked it, but by the middle I didn’t. The difference between this book and the Way of Kings is that this one is essentially Shallan’s story. Kaladin still has a significant place, but he’s not the focus of the story in the same way he was in book 1. As I identify with Kaladin more than Shallan, that was frustrating. By the middle of the story, I felt that Kaladin was acting out of character based on his characterization in the Way of Kings. The book was really frustrating. It got so bad that I had to take a three week break from the book. But I finally came back to it this past week–and I’m glad I did.

Based on Brandon’s podcast (Writing Excuses), I *think* I see that he wanted to bring his character back low to set up the ending, but the way it was written was very difficult for me to take–not because of the “suspense” but because it felt as if Kaladin was acting out of character. In book 1, Kaladin could make mistakes, but he was a “reflective” character. He would reflect on situations, good or bad, and then take actions. For most of book 2, Kaladin did almost no reflecting. He would still act, but there seemed be little reflection on his actions before he did them or after he did them (unless it was negative reflection called for by the plot). This left me very dissatisfied.

The last third of the book, however, seemed to rectify the problem for me. The last third of the book seemed to get more balanced. Instead of the 75/25 split it seemed happened through the first part of the book, the ending seemed to restore the balance of the novel to a more equitable 60/40 split (with the 60 going to Shallan–we are learning her backstory after all). I was fine with that–I like Shallan (I just like Kaladin a little more). But more importantly, the ending had much more “reflection” on the part of both of the leads–not just with Shallan. That’s what I was missing–the thinking/feeling of the soldier/surgeon figure that Bk1 set up and seemed missing in most of the book.

I won’t spoil the book, but I will say that I was very pleased with the way the book ultimately turned out. You learn a LOT more about Shallan and Kaladin, and the plot spins out in a very exciting way. I will be looking forward to Book 3 in the Stormlight Archives series!

View all my reviews

Citizen X Update

Okay, I admit it: I’m a slow writer.  In my defense, this has been a fairly hard week at work, so I haven’t devoted as much writing time as I would have liked to the story.  However, I did manage to finish the 1st scene and I’m about mid-way through the 2nd scene.  So, as I see it, I’m probably averaging about a scene a week.  I’m planning for approximately 5 scenes, so if I keep this pace, I’m probably going to finish a little before Easter (Spring Break for me comes the week before Easter).  

This is one thing that I really need to work on: speed.  Five weeks for a short-story that will only earn $5-$25 from most markets isn’t going to cut it if I want to become a full-time writer.  

My problem isn’t that I don’t write quickly, but that I have a certain level of “quality” that I like in my drafts.  I know when I have a successful draft, and I know when I don’t.  That’s one of the reasons Skin Deep needs another rewrite rather than being put on the market.  I knew the draft had problems and needed work, but I kept going anyway.  I had personal reasons to force the draft through and get it done, but I sacrificed my own perception of quality in order to do so.  

Citizen X, on the other hand, meets my level of quality.  It doesn’t mean that it won’t need another draft (all my stories need to go through at least 3 drafts), but the 3rd draft will be more of a “polish” (deleting, editing, clarifying), while Skin Deep needs to be rewritten (reimagined) from the ground up while keeping only the basic plot elements that I came up with in the previous draft.  

I really should be at one short-story a quarter (i.e., 1 story every 3 months), but I’m already behind on that goal–Citizen X is my 1st new story of the year and it will be late April (well into the 2nd quarter) before I finish.  I think this  is going to be my (belated) New Year’s Resolution: 4 new stories this year (1 each quarter).   I’ll use the extra time to work on my longer form works–including starting my first novel.  

Let’s see if this slow writer can stick to this goal. 

In the Works

I am currently working on three projects–all three are short-stories.  I’m not big on “talking out” my projects–the last time I did that, the person I told the story about didn’t “get” it and I lost confidence in my story.  It took me sometime (8 years!) before I moved from rough draft on that story.  I have three other projects that have not progressed past the outline stage because I shared them with people too early.  However, I do want to talk a little about them in this post, so I’ll just give the tentative title, genre, and a brief sentence about what I expect them to be when I’m done writing them.

1) Citizen X – This one is an alternate history Sci-Fi story that has been kicking around in my head for a couple of years.  It features (currently) Langston Hughes as the main protagonist and an “action hero”–’nuff said!

Started: February 2014

Progress: Working on the 1st scene.

2) Lost in Translation – This is a Sci-Fi story based around traveling through a different dimension.  I got stuck on this one after I finished the first scene because the second scene wasn’t going the way that I envisioned it.  My subconscious has kicked in and I now have a new 2nd scene in mind.  I plan to switch and write the 2nd scene after I complete the 1st scene for Citizen X.

Started: October/November 2013

Progress: Completed 1st scene, working on 2nd scene.

3) Skin Deep – This is a Sci-Fi story based on the idea that “beauty is skin deep, but ugly is to the bone.”  This story has psionics and cybernetics mixed together.  This one is finished, but I’ve learned to recognize that it is not “ready” yet for submission.  It is in a state that I’ve come to regard as “indeterminate.”  It isn’t still a rough draft, but it isn’t yet the story that I envision in my mind.  When this happens, I need to do another draft of the story.  I need to keep the story, plot, and character elements, but add in details, be they sensory details, physical details, emotions, etc. in order to strengthen the narrative.  If I don’t do this, the story will just collect rejection after rejection until I do, so I can either send it out early, knowing it needs more work, or I can just hold on to it until I have enough time to make it as good as I see it in my head.  I used to just send it out, but I’ve learned better in the past years.  There’s really nothing to be gained by sending a story out until you’re happy with it (or mostly happy with it for you perfectionists out there!) :-)

Finished: June/July 2013 (Working Draft), Need a new draft, however.

Progress: Rewriting the 1st scene.

These are the major projects that I’m working on right now–I’ll post updates on these projects as they become available (when I finish a scene or better yet, when I finish them altogether!) :-)

Author’s Note: Dragonhawk

Tales of the Talisman, Volume 8, Issue 3

As I begin to prepare to start drafting my next short-story, I thought I take a moment to talk about my most recent publication, Dragonhawk, published in Tales of the Talisman, Vol. 8, Issue 3 (I should note that I have two stories that will be published in upcoming anthologies, but I will be talking about each of those stories in upcoming posts, so be on the look-out for future posts!)

I envision the format of this post to resemble many of the video game postmortems that I’ve read online and in magazines.  They discuss the origin of the idea, and then move on to the production of the game, then they discuss the public’s reaction.

Dragonhawk started as an idea that a young hero would fight on the backs of giant birds.  During my college years, I loved the idea of birds hunting other birds.  Of course, as a sci-fi/fantasy writer, I wanted a hero who could ride those birds.  I brainstormed a hero and his bird and named them Kelfryn and Scryfe, respectively.  I was taking a course in Norse/Scandinavian culture at the time, and decided to try to write a novel around these two characters that I called, Kestrel and then later, Sparrowhawk.  Both drafts of the novel never got beyond the outline stage (I was an unpublished writer and didn’t really know how to move characters through a narrative.)

Fast forward several years and I happened upon their character sketches again.  As I’d published a short-story in the interim, I had a better grasp of narrative.  I decided to scale back their story and concentrate on them in a short story.  I wanted to make Kelfryn (the boy) a hero, but the draft I wrote still lacked something.  A little later, I read something (I forget where), that said, in essence that Anne McCaffrey’s dragons were a softening of dragons (much like the current trend of making vampires and werewolves teen heart throbs instead of the evil meanies and beasties that they were originally envisioned as in the old tales).

I thought that I wanted to return to dragons as “monsters” rather than as “pets.”  Scryfe would be a more appropriate pet/helpmate as dragons would be deadly and hard to control.  Once I decided that dragons should be enemies, Kelfryn metamorphosed into Talen, a young boy who was no longer content to scavenge from dragons.  From there the story progressed and it took about two or three months to produce a “working” draft.

I edited it and sent it to Tales of the Talisman –and it sold on its first try.  I think its success had to do with two things: 1) Talen has two conflicts, an internal conflict and an external conflict.  That is a technique that you usually see in novels, but due to the need for economy, you don’t always see it in short fiction, and 2) I did my research for this story, and looked at how fishing communities operate as well as the tools they use.  I then adapted what I could for use in my specific setting and discarded the rest.

While I don’t have a ton of reader feedback from this story (there is only one Amazon.com review and it praises all the stories as a whole), I still feel that it is a very good story.  This is the only story that I’ve ever sold on the very first try (so far).  It also got rave reviews from my co-workers at my previous job who were librarians, so I trust their opinions.

The lesson that I’ve taken away from this story is that research matters.  I’ve tried to add in another “draft” where I mark topics to research and then places where I can add that research in to make the story feel more real.  I also learned, whenever possible, to add in some sort of internal conflict to the character.  I’ve only had varying degrees of success with this one, however.  Sometimes, I put too much internal conflict in and sometimes too little.  I’m still trying to find the right level of internal conflict for my characters (believe me, I’m great at external conflicts!) but I struggle with finding realistic conflicts that my characters can work through during the story without it seeming forced.  Based on the response, I nailed it right on the head with Dragonhawk.

The story is available from Amazon.com in both Kindle and Papberback formats if you’d like to check it out.  There are other great stories in that issue as well.  If you do decide to read it, please come back and leave me feedback–I’d love to hear reactions!