Fiction Vs Reality
I’m on holidays at the moment but I’m reposting some of the more popular posts from my old blog, Darkened Jade. If you leave a comment I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I get back.
Of the two, I much prefer fiction. Mostly because in fiction you can be reasonably assured of getting an ending (whether it is happy or not depends on the genre and author really), and you can be reasonably assured of a basic underlying logic to the entire thing.
Reality, unfortunately is not like that.
Recently I was very harsh in my criticism of comedies where events just seem to randomly pile, one after the other, onto the heap in any old fashion. This doesn’t suit my view on how a story ought to be told. However, it does kind of follow the natural order of events in the real world.
Maybe we could say there is some underlying logic to most of the things that happen. As in, if you speed, you will get a ticket, etc. However, sometimes things just happen. They are random and unpredictable (though random kind of has to be unpredictable) and they don’t really connect logically to any decision or process that was set upon by anyone.
In fiction, if you wander out into the forest, you are going to get lost. You are then going to be accosted by a little old lady, a wolf, or a band of cannibals, and several of your friends are probably going to die horribly. Unless you are the unfortunate one selected to be the friend, in which case, you are going to have a really interesting death sequence and set your friend upon a course of vengeance or flight. There are only a limited number of possibilities in the average fiction.
In reality, nothing may happen. You wander into the forest, you wander out. You might break your leg, or fall down something steep. You might get chased by a pack of wild dogs and end up in a tree. You might simply take some interesting photos. Possibly you could disappear for a ten year period then mysteriously turn up on the other side of the world -but this seems less likely.
Reality – unpredictable – illogical.
Stick with fiction.
And here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked out the blurb or excerpt for Death’s Daughter.
5 Essentials For Genuine Characters
I’m on holidays at the moment but I’m reposting some of the more popular posts from my old blog, Darkened Jade. If you leave a comment I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I get back.
Keeping it simple today. This is quick checklist for creating genuine characters:
- Don’t shun stereotypes – While the overuse of stereotypes is definitely a no-no, but to utterly ignore every existing paradigm for character creation isn’t such a great idea either. Despite what people say, they actually do like the familiar and dragging them by the hair into totally new territory probably isn’t the best way to connect to your readers.
- Appearance matters – You have to give your reader some idea of what your character looks like. This doesn’t mean giving the reader an info dump two pages long that ends up describing every single mole. Give them enough to form an image and then move on (and if you revisit physical appearance again be sure you are consistent).
- Dialogue rocks – Dialogue is where the reader has the chance to hear the character speak in the words that they have chosen. Unless the book is narrated by the character the reader does not get the chance any other way. That means the dialogue should be authentic to the character and it has to be distinguished from other characters.
- Everybody has a past – unless you sprung from the ground about a sentence before the beginning of the plot. How much of the character’s past you choose to explain or explicitly detail is up to the individual writer and plot but every character has a past, has opinions and viewpoints and ways of doing things. Characters that seem to exist only for the sake of the current plot never really feel genuine.
- Relationships are necessary – You character is going to be interacting with others and it is important that you understand the relationship that they have with each of the other players. Is there a history? Is it a newly established connection? Are there other connections between the characters? If the relationships don’t work then the characters won’t feel right.
Did I forget any? Probably. Let me know what you think.
And here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked out the blurb or excerpt for Death’s Daughter.
Continuity Errors
I’m on holidays at the moment but I’m reposting some of the more popular posts from my old blog, Darkened Jade. If you leave a comment I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I get back.
Have you ever watched a movie where something is happening on a Monday and then the next day is Saturday and everyone is on their weekend? Not because time has passed that you haven’t been shown, but because they have literally jumped to Saturday without any events occurring in between, on or off screen.
Have you ever seen a character wearing one thing and then the next minute they are wearing something different? Or more importantly, they are eating something and it magically reappears, whole and untouched upon their plate in the next minute.
Continuity errors really jump out at me in films because you have to wonder with the number of screenings they do why nobody picked up on it. Of course, now that I’m writing regularly and finishing my own work, the answer has become quite apparent.
Too many details.
My brain is racing around trying to keep up with the main plot and sometimes small details slip by me without a second thought. Even on the third or fourth reading I don’t notice. Sometimes even friends read the story and don’t notice the error. Yet there it is in black and white, just waiting to be discovered and mocked.
I’m a lot nicer in my critique of stories since I’ve been writing.
The biggest problem I have had recently is in weather and the time of day. I particularly had this problem in my second MS (though I had numerous other problems with this MS, including a psychotic protagonist who refused to work as per the plan). The story takes place over six days and is divided into six parts with approximately seven chapters per part.
It all seems wonderfully structured and organised until you realise that chapter three of part one has a character watching a sunset and then in chapter five there is another sunset. Not the same sunset in a different location. Hours have passed and the sun is definitely setting again.
Part three is equally inept with a storm brewing, that never approaches. Not disappears or goes around. There is a storm brewing, everyone is worried about it and then it literally never gets mentioned again. Gone. Unimportant. Except for the reader who flicks back wondering if they missed something.
I also had a problem with directions. If you walk north from this building you end up at that one. Except when you don’t. Except when they head off north and exit the city from the same location, not passing the building they used to arrive at when heading in the same direction.
How to solve all these problems? I would say how to avoid them in the first place, except I know that is not going to happen, so now I’m just going to work on how to identify these problems and fix them.
1. Sometimes stories jump around or are not told in a linear fashion. After you’ve written the first draft, create a timeline of events and make sure that if something hasn’t happened yet, it isn’t mentioned.
2. Around the outside of your timeline, you might want to list any external phenomenon that are mentioned. Storms, tides, wars, grazing animals, etc. Anything that might give the reader a moment of confusion if it changes or disappears illogically.
3. Draw maps. I hate maps, I won’t look at them in books. If I can’t get a feel for the place from the writing, I certainly don’t want to try and decipher someone’s artistic rendering of it. However, for the sake of organising a place in my head, some sort of visual representation of the main areas (main city, main residences, main rooms) will help you sort out your location and spacing problems. Even in rooms, if the chair is against one wall, it can’t suddenly be under the window, etc.
4. As to fixing these problems, don’t do what I frequently do and change the story at one point without following the correction through. That just creates more problems in the long run.
Continuity errors – don’t think no one will notice.
And here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked out the blurb or excerpt for Death’s Daughter.
Plot – Why So Complicated?
I’m on holidays at the moment but I’m reposting some of the more popular posts from my old blog, Darkened Jade. If you leave a comment I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I get back.
Everyone will tell you a story has to have a problem. Or a complication. Or a conflict. It all amounts to the same thing. There has to be a central issue that is in some way connected to the central characters. Why? Because otherwise, what is your story about.
If someone handed me a book and said ‘read it’, my first question would be ‘what is it about?’. This isn’t me wanting the blurb read to me or someone’s review. This is me just wanting to know what is the point of the book. Boil all the fancy words down, what is the reason for the story. Read the two answers below and decide which you would read.
1. Luke and Lane are getting married.
2. Luke and Lane are getting married but Lane’s mother doesn’t approve.
The first tells me what events to expect but it doesn’t sound particularly interesting. Unless it is a biography about two people I had heard of and I was wanting to know about their wedding, I’m unlikely to read it. The second tells me there is a problem. They want to get married, but… And that but is enough to keep me interested. How does Lane’s mother react? Does she try to interfere? Stop the wedding? Why doesn’t she approve? So many questions that I instantly want answered and now I have to read the book to find out.
You have to have a complication.
And before you run off and try to think of something so intensely convoluted that even Nostradamus would have asked for directions the central complication doesn’t need to be too complex. The important thing is that there is a point to reading and the reader can expect some kind of satisfactory explanation. It is not really important to try to confuse them. If you want to make your story more complex, you can layer other complications and side plots in later, but the basic storyline should be relatively clear.
What kind of problem could there be?
Most people I’ve spoken to and most of the advice I’ve read points to four basic types of conflict that appear in books.
1. Man against society – The protagonist (for whatever reason) opposes the world and society in which he lives. The story then usually revolves around the protagonist trying to change things in some way.
2. Man against man – Two characters for whatever reason have opposing view points or goals and the clash of personalities creates the conflict. Frequently one will be villianised while the other will be set up as a hero.
3. Man against himself – Looking at internal conflict of someone trying to change who they are within.
4. Man against nature – Protagonist trying to defeat some kind of monster, natural disaster, climb a mountain, save the world, etc, etc.
While these are the basic types of conflict there are many books that use variations or combinations of these, plus if you include multiple sub-plots it will enable you to explore more than one of these within a single story.
And here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked out the blurb or excerpt for Death’s Daughter.
10 Ways to Know You Are Obsessed With Writing
I’m on holidays at the moment but I’m reposting some of the more popular posts from my old blog, Darkened Jade. If you leave a comment I’ll be sure to catch up with you when I get back.
Today I would just like to share a list of ten things that indicate you’ve become obsessed by writing (not saying obsession is a bad thing):
1. You start re-reading every sentence that you write and then start re-writing every sentence, convinced that you are ‘improving’ them. I know when it’s time to stop when I have just written the same sentence ten times and I no longer even believe it to be written in English.
2. Your partner/best friend/child sends you an instant message asking if you will be eating breakfast/lunch/dinner.
3. You start arguing with your characters out loud: “No, you fool. You have to go…”
4. You have any kind of repetitive strain problem (wrist, arm, finger, neck, eyes).
5. You get home from your day job and your computer is turned on before you have put your bag down, taken your shoes off, fed your pets, or spoken to your children.
6. When you have told your friend/partner/child you will be ready to leave just after finishing one more sentence you write another couple of pages and forget you were meant to be finishing until they unplug the computer at the wall.
7. In your bag you have at least three notebooks and five pens, as well as a pencil in case all of you pens cease working on the same day.
8. Every single thing you read or watch is critiqued in terms of character, plot and setting.
9. When you meet someone for the first time you repeat their name, not to help you remember them but so that you can someday use that name in a story.
10. In conversation you directly reference events and characters you have been writing about (even though nobody else has read it yet).
Add your ‘you know you are obsessed with writing when…’
And here’s the link if you haven’t yet checked out the blurb or excerpt for Death’s Daughter.
Tweets for Writers
I’ve been tweeting them as fast as I can find them and now here is the full list of links that I’ve collected in the last week or so.
Apologies if some of the links are faulty.
I definitely recommend checking out Alex’s blog and clicking on some of the links from the Dirty Dozen blogfest. Some great reads here.
Alex J Cavenaugh – Dirty Dozen movie blogfest – some great entries: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2010/06/movie-dirty-dozen.html
The rest of the links (yes – some of these are mine):
Carol Kilgore – Organised desk? http://underthetikihut.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-know-its-here-somewhere.html
Lua Fowles – Creativity’s Evil Sister: http://likeabowloforanges.wordpress.com/
Little Scribbler shares some great news: http://littlescribbler.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/now-that-im-finished/
Talli Roland shares what’s in her bag: http://talliroland.blogspot.com/2010/06/ten-for-tuesday-bag-lady.html
Thoughts in Progess – interview with Ann Summerville: http://masoncanyon.blogspot.com/2010/06/guest-blogger-ann-summerville.html
Alan Orloff – A really, really, really great idea: http://alanorloff.blogspot.com/2010/06/really-really-really-great-idea.html
Blog Post for #writers – Fear and Avoidance: https://cassandrajade.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/fear-and-avoidance/
Julie Dao – Forget chivalry, it’s grammar that’s dead: http://juleswrites.blogspot.com/2010/06/forget-chivalry-its-grammar-thats-dead.html
About Death’s Daughter by Cassandra Jade-fReado: http://bit.ly/93RQY9 via @addthis View excerpt and book trailer.
Talli Roland – Sleepyitis: http://talliroland.blogspot.com/2010/06/sleepyitis-sufferer-speaks.html
Writing tired: https://cassandrajade.wordpress.com/
Glynis Smy – When a video makes you want to buy the book: http://www.glynissmy.com/2010/06/when-video-makes-you-want-book-daughter.html
Clarissa Draper – First person and some grammar: http://clarissadraper.blogspot.com/2010/06/problems-with-writing-in-first-person.html
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Elizabeth Spann Craig – Stretching oursleves as writers: http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2010/06/stretching-ourselves.html
AdMan: How to write a book synopsis that sells: http://actionad.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/how-to-write-a-book-synopsis-that-sells-2/
From the Basement – Trust your characters: http://girldownstairs.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/trust-your-characters/
Blog post – 5 Reasons you shouldn’t write when tired: https://cassandrajade.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/5-reasons-tired/
Madison Woods – A writing question: http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/
They’re Dropping Like Flies
Actually this is true literally as well as metaphorically. They recently sprayed the flies at work (fortunately over a weekend so I didn’t have to deal with the smell). The flies did die and for two days there were none in the room and then new ones invaded. Now we’re waging a war with them and hitting them with various books and rules and whatever else is handy and I am sad to say we’re losing. The flies just keep coming.
The title of the post was actually talking about people I know. Everyone is getting sick or tired or both. I didn’t post yesterday because of absolute and complete exhaustion. I know that if I were to go to any group of teachers in the state at the moment they would be equally exhausted and there would be a high number falling ill. It’s the end of term.
We’ve all worked ourselves ragged over the last few weeks trying to meet deadlines for this term while trying to prepare for next and now that the final report has been written our bodies are telling us, enough is enough.
It is interesting that this phenomenon of people in similar professions getting sick at the same time is fairly common. The stresses of various jobs really have a solid impact on people.
Could I use this in a story? Coud it add depth to a character or group of characters? Possibly but I’m too tired right now to try and find the link.
What I am going to do is catch up on reading a few blogs and then I’m going to crash on the couch for a few hours because tomorrow I have to get up and be and entertaining, energetic and enthused and I need to keep that up for three more days. Or at least keep up a very good pretense.
The Dirty Dozen
I’m participating in a blog hop set up by Alex J. Canauagh today. The question being – if I could only round up 12 films which 12 would I choose.
Tricky question and I had to really think about this and in the end I decided to go with the idea that I was going to be stuck in isolation for the rest of forever. Which movies did I have to take and what combination?
I decided to start with the child-hood classics.
1. The Dark Crystal – Jim Henson at his finest. An epic fantasy tale told with muppets with some of the most interesting characters I ever met as a child. I love Kira and her matter-of-fact nature as well as her ability to talk to pretty much any animal with a reasonable expectation of being answered.
2. Willow – Again, epic fantasy. This time it is a combination of Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer who are the defnitely draw though the shield bob-sled over snow we probably could have done without. Fairies, trolls, witches, prophesise, what more could a movie want?
3. The Princess Bride – Because it is awesome. Fantasy and romance and action and adventure all rolled into one very entertaining story.
Moving on some old favourites.
4. Indiana Jones (If I’m not allowed the entire trilogy I choose Temple of Doom – though many fans think that this is the weak link) – With the exception of the Crystal Skull (which I still maintain is not Indiana Jones) these movies are incredibly fun, action packed and scenic.
5. Clash of the Titans – The original. Clunky stop-go animation but that vulture is hilarious and this was my gate-way to Greek mythology. Can’t be without this one.
6. The Trouble with Harry – Hitchcock at his most amusing. I just like the twisted sense of humour.
The B-Grade Collection – I have this thing for really bad horror movies.
7. Tremors – If I can have all four of the movies I will, but otherwise I would have to choose the second one. Underground monsters that get smarter by the minute and eat anything that moves. A great laugh with one or two jumps thrown in (just so you remember it was sort of supposed to be a horror).
8. Ginger Snaps – Possibly the best werewolf movie I have ever watched and yet you end up laughing more than being scared by this coming of age movie mixed with horror. I will say that the scariest thing in this movie is Ginger’s mother (creepy).
9. Scream – This one was a toss up between The Faculty and Scream but Scream came out on top for two reasons. One – it gave us one of the best quotes from a bad villain ever: “My mum and dad are going to be so mad at me”. The second reason is that they made sure the last hurrah wasn’t dragged out. Short and sweet and done.
Finally, the feel good movies.
10. Elizabeth Town – Most people will hate this choice. Yes, it is Orlando Bloom. Yes, it does start with him trying to commit suicide. Yes, it mostly deals with a funeral. It is light and amusing and by the road trip at the end you are genuinely feeling good about yourself. This is what I want in a movie when I need cheering up.
11. 10 Things I Hate About You – An updated take on the Taming of the Shrew and my introduction to Heath Ledger, I love this movie. It is well done and uplifting.
12. Just Like Heaven – I needed at least one genuine, sickly sweet movie on this list. This is my choice.
You should head over to Alex’s blog and check out the rest of the blog hop.
Cassandra Jade in the Realm 