(I apologize in advance to all formatting nazis... I haven’t figured out how to get my website-making program to make only some words italic. This means that, sadly, all book titles will be encompassed by punctuation marks. The English geek within me grieves deeply.)
Lately, I found the website of Ursula Le Guin, one of the most distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors of all time, and one of my favourite authors. If you have never read anything by her or have never even heard of her I want you to immediately stop what you’re doing, go to the nearest bookstore, find one of her books and buy it (trust me, there will be at least one there), then read the whole thing. You can come back to this when you’re done.
The first book I read by Ursula was “The Farthest Shore”, which is the third book of her series set in Earthsea, a world that consists mainly of islands (as far as the map shows). Yes, I read the third book first. I didn’t care. It had the coolest dragons I have ever encountered in fantasy, a wizard who treated magic and its effect on the world so seriously that he barely used it, and a voyage to the land of the dead. I then proceeded to read the fourth book second, the second book third and the first book fourth. By then, I discovered the real order to the series, read them all properly and concluded with the fifth book. I have never, before or since, mangled the order of a series so much, but I have never, aside from Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet, loved a series more. You heard me. I like it better than the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Foundation books, the whole Dune series, the Dark is Rising series... what is it with speculative fiction and series, anyways? But I have a point. I will continue towards it.
April 25, 2011
March 30, 2011
Worldviews
How we see the world will show up in our writing. It has to, if we want to be honest about what we write. But what happens when our worldview is one that others mock? I’m not talking about when a story becomes so preachy it’s ridiculous. I’m talking about when what someone believes is mocked for no other reason than the person believes it.
Intolerance?
Perhaps.
But when members of your own worldview are considered intolerant, somehow the worldview is now fair game for ridicule. It’s like when someone on the Internet is trolling. Apparently, the rest of us reasonable people can troll them back simply because they’re trolls and have forfeited their rights to being treated decently. So, in a similar fashion, if a worldview has a history of “trolling” other worldviews, then it is somehow okay to go ahead and troll back, even if the person on the other end has and would never commit the atrocities others who profess the same beliefs as them have done in the past.
I, for one, would be terrified to tell anyone my worldview if it meant such treatment. Can you imagine hiding what you believe simply to avoid others lumping you into a category that you know you don’t belong in? And then, imagine the fear of writing anything honestly, because sharing a story is sharing your soul, and what others see of your soul may too easily stop at a label saying “I’m ____, therefore I am a bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, uncaring, intolerant jerk. Feel free to use me as your punching bag. In fact, here’s a reflection of the deepest part of me to tear to shreds. Enjoy.”
Anyone else feeling sick?
Intolerance?
Perhaps.
But when members of your own worldview are considered intolerant, somehow the worldview is now fair game for ridicule. It’s like when someone on the Internet is trolling. Apparently, the rest of us reasonable people can troll them back simply because they’re trolls and have forfeited their rights to being treated decently. So, in a similar fashion, if a worldview has a history of “trolling” other worldviews, then it is somehow okay to go ahead and troll back, even if the person on the other end has and would never commit the atrocities others who profess the same beliefs as them have done in the past.
I, for one, would be terrified to tell anyone my worldview if it meant such treatment. Can you imagine hiding what you believe simply to avoid others lumping you into a category that you know you don’t belong in? And then, imagine the fear of writing anything honestly, because sharing a story is sharing your soul, and what others see of your soul may too easily stop at a label saying “I’m ____, therefore I am a bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, uncaring, intolerant jerk. Feel free to use me as your punching bag. In fact, here’s a reflection of the deepest part of me to tear to shreds. Enjoy.”
Anyone else feeling sick?
March 13, 2011
Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part the Final
Remember when I talked about everything going wrong before Ex-Villain left? It was like the stars were out of alignment or something. You know how, in quite a few fantasy stories, Macbeth included, when the wrong king is on the throne, nature seems to unravel? Well. Allow me to remind you of the enormity of the situation:
“Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story.”
(You see what I did there? Flashback to another post? With the quotations and the copy-pasting and the... okay, stopping now.)
When Ex-Villain left the story, along with the rest of the results of his fantastic organizational skills, all of these things returned to normal. Almost all of them. For some incomprehensible reason, people continued to drop like flies. At first, it seemed reasonable, so I let it go. They were exhausted and overworked. They had just come back from a gruelling experience. They had poor immune systems. A really bad headache.
Then about ten of them fell over simultaneously, and I knew this had to stop. I immediately turned around (figuratively speaking, of course) and faced the story, only to be met by the most adorable Bambi eyes I have ever not seen in my life. The conversation went as follows:
“Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story.”
(You see what I did there? Flashback to another post? With the quotations and the copy-pasting and the... okay, stopping now.)
When Ex-Villain left the story, along with the rest of the results of his fantastic organizational skills, all of these things returned to normal. Almost all of them. For some incomprehensible reason, people continued to drop like flies. At first, it seemed reasonable, so I let it go. They were exhausted and overworked. They had just come back from a gruelling experience. They had poor immune systems. A really bad headache.
Then about ten of them fell over simultaneously, and I knew this had to stop. I immediately turned around (figuratively speaking, of course) and faced the story, only to be met by the most adorable Bambi eyes I have ever not seen in my life. The conversation went as follows:
February 24, 2011
A Brief Interlude to the Drama
Main Secondary Character (MSC) would have wanted me to make up for the merciless teasing I subjected him to in the last blog post. The only problem is that he’s too busy eating a quesadilla to even notice that I’m writing this (if ever one day he becomes lactose intolerant, I’m sure he’ll drop down dead within the week). This means, of course, that I will have to shoulder the responsibility and explain why he is the way he is, and why he’s one of my favourite characters.
In my last blog post, I more or less mocked him for his inability to pay attention to all the important things around him. This was for good reason, but it speaks to a part of his character that I greatly admire.
MSC is all about honour, and he focuses on what is honourable, the temptations to go against his code of honour, how to grow as a person and still keep to what is honourable... you get the picture. He also has a great ability to focus on what he considers to be important. Add these two together and you get a really decent guy with tunnel vision. Vital things tend to fly by his radar simply because they do not fall under the list of things he thinks about. It is his greatest weakness. And his greatest strength.
In my last blog post, I more or less mocked him for his inability to pay attention to all the important things around him. This was for good reason, but it speaks to a part of his character that I greatly admire.
MSC is all about honour, and he focuses on what is honourable, the temptations to go against his code of honour, how to grow as a person and still keep to what is honourable... you get the picture. He also has a great ability to focus on what he considers to be important. Add these two together and you get a really decent guy with tunnel vision. Vital things tend to fly by his radar simply because they do not fall under the list of things he thinks about. It is his greatest weakness. And his greatest strength.
January 15, 2011
Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part 2
Once upon a time there was this lovely Villain. He was all planned out by Author to be wonderfully vile, have a semi-complicated past, inspire disgust and fascination, tempt not only Main Character but also Major Secondary Character (MSC), have wants and needs, and yet still be able to be relatable in his motivations. Things were progressing so beautifully.
One day, while Main Character was being belligerent to Author, Villain began to think he deserved another story. His (im)perfection existed at a level far beyond the ability of this puny story to portray his true greatness. Villain toyed with this idea, waiting until Author and Main Character had finished their shouting match to bring his proposal forward. Author didn’t really want to deal with Villain right then, being much more concerned with staring off into space whilst attempting to save the story from death by black hole.
Now, Villain was intelligent. As soon as he realized that his conversation with Author would go nowhere (about three words in), he went to confer with other characters. Unfortunately for him, Main Character had sequestered herself in some private place for some private gloating over her power over Author, and the rest of the characters either had lives to attend to or were incurably unobservant when off-duty (*ahem* MSC *ahem*). That is, except for Mystery Character. Mystery Character agreed that Villain should find a new story and, rather enthusiastically, the two of them began to concoct a delicate and subtle plan to convince Author of their position. As soon as they finished their designing, they began to implement it.
One day, while Main Character was being belligerent to Author, Villain began to think he deserved another story. His (im)perfection existed at a level far beyond the ability of this puny story to portray his true greatness. Villain toyed with this idea, waiting until Author and Main Character had finished their shouting match to bring his proposal forward. Author didn’t really want to deal with Villain right then, being much more concerned with staring off into space whilst attempting to save the story from death by black hole.
Now, Villain was intelligent. As soon as he realized that his conversation with Author would go nowhere (about three words in), he went to confer with other characters. Unfortunately for him, Main Character had sequestered herself in some private place for some private gloating over her power over Author, and the rest of the characters either had lives to attend to or were incurably unobservant when off-duty (*ahem* MSC *ahem*). That is, except for Mystery Character. Mystery Character agreed that Villain should find a new story and, rather enthusiastically, the two of them began to concoct a delicate and subtle plan to convince Author of their position. As soon as they finished their designing, they began to implement it.
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