Best09
My response to the best09 blog challenge:
December 1 What was your best trip in 2009?
My best trip had to July when I hit central Queensland. Beautiful scenery and calm for two weeks, though the absence of technology became a bit of a problem.
December 2 Restaurant moment.
Best restaurant moment would have to have been being out with work mates at fasta pasta and learning how to de-stress from a two year old. “Can’t care.”
December 4 Book. What book – fiction or non – touched you?
I haven’t read a lot of new books in 2009, I’ve mostly reread and written but I would probably have to go with Twilight, not because I liked it, but because reading this meant that I could actually understand what other people were talking about. I hate being in the dark.
December 7 Blog find of the year.
Okay I probably knew about it before this year but given the number of times in the last month I’ve linked to it because I have absolutely loved one post or another I’m putting Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Mystery Writing is Murder up as the blog find of the year.
December 8 Moment of peace.
I gained a lot of peace and solitude when I caught the flu. Everyone avoided me for weeks. unfortunately this moment of peace came with the price of falling hopelessly behind at work and on writing and it meant that my previous blog died. However it meant I did get to start over and not duplicate the mistakes of my first blog and I think all up things have worked out for the best.
December 9 Challenge.
The biggest challenge I’ve faced would be addressing the first round of comments from my editor. Having my writing properly edited was a new experience and very illuminating.
December 10 Album of the year.
In the end I’m going to have to give it to Kate Miller-Heidke’s Curiouser, mostly because of “politics in space”.
December 11 The best place.
Has to be home. Specifically, at home on the couch with a great book and a long day with no to-do list stretching out before me. Doesn’t happen very often.
December 12 New food.
2009 I became a major mayonnaise fan. I don’t know why I suddenly like mayo, I just know I didn’t before this year.
December 17 Word or phrase.
I’m going to have to go with awesome because this year it has really become the ultimate in sarcasm.
December 24 Learning experience.
I discovered Japanese Coach for the DS and I have become a massive fan. Now I can follow snippets of anime while not reading the subtitles.
December 25 Gift. What’s a gift you gave yourself this year that has kept on giving?
I think time is going to have to be the judge of that. I do know that this year my gifts were more practical than in previous years so hopefully they will see some use.
December 26 Insight or aha! moment.
So many to choose from. I think it had to be when I figured out the ending to one of my wips. I had planned an ending but the story had gotten side tracked and the ending no longer worked. I didn’t want to change the side tracked part of the draft because I think it worked out better, but I didn’t know how to end it. Luckily, a few days later, I had an aha moment and it all kind of worked out.
December 27 Social web moment.
Figuring out how facebook actually works has got to be my moment. I signed up and then stared at it for ages wondering what I was supposed to do. I still prefer twitter but I finally have facebook up and running.
December 29 Laugh.
Bella falling off her motorbike? Probably not. Actually, I think it will have to go to Zombieland. I was really pleasantly surprised by how funny that actually was.
December 31 Resolution you wish you’d stuck with. (You know, there’s always next year…)
I kept most of my resolutions but I wish I had managed to write something every day. I don’t think I’ll stick with it next year either. I work well in spurts and then I need a few days to mull it over. Maybe that is just me. Still, I’ll make the resolution to write more and see what happens.
There you have it. My best of 09.
Repeat/Repeat
I’ve been going through the editing process, trying to get my first novel ready for publication and it has recently been brought to my attention that despite my own editing and rewriting I have still overused so many lines and expressions. Painful and annoying.
Which lines and phrases do you overuse? Mine:
- There was/There were – which is silly given in most cases if I cut this part of the sentence off, it still makes perfect sense with very minor adjustments.
- Absolutely – I overuse this when writing in first person. Everything is absolutely something.
- Apparently – Again, I overuse this when writing in first person. Everything is apparent to my protagonist apparently.
There are definitely other words and lines that I abuse with overuse but those three are the ones giving me a headache at the moment. It is interesting how easy it is to overlook something that should be staring you in the face. The fact that I have used these so many times should have leapt right out at me but it didn’t. It would have if I was reading someone else’s work but because it was my own I suddenly became blind and oblivious.
So which words do you overuse? How do you catch them?
Characters are like onions
You’ve probably all seen the original Shrek movie where Mike Myers as the title character explains the ogres are like onions, they have layers. Personally I would have gone with the Donkey in that cakes and parfait both have layers too and they don’t smell half as bad but Shrek was determined to stick to his onion story and not be derailed.
Whatever image you like, the point remains. Ogres have layers and yet Shrek is probably the least complex character in the story. Ugly, smelly and bad tempered on the outside and vulnerable and bitter on the inside, with the tiniest centre of sweetness and love that reveals itself just enough that he doesn’t alienate himself from everybody in the story.
All characters (or at least all of the well constructed characters) have layers. They come with pasts and complexes and unresolved issues and passions and friends and families and they have desires and weird motivations that on some level have to make sense.
Still on Shrek, I just want to quickly look a Lord Farquaad. People tend to forget about our miniscule tyrant when talking about Shrek. They mention the dragon, they mention Donkey, they mention Fiona, Gingy, Puss in Boots who wasn’t even in the first movie. Lord Farquaad is disappeared from people’s minds. Yet he was my favourite character from Shrek because even though his screen time was limited, as was his height, he made quite an impression. Why? Because he is motivated and driven. Every other character in the story reacts to events around them while Lord Farquaad takes control of things every step of the way and seeks to use events to his best advantage. Lord Farquaad isn’t just the villain of the story he is the centre piece that the story revolves around.
Now Shrek himself points out Farquaad’s main problem and that is he is overly short and feels the need to overcompensate but that doesn’t begin to give enough reason for Farquaad’s actions. Certainly it gives a reason for him to want power. But he is already in control of the kingdom. He is in charge. Why does he care so much about being an actual King? More importantly, why does he deal with Shrek rather than sending one of his knights after Fiona as he was going to? Why does he think fairy tale creatures are destroying his perfect kingdom? Not one of these questions can be answered by saying he is short and power hungry. Farquaad has more depth than is at first apparent. It would have been really interesting to find out something about Farquaad’s past. How he came to be in charge in the first place and what has driven him to the point where we first meet him in Shrek as the gingerbread torturer.
I would love to hear your thoughts:
Who are some of your favourite characters and why?
Writers, how do you create layers for your characters?
Writing Lessons From Reading Katharine Kerr
So far I have covered writing lessons from reading Terry Pratchett, Ann Bishop and Terry Brooks. Today I am going to look at Katharine Kerr though I think my next author will have to be a non-fantasy one, just to break things up a little.
Katharine Kerr is another amazing fantasy author and one I enjoyed greatly through high-school. I am going to focus on her Deverry Series as far as what I have learned, which is very much a swords and sorcery fantasy with nobles and horses and elves and dwarves and if you read on to the Westlands Cycle (the follow on series) you even get a dragon.
I’m actually going to start with a few things I don’t like about the Deverry Series.
To start with there are two pages of maps with place marked with dozens of places and towns (that do not exist) with names you cannot hope to pronounce. Later on these become useful as the characters trek over the continent and you want a reference point but it is a daunting way to start the book and quite off putting. It is not helped by following the maps with three pages worth of a pronunciation guide so that you can pronounce the names of places and people in the story. Again, off putting. Useful, because three pages into the story you are already wondering how on earth you could pronounce some of the names, but not the way one usually wants to start reading. We then launch into a prologue that maddeningly talks about a girl being reborn and being reminded that she has something to do, but not being given a name or description. Admittedly, this becomes important and necessary later on but as far as starting the story it is not particularly enticing.
And then the story begins.
Any complaints disappear. The story is incredible. The characters, in whatever incarnation they happen to be in at the time, have depth and they feel real. The world is well constructed and you could see it being a working society, not a particularly good one to live in, but it would function. The story manages to hold you captivated despite the fact that it keeps interrupting the ‘modern day’ story to tell you about the lives the characters lived previously and these previous stories are also engaging and well told and even though they disrupt the flow of the story you want to read they don’t feel intrusive.
Writing lessons learned from reading Katharine Kerr?
- If you have a character that defies the expectations of the society they will be an outcast, even if they are an admired one. Jill, our protagonist (of sorts) spends her life on the road with her father learning to be a mercenary. She does not fit with any of the ideals for women in the society. Her father is despised enough for being a mercenary, her choice to become one as well means she isn’t going to fit in. Individuals within the society may admire her and like her but the society is going to shun her.
- People sometimes do horrible things and so characters sometimes have to make bad choices. At the heart of the Deverry series is the idea that there are always consequences for actions, even if those actions happened in previous lives. As we go back and visit the characters previous lives we see why certain things are happening to them in their current life. The interesting thing is that even the ‘good’ character have done some really horrible things for a variety of reasons. Survival, revenge, and love have had them betraying and backstabbing each other through life after life and those choices all come with heavy consequences either in the immediate situation or in their next life.
- Death is not necessarily motivation enough for a character to act. The idea that a character must do x,y and z or they will die is usually motivation enough to ensure that the character does go through the motions. Katharine Kerr seems to go out of her way to create fatalistic characters who seem bent on rushing to their own demise. There are very few characters in the story who wouldn’t die for their honour or their name or wealth or pretty much anything that would make a good story. This actually makes for more interesting characters because their motivations become quite complex at times and you have to really get inside their head to understand why they are doing certain things.
- The mentor character does not necessarily have to be annoying. I blame Yoda for the number of small, wrinkled mentors running around fantasy books berating the characters and guiding through annoyance. Not that I didn’t like Star Wars and Yoda but I think the number of cheap imitations out there has gotten a little beyond a joke. The mentor is a standard character in a sword and sorcery fantasy but I really enjoyed Nevyn. He is old but still very active and his influence is minimal until later in the series as he choose to stay on the sidelines and waits for the other characters to make their own choices. What I really like about him is that he makes mistakes. It is his initial mistake that sets most of the later events in motion. He may have gained some wisdom but he is human and his emotions and own desires frequently get in the way.
Reflections on the Week That Was 8
Not a lot of news on the blog front this week. With family and birthdays and Christmas I took a break from the blog and I didn’t get to visit many other blogs (though from what I did see, most people were taking a break this week).
In the absence of my usual link list that I would share, I thought I would reach out a bit.
There are a lot of excellent blogs on writing out there and I find a new one nearly everyday. I haven’t as yet put together a blog roll and I am going to try and fix that in the next couple of weeks. So, if you know of an excellent blog about writing can you link to it in the comments and I will check it out. I would just like to ask that you make sure that links do actually go to blogs related to writing.
Also, while I am asking for input, if you have a book coming out in 2010 or would like to write a guest blog or anything like that send me an email cassandra.jade.author (at) gmail.com about what you would like and when abouts you would like to do it. In February I am going to be calling for writers to participate in another series of posts (similar to the ‘writing is’ series that ran recently) and I am looking forward to another round of excellent contributions.
Thanks and I am looking forward to your suggestions.
First Impressions
First of all, I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Now, to the post.
When you meet someone for the first time you make an instant judgement. Sometimes that judgement is fair but usually it is usually superficial and misleading, but we still make an initial judgement.
We do that with books as well. We look at the cover art, the title and the blurb and we make an instant judgement so that by the time we are actually sitting down to read the book we have more or less made up our minds as to whether or not we think it is going to be any good.
That’s why the first chapter of the story is so incredibly important. It is also why the first line and the first page have to be spot on.
You could make the argument that some stories just start slow and get more interesting as they go on but most readers would agree that if the book hasn’t grabbed them in that first chapter it is unlikely that they are going to invest anymore time in it.
Look at it this way – you meet someone for the first time and you make a judgement about them that isn’t favourable but then you start talking. They turn out to be really interesting and funny and they have something to say and so you keep talking to them or you organise a time to meet again. The cover art and the title and the blurb may leave someone hesitant about reading the book but they decide to give it a go anyway (maybe they are bored or they’re waiting for their friend to finish browsing the book shop). They pick up the book and read the first page. You want them to be hooked so that when the shop owner glares at them for reading something they haven’t paid for, or their friend comes back, they buy the book and finish reading it.
So how do you write this brilliant opening? I’m still working on that but I have read a lot of advice about it. More importantly, I think about the books I read and what has made me keep read them. When I go to book fairs I usually grab a whole stack of books and then I stand and read the first page of each one. If I find my fingers tweaking to turn the page I know I’m buying the book. If I am curious about what is going to happen next, I buy the book. If I read the first page and still haven’t been given a single reason to read on, the book goes back on the shelf.
As a reader what grabs my attention?
– Meeting a character while they are doing something. I like character driven stories so I want to meet one of the characters as soon as possible but I don’t want them to just be described to me. I want to see them doing something and draw my own conclusions about the character from what they do and how they do it.
– Peculiarities. I really like reading something that is just a bit odd and makes me think, what the. I then have to read the rest of the book to find out the why and how. Generally I don’t try to write these openings but I love reading them. For example, George Orwell’s ‘1984’ had the clocks striking thirteen and instantly you wondered what was going on and you were hooked into this world he had constructed. Or at least I did.
– Really strong visuals. This is mostly in fantasy/horror where the first page or so is usually written about the ancient evil that is awakening or seeking a way to cause havoc and these are really cliché openings for the most part but when they get it right they can be really powerful. A good strong visual of the evil that is going to come forward later so that as we flick to the group who are going to end up battling the evil the contrast is clear, sets up a reasonably good, if predictable, story.
What don’t I like?
– Long descriptions of setting. If I get to the end of the first page and so far all I’ve read is description, I’m going to pass.
– Bad writing. Not necessarily grammatically bad, particularly if the story is written in first person, but bad as in slow and clunky and awkward. If it is painful to read and has no flow I am not going to read beyond the first page.
– Dialogue between two characters that painstakingly explains the back story. Possibly this is better than a prologue, particularly if the dialogue is well written and interesting, and possibly if it also manages to reveal something about the characters who are talking, but for the most part I’m going to pass on this story.
What do you like when you read a book? What annoys you? What is the best opening you have ever read? Looking forward to hearing your ideas.
Reflections on the Week That Was 7
It is the end of another week and we are about to enter the crazily busy Christmas week so Merry Christmas everyone and hopefully you all have a good week whether you celebrate the holiday or not. Some more links for writers this week:
Recommended Read for the Week:
Jennifer Blanchard shares the 43 Most Inspiring Writing Posts she found in 2009. Some excellent links in this post.
My Posts This Week:
What genre do you write? So many genres, so many cross genres, which genre do you write in?
The Read List – my first reads for 2010 from my TBR pile. What are you going to be reading next year?
Writing Lessons From Reading Terry Brooks.
What is your research process and what do you research?
The final post in the Writing Is series – Tirza, Corra and Fiona all share their thoughts on what writing is.
Other Writing Links:
Elspeth Antonelli asks if your characters are clear thinking.
Lynnette Labelle discusses some of the problems with writing in multiple genres.
On My Father’s Shoulders questions the writing rule of write what you know.
JSChanceller talks about the utility of tangents.
Amy Allgeyer Cook suggests that new writers should not start with a trilogy.
This Book Binge posts suggests how you can write a perfectly dreadful query letter (well worth reading the footnotes).
Andrew Jack introduces his rule for writing endings with oomph.
All and all, I hope you enjoy reading these and I hope you have a great week. As usual, if you wish to add a link or want to suggest a post, please leave it in the comments or email me with suggestions for the next weekly reflection.
So Many Faces
My kind-of Christams post with a kind-of link to character creation.
Do you watch people when they open presents?
I don’t mean in the creepy-judgemental way where you glare at them until they manage to contort their face until an ‘appropriate’ expression of gratitude. I meant the general, I’m intereseted in what you think kind of way.
People receive gifts in a few different ways depending on the situation. This is my list of observed typical reactions:
- They know what the gift is in advance and are happy to be receiving it. These people are grinning broadly before they even begin to unwrap. They might rattle the packet a bit and make comments like, “I wonder what this could be?” but when they finally open the present they give it a quick look over, hug the person who gave it to them and move on to the next gift.
- They know what the gift is in advance and think it is the worst idea for a present they ever heard. They also make comments along the lines of “I wonder what this could be?” but there is a definite sense that they are grinding their teeth at the ridiculousness of having to play through the charade of opening the gift. Once opened they might say “Oh look, its a…” then they also put it to the side and move on but they don’t hug the person who gave it to them.
- They think they know what the gift is in advance and are happy about it. They grin as they pull the paper back but then their face kind of freezes into the ‘oh’ kind of expression. It doesn’t matter whether they like the actual gift or not there are a few moments of dead time while their brain attempts to shift gears. Finally they decide whether they like or hate the gift and react accordingly.
- They have no idea what the gift is and love it. The squeal with delight, and busily turn it over and over examining what it is and thinking about where it will go and when they can use it.
- They have no idea what the gift is and neither love nor hate it. They thank the person politely and move to the next one.
- They have no idea what the gift is and really can’t believe someone just gave it to them. I’ve seen two distinct reactions to this scenario. The usual one is the forced smile and the forced “thanks” meanwhile this gift isn’t stacked neatly to the side, it is usually just slid along the floor, usually in the direction of the paper pile with the false hope that maybe it will vanish. The second reaction is the “what am I going to do with this” reaction which never seems to go down well.
Yes there are other ways to receive gifts but these are the typical reactions. What does this have to do with writing?
Simple.
Your characters react to situations. Reactions that fit within typical and expected models don’t require a huge amount of explanation as to why the character reacts in that way. Their dog just dropped a dead mouse at their feet. They say “Eww gross” – they are probably a female or a more urban male and they get squeamish around dead things. Nothing really needs to be explained. They kick it aside – they are either male or female and are trying to get the thing out of their sight but at the same time not react verbally because that might show them as weak. Again, not much to explain. They pick it up and decide to place it on their desk – you best explain this one because I don’t think the reader is going to understand why anyone would do that.
So – your protagonist was given a gift for christmas. What was it and how did they react? (Mine firstly asked for an in-depth explanation of what Christmas was including references that she could look up to verify my facts and then she stared at me blankly over the wrapping paper before asking me “Why do you think I need a hairbrush?”)
Cassandra Jade in the Realm 