Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Heroes and Villains
Just Who Can They Be?
The conflict between a hero and villain is a common core of a good story plot. It's not essential to have a villain, of course, for the main character, the protagonist, might face other kinds of conflict in a good story. If you've ever taken a literature class, you might find struggles against nature, society, or even the hero against himself as a source of conflict. But, more often than not, especially in fantasy, there's a good villain determined to take over the world and an equally good hero determined to stop him.
Read or watch any superhero story and both hero and villain are clearly defined. The hero is a master of virtue, with superhuman powers he/she uses for the good of mankind. The villain might be equally as powerful with clearly evil, destructive intent and very few, if any redeeming qualities. Good and evil a clearly defined and there's never much of a question that it's the hero's duty to make things right.
None of that is quite the same as real life where people's motivations are not always so clear cut. While fantasy authors do want readers to be able to step into their novels and out of the real world, it's important to keep some of the truth of the real world intact in the fantasy. Creating characters, both good and evil, the reader can relate to on a human level is a good part of that.
It helps if characters have emotions readers can relate to--love, hate, anger, joy, fear, confusion. They need to have challenges to overcome and the skills to overcome them without being totally invulnerable. Even Superman has his Kryptonite. In classic literature, the tragic hero always has a fatal flaw. We want our heroes to survive the story, but not without some trouble along the way.
And the villains? Well they need their fatal flaws as well. Sometimes it's just their own overwhelming belief that they really are unconquerable. The villain's evil nature somehow has to balance out the hero's need to destroy him. The hero's stature is diminished if the reader isn't quite convinced the villain is really worthy of meeting his end at the hero's hand. Unless the story is intended to blur the lines of good and evil to pose moral issues, most villains shouldn't really earn too much admiration as the story progresses.
Creating effective characters on both sides of morality is a tricky balancing act. Writers need to be keen observers of the real world and learn all they can about real people. Learning what motivates people, what moves people, and what drives people to choices and actions is a skill authors need to develop. Only then by using that knowledge to develop effective characters can they bring a fantasy world to life.
The conflict between a hero and villain is a common core of a good story plot. It's not essential to have a villain, of course, for the main character, the protagonist, might face other kinds of conflict in a good story. If you've ever taken a literature class, you might find struggles against nature, society, or even the hero against himself as a source of conflict. But, more often than not, especially in fantasy, there's a good villain determined to take over the world and an equally good hero determined to stop him.
Read or watch any superhero story and both hero and villain are clearly defined. The hero is a master of virtue, with superhuman powers he/she uses for the good of mankind. The villain might be equally as powerful with clearly evil, destructive intent and very few, if any redeeming qualities. Good and evil a clearly defined and there's never much of a question that it's the hero's duty to make things right.
None of that is quite the same as real life where people's motivations are not always so clear cut. While fantasy authors do want readers to be able to step into their novels and out of the real world, it's important to keep some of the truth of the real world intact in the fantasy. Creating characters, both good and evil, the reader can relate to on a human level is a good part of that.
It helps if characters have emotions readers can relate to--love, hate, anger, joy, fear, confusion. They need to have challenges to overcome and the skills to overcome them without being totally invulnerable. Even Superman has his Kryptonite. In classic literature, the tragic hero always has a fatal flaw. We want our heroes to survive the story, but not without some trouble along the way.
And the villains? Well they need their fatal flaws as well. Sometimes it's just their own overwhelming belief that they really are unconquerable. The villain's evil nature somehow has to balance out the hero's need to destroy him. The hero's stature is diminished if the reader isn't quite convinced the villain is really worthy of meeting his end at the hero's hand. Unless the story is intended to blur the lines of good and evil to pose moral issues, most villains shouldn't really earn too much admiration as the story progresses.
Creating effective characters on both sides of morality is a tricky balancing act. Writers need to be keen observers of the real world and learn all they can about real people. Learning what motivates people, what moves people, and what drives people to choices and actions is a skill authors need to develop. Only then by using that knowledge to develop effective characters can they bring a fantasy world to life.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Happy Holidays!
A Bit Under the Weather
Sorry I haven't blogged the last few days. I've been a bit ill with a cold or something and haven't felt too well.
Hopefully, Christmas will bring me some extra energy.
In the meantime, wishing you all the happiest of holidays!
Sorry I haven't blogged the last few days. I've been a bit ill with a cold or something and haven't felt too well.
Hopefully, Christmas will bring me some extra energy.
In the meantime, wishing you all the happiest of holidays!
Thursday, December 18, 2014
And What About the Horses?
Personality Plus
Several readers of my novels have commented on the horses in the books. If you've read Kingdom Beyond the Rim or The Wall Between, you will know that horses play a prominent role in the stories.
I was one of those little girls who always dreamed of having a horse of my own. My parents, wiser than many, never did get me a pony, no matter how many times I looked for one under the Christmas Tree. They actually did me a favor because the deal was, if I wanted a horse, I would have to earn it myself. For ten long years I scrimped and saved every penny I earned, starting a bank account for my horse. Only after college graduation and landing a job teaching was I able to meet than dream and buy my horse. My mother had supported me for riding lessons before that, and I was able to learn a lot about caring for horses through 4-H and a school riding club, so when I did get Russell R., I was pretty well prepared.
Owning him was sheer magic. Ask any equestrian and you will probably hear something similar. There is something simply magnificent, breathtaking, and incredibly beautiful about a horse, especially if its yours.
The very first novel I penned as a teenager--pre-horse ownership--featured a beautiful white stallion. (I've learned since that on a practical level, dark colored horses are much easier to keep clean) Horses often danced in my dreams, and every time I saw a live horse anywhere, I was drawn to it as if it were a "me" magnet.
Horses are like that. Mystical, magic creatures. Watch TV for a while and over and over you will see horses in commercials as if their very existence has some power to sell a product or simply mesmerize buyers into falling in love with whatever's being advertised.
The horses in my novels are there to capture the imagination, and accent the Magic. Whim, of course, is the very embodiment of Magic. But he is not totally a mythical creature caught in the realm of enchantment. He has a personality and as the novels progress, he has no trouble expressing it.
Real horses are like that. If you think your dog or cat has personality, just multiply that by at least ten times--after all a horse like Whim might weigh in at 1400 pounds or so--and you will have a horse with attitude. They are extremely intelligent creatures, ready, willing and able to do our bidding, and just a ready, willing and able to do just the opposite.
Nearly all the horses featured in my novels are based on real horses I have known. Whim is my first horse, Russell R, in many ways. Bright, mischievous and yet totally connected to his owner, heart, mind and soul.
Magic bred, Magic born? Whim is real, trust me.
Several readers of my novels have commented on the horses in the books. If you've read Kingdom Beyond the Rim or The Wall Between, you will know that horses play a prominent role in the stories.
Owning him was sheer magic. Ask any equestrian and you will probably hear something similar. There is something simply magnificent, breathtaking, and incredibly beautiful about a horse, especially if its yours.
The very first novel I penned as a teenager--pre-horse ownership--featured a beautiful white stallion. (I've learned since that on a practical level, dark colored horses are much easier to keep clean) Horses often danced in my dreams, and every time I saw a live horse anywhere, I was drawn to it as if it were a "me" magnet.
Horses are like that. Mystical, magic creatures. Watch TV for a while and over and over you will see horses in commercials as if their very existence has some power to sell a product or simply mesmerize buyers into falling in love with whatever's being advertised.
The horses in my novels are there to capture the imagination, and accent the Magic. Whim, of course, is the very embodiment of Magic. But he is not totally a mythical creature caught in the realm of enchantment. He has a personality and as the novels progress, he has no trouble expressing it.
Real horses are like that. If you think your dog or cat has personality, just multiply that by at least ten times--after all a horse like Whim might weigh in at 1400 pounds or so--and you will have a horse with attitude. They are extremely intelligent creatures, ready, willing and able to do our bidding, and just a ready, willing and able to do just the opposite.
Nearly all the horses featured in my novels are based on real horses I have known. Whim is my first horse, Russell R, in many ways. Bright, mischievous and yet totally connected to his owner, heart, mind and soul.
Magic bred, Magic born? Whim is real, trust me.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Inventions
What Sells and What Doesn't
Those of you familiar with the television show, Shark Tank, know that it centers around aspiring inventors trying to sell their products to wealthy investors. The investors watch a demonstration of each invention and decide whether or not they wish to risk their money on the inventor and the product.
Some of the inventions are fascinating and offer interesting glimpses into people's minds. Once in a while the investor "shark" will actually battle over a product that looks as if it has a future. More often than not, the prospective inventor goes away empty handed to search for a new way to finance his/her project.
A Facebook post I recently saw showed some sixteen failed inventions from the show. Some of them were rather strange, to say the least. Squeeky Knees was rompers for children with squeaky toys in the knees so when the child crawled across the floor, parents could hear him. I guess that was a kind of tracking device? Pet Paint, and the name says it all, is for pet owners who want to decorate their pets. SquirrelBoss is a device designed to electrocute squirrels who climbed on it to get bait. Of course, aside from being barbaric would electrocute any birds as well creating a "death feeder" for all comers. And then, one of my favorites: Throx which is a package of socks coming not in pairs, but in threes so if you lost one sock you would have a replacement.
One wonders what kind of thinking leads to such creations. What traumatic event in a person's life would lead to the need to spend hours of time and often money to invent and manufacture something like the above? I too have found my socks disappearing into the Land of Lost Socks, but I never would have considered buying three as a solution. (Now, gloves are another matter, since I seem to have a rather large collection of left hand only gloves, so a set of three with an extra right hand might be a good option for me.)
Writers are inventors as well, but our creations are made of words, easily typed, not so easily chosen, and more often than we care to think about, Shark Tank failures. Trying to find the product that sells, one our readers want to invest in can be a frustrating journey.
Some writers, like the inventors of Throx, write out of a need to say something, anything that expresses their own personal voices. Some write as a pure experiment testing theories and ideas to see if they have any merit. Some write to tell the world of important opinions, information, stories they feel need to be told. Some write to sell, studying the market, assessing its needs and desires and then adjusting content and technique to suit.
I write because I like to tell stories. If the world likes them, so be it. But if the sharks don't bite, at least I've had the pleasure of getting all the words flying around in my head on paper.
Why do we write? Because that's what we need to do.
Those of you familiar with the television show, Shark Tank, know that it centers around aspiring inventors trying to sell their products to wealthy investors. The investors watch a demonstration of each invention and decide whether or not they wish to risk their money on the inventor and the product.
Some of the inventions are fascinating and offer interesting glimpses into people's minds. Once in a while the investor "shark" will actually battle over a product that looks as if it has a future. More often than not, the prospective inventor goes away empty handed to search for a new way to finance his/her project.
A Facebook post I recently saw showed some sixteen failed inventions from the show. Some of them were rather strange, to say the least. Squeeky Knees was rompers for children with squeaky toys in the knees so when the child crawled across the floor, parents could hear him. I guess that was a kind of tracking device? Pet Paint, and the name says it all, is for pet owners who want to decorate their pets. SquirrelBoss is a device designed to electrocute squirrels who climbed on it to get bait. Of course, aside from being barbaric would electrocute any birds as well creating a "death feeder" for all comers. And then, one of my favorites: Throx which is a package of socks coming not in pairs, but in threes so if you lost one sock you would have a replacement.
One wonders what kind of thinking leads to such creations. What traumatic event in a person's life would lead to the need to spend hours of time and often money to invent and manufacture something like the above? I too have found my socks disappearing into the Land of Lost Socks, but I never would have considered buying three as a solution. (Now, gloves are another matter, since I seem to have a rather large collection of left hand only gloves, so a set of three with an extra right hand might be a good option for me.)
Writers are inventors as well, but our creations are made of words, easily typed, not so easily chosen, and more often than we care to think about, Shark Tank failures. Trying to find the product that sells, one our readers want to invest in can be a frustrating journey.
Some writers, like the inventors of Throx, write out of a need to say something, anything that expresses their own personal voices. Some write as a pure experiment testing theories and ideas to see if they have any merit. Some write to tell the world of important opinions, information, stories they feel need to be told. Some write to sell, studying the market, assessing its needs and desires and then adjusting content and technique to suit.
I write because I like to tell stories. If the world likes them, so be it. But if the sharks don't bite, at least I've had the pleasure of getting all the words flying around in my head on paper.
Why do we write? Because that's what we need to do.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Writing on Whatever Scale
The Hands No Longer Have It
Keyboards have replaced the human hand and the consequences reach in to the strangest places.
I substitute teach fairly often at a high tech academy high school. The students there are very intelligent and scientifically oriented. I have a great day every time I go in mostly because the kids are so great to work with.
And yet, as well educated as they are, their reliance on technology has some curious consequences. The most alarming one to me is their inability to use or read cursive writing. Now, this is not all the students in the school, but more than once, I have handwritten a set of directions on the board only to have a student raise a hand to say, "Can you print that. I can't read cursive."
Apparently the trend in modern education at the elementary level is to drop cursive handwriting from the curriculum. Students type essays on their laptops, text message their teachers, email in their assignments and, when faced with paper and pen, they print.
Now deciphering student handwriting has always been a challenge and I often spent extra hours trying to figure out what my students wrote on their papers when their penmanship was not exactly up to standard. But at least they could write in script.
And, they could read it.
Not so today. More and more students are hand printing everything. Of course, it's easier to read, and I must admit they can travel pretty quickly across the page, but the soft fluid flow of cursive is gone, soon to be a lost art.
I still have pages and pages of drafts for my novels and stories written in script on memo pads. That was the only way I could write. My typing skills were poor, despite a class in "personal typing," in high school and I certainly didn't have a digital companion to carry around with me whenever the urge to jot something down hit my brain. Instead, I carried a steno pad and a pen.
What's going to happen to all those pages of historic masterpieces like mine--well maybe mine don't fit into the same masterpiece category as the Declaration of Independence---years from now when cursive script becomes extinct as the dinosaurs?
I can see the future now. There will be college degrees in translating old texts into digital English for the masses who will then download them on 3D Kindle Flames that will probably read them aloud for them. It will be Dragon Naturally Speaking in reverse. That technology already exists, but not for the lowly users yet---
Wait, I take that back. Kindle offers Whispersyc for some books already. Who knows what lurks on the horizon.
If handwriting is destined to become a thing of the past, will reading soon follow?
Keyboards have replaced the human hand and the consequences reach in to the strangest places.
I substitute teach fairly often at a high tech academy high school. The students there are very intelligent and scientifically oriented. I have a great day every time I go in mostly because the kids are so great to work with.
And yet, as well educated as they are, their reliance on technology has some curious consequences. The most alarming one to me is their inability to use or read cursive writing. Now, this is not all the students in the school, but more than once, I have handwritten a set of directions on the board only to have a student raise a hand to say, "Can you print that. I can't read cursive."
Apparently the trend in modern education at the elementary level is to drop cursive handwriting from the curriculum. Students type essays on their laptops, text message their teachers, email in their assignments and, when faced with paper and pen, they print.
Now deciphering student handwriting has always been a challenge and I often spent extra hours trying to figure out what my students wrote on their papers when their penmanship was not exactly up to standard. But at least they could write in script.
And, they could read it.
Not so today. More and more students are hand printing everything. Of course, it's easier to read, and I must admit they can travel pretty quickly across the page, but the soft fluid flow of cursive is gone, soon to be a lost art.
I still have pages and pages of drafts for my novels and stories written in script on memo pads. That was the only way I could write. My typing skills were poor, despite a class in "personal typing," in high school and I certainly didn't have a digital companion to carry around with me whenever the urge to jot something down hit my brain. Instead, I carried a steno pad and a pen.
What's going to happen to all those pages of historic masterpieces like mine--well maybe mine don't fit into the same masterpiece category as the Declaration of Independence---years from now when cursive script becomes extinct as the dinosaurs?
I can see the future now. There will be college degrees in translating old texts into digital English for the masses who will then download them on 3D Kindle Flames that will probably read them aloud for them. It will be Dragon Naturally Speaking in reverse. That technology already exists, but not for the lowly users yet---
Wait, I take that back. Kindle offers Whispersyc for some books already. Who knows what lurks on the horizon.
If handwriting is destined to become a thing of the past, will reading soon follow?
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Whatever Happened to Books?
The Digital Age
Now that I have published several novels, I have begun to realize that the digital age has impacted the writing world more than I realized.
I have sold a fair number of books and for a new author, that's pretty good. But what has surprised me is that my primary market has been Kindle. The novels are available for other eReaders and I've sold a few copies in those formats too.
Amazon's website, however offers the best high profile advertising for books with easy to navigate genre search listings and a number of ways for the book covers to be seen by potential readers. Nook, iBooks, and other websites do not quite do the same job. As a result, if the sales are going to be there, Kindle seems to be the platform.
But what about the paperbacks? I have sold a few, but the numbers pale in comparison to digital versions.
Personally, I like paper books. I like to hold them in my hands and read, turning real pages as I go along. Just yesterday, I was faced with having to read a short novel for the class I will be substitute teaching. The full text is available on-line in several different places.
I tried reading the electronic version. Honestly, I did. Somehow it just didn't do the job. I found a real book copy and sat down to read that instead. Problem solved. I finished the book in an hour or so--Anthem, by Ayn Rand.
It was a fast read, and I was in control of those physical pages, the words darting into my brain and settling there. The physicality of holding that book in my hands seemed to make all the difference in the world.
Is it because I learned to read and write long before computers were even invented? I am of the generation who experienced the Apple IIGS as the first personal computer I was able to use. I borrowed it from school for the summer so I could teach a computer class the following year.
I learned to use a PC playing role playing games and doing a bit of word processing. I didn't have a printer back then, so heaven knows what happened to the files I created. I moved over to PC's soon after, so whatever existed on that Apple platform is lost forever.
Despite that, simply reading via electronic images still doesn't inspire me.
That is not so with a large portion of the reading public. One of the other teachers here at school has at least eight books loaded on her eReader/phone, all ready to be read whenever the mood strikes her. She hasn't yet read most of the books she's downloaded. They just sit there as if they are on library shelves, waiting for her finger to swipe them open.
Handy, convenient, and space saving electronic reading devices seem to be the way of the world nowadays.
More to come.
Now that I have published several novels, I have begun to realize that the digital age has impacted the writing world more than I realized.
I have sold a fair number of books and for a new author, that's pretty good. But what has surprised me is that my primary market has been Kindle. The novels are available for other eReaders and I've sold a few copies in those formats too.
Amazon's website, however offers the best high profile advertising for books with easy to navigate genre search listings and a number of ways for the book covers to be seen by potential readers. Nook, iBooks, and other websites do not quite do the same job. As a result, if the sales are going to be there, Kindle seems to be the platform.
But what about the paperbacks? I have sold a few, but the numbers pale in comparison to digital versions.
Personally, I like paper books. I like to hold them in my hands and read, turning real pages as I go along. Just yesterday, I was faced with having to read a short novel for the class I will be substitute teaching. The full text is available on-line in several different places.
I tried reading the electronic version. Honestly, I did. Somehow it just didn't do the job. I found a real book copy and sat down to read that instead. Problem solved. I finished the book in an hour or so--Anthem, by Ayn Rand.
It was a fast read, and I was in control of those physical pages, the words darting into my brain and settling there. The physicality of holding that book in my hands seemed to make all the difference in the world.
Is it because I learned to read and write long before computers were even invented? I am of the generation who experienced the Apple IIGS as the first personal computer I was able to use. I borrowed it from school for the summer so I could teach a computer class the following year.
I learned to use a PC playing role playing games and doing a bit of word processing. I didn't have a printer back then, so heaven knows what happened to the files I created. I moved over to PC's soon after, so whatever existed on that Apple platform is lost forever.
Despite that, simply reading via electronic images still doesn't inspire me.
That is not so with a large portion of the reading public. One of the other teachers here at school has at least eight books loaded on her eReader/phone, all ready to be read whenever the mood strikes her. She hasn't yet read most of the books she's downloaded. They just sit there as if they are on library shelves, waiting for her finger to swipe them open.
Handy, convenient, and space saving electronic reading devices seem to be the way of the world nowadays.
More to come.
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