Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Sep 17, 2011 in
Novels,
Process I am about to rewrite the knife battle between Avalgo and Othau, which is, in a sense, the climactic moment of my characters’ stay on Dheu.
The original fight was in my first draft of the whole trilogy (back before it was a trilogy), and it was one of those awesome, completely unplanned moments. The way the events had been progressing, I always assumed Raphel was going to be the one to take down Othau. He certainly wanted to. So I had this Raphel vs. Othau moment in my head literally right up until the moment Othau and Avalgo pulled knives on each other, and Raphel was occupied elsewhere. And I said, “Um, okay, apparently these two aren’t going anywhere until they have it out”. And it’s sort of appropriate that the fight should be between the two characters who are actually from Dheu…it highlights the fact that my four main characters are interlopers on a conflict that’s much bigger and much older than they are.
The theme of the fight is essentially the age-old question: Can an end justify the means taken to achieve it? If you have to become a monster to save the world, is it worth it?
And this is a theme that forms the backbone of the entire trilogy. Raphel’s goal is to save Verre from a war that is destroying both the Mantles and the Cowls…but he has to kill two gods in order to do it. Obviously he thinks it’s worth it. Of course, he’s got a major lifelong grudge against one of these gods, and the other god is actively trying to wipe out his people…so he’s not exactly the most unbiased judge of such things. Same with Mora and Kaladan. Only Saeli really has a shot at truly deciding whether the end is worth the cost. Right now, she’s on Raphel’s side…but the more time she spends around Naeth, the more she’s going to realize exactly what it would mean to kill a god.
Will she save her world? Or will she save her soul? Of course, her stake in this is all tangled up in her relationship with Raphel, and the choices he makes. Her tragedy is that she will be forced to destroy Raphel while believing in her heart that he wasn’t completely wrong. Ultimately she chooses principle over saving the world, but her circumstances will allow her to do the latter by sticking to the former. Lucky Saeli. Why am I playing it like this? Why am I giving Saeli an out?
Because I don’t know the answer to the question.
Othau believes that securing a future generation of Dheuans is worth the cost of derailing two girls’ lives. Avalgo disagrees, arguing that what good does it do to become monsters in order to survive? Each of them has a point, and I honestly do not know what I would choose, were I put in that position. On one hand, kidnapping, rape, and forced childbirth are monstrous things to inflict on anyone. On the other hand, not acting to save an entire world when you *could*, is also monstrous. It’s an unsettling place for me, not being able to decide within my own mind what a character “ought” to do. All I have to work with is what I know the character would do.
It means I can’t really resolve this fight between Othau and Avalgo. It means that Saeli can’t fully resolve it, even after Raphel betrays her so badly that she MUST stand against him. It means I have to kill off my main villain without knowing, for certain, that he deserved it.
But ultimately, I think maybe it’s a question that needs to be left up to the reader to decide. Each character will choose where they stand, and the reader gets to decide if they made the right decision or not.
Tags: GMC, musings, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Aug 25, 2011 in
Books,
Input Currently I’m about 3/4 of the way through A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin, and I’ve got to return the book to the library by tomorrow. That is, of course, if Hurricane Irene doesn’t do a quick loop-da-loop and hit us after all.
I have mixed feelings about A Song of Ice and Fire (the overall series). My biggest problem is that I can make a pretty sizable list of things I don’t like: about the writing, about the characters (specifically how death is handled), about the sexism and sex and overall yuck factor, and…well you get the idea. On the other hand, I’m still reading it. None of these factors were enough to not bother with the current book, nor have they been enough to make me put the current book down. The story is still interesting enough, I guess. But see that’s just it. I can’t put my finger on why I haven’t had the urge to quit reading, and I can’t figure out why such a vague “like” factor should overrule that whole list of “don’t likes”. Read more…
Tags: authors, books, musings
Posted by nightphoenix on May 11, 2011 in
Process Writers often speak of “playing God” with their characters. Because of course, the writer must have a better grasp on that character’s strengths, flaws, past, motivations, fears, hopes, goals, etc, than anyone else in the story world, even the character himself. You can’t write a convincing person if you don’t know who they are. But an interesting side effect of this knowing is that sometimes a character will do something the writer didn’t expect. Something that flows out of who that character is that maybe the writer didn’t notice the first time around. But you, the writer, kinda have to go with that, because forcing characters to follow an author’s agenda inevitably drains the life right out of them. Paradoxically, you have to know your characters so well that they quite literally start taking on a life of their own.
But fiction, like life, has conflict and pain and sorrow and people that fall. In fact, one of the first things one learns as a writer is that fiction NEEDS conflict, or it becomes boring and lifeless. True conflict, the kind that grows and breathes and expands in directions you don’t always expect and changes characters you care about…this is hard to write. It is hard to ALLOW this kind of conflict in a story, because it means surrendering some of your godly writerly power to do whatever you wish with your characters. It means sparing characters you’d rather destroy, and destroying characters you really, really wish you could save. True, you could still have the villain have a last-minute change of heart…you are the author, and it’s your story. But you know, and your audience will certainly know that the change wasn’t real, didn’t flow out of who that character was. Such authorial fiat…even when done for the benefit of the character…it invalidates the character as a person. Their choices no longer matter. And they cease to be real.
And the story fails. Read more…
Tags: musings
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 2, 2011 in
Input My son turns 5 today. Long overdue, if you ask me. It’s interesting, watching one’s own child’s succession of birthdays. I’ve noticed that he starts acting the age he’s turning several months before February, and mentally I start thinking of him as being that age. Makes the actual day feel a little anti-climactic, at least for me. (Probably not to him. At least I hope not.)
I’ve been making an Excel list of agents to query. Today I will be sending out a query to the agent I met at the writer’s conference, and then picking out 10 or so others to send a first round of emails out to. Man, talk about a complicated process. Every agent wants something different. Some want just a letter. Some want a letter and a writing sample. Some want all that and a synopsis of the story.
Of the ones who want a sample, some want a chapter. Some want 3 chapters. Some want 5 pages. Some want 10 pages. At least one wants 50 pages (!). That means, for each one of these, I have to find a break somewhere in that neighborhood. Some want said pages attached. Most want the sample in the email body and will delete anything with attachments.
Of the ones who want a synopsis, most want a page or two. Some want 5 pages. One wants 3-5 paragraphs. *eyeroll* How many bloody synposises (synposi?) do I have to write?
Some want you to query just one agent at the agency. Some say that a query to one is a query to all. Some will let you submit to another agent at the agency if the first rejects you. Some stipulate that a rejection from one is a rejection from all. Most want an email. Some have a weird online form you have to use instead. Some respond to everyone. Most warn that prolonged silence is a no. Response time is anywhere between 1 week and 6 months.
Are you beginning to see the need for a spreadsheet to keep all this straight?? Now I figure if I can navigate all this excitement, I’ll be a step ahead of most people who go through this process.
I’m finally reading Towers of Midnight. I have to say, sometimes the library has good timing. I knew I had requested the book sometime back, and I was terrified it was going to come in during those couple of weeks before the conference. You know, when I was busy copyediting and preparing and most definitely not having time to start an 843 page beast. (That’s, er, overlooking the fact that I did read Fallen by Lauren Kate, and the final Vampire Academy book Last Sacrifice during that time. Um, yeah.)
I’ve also been reading the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. Those are fun, though the super-short chapters get annoying pretty fast. I mean, when every single chapter is a page or two long? It starts to feel like this breathless, chronological montage of…stuff happening. Or like watching a fan blade turn round and round. It becomes a gimmick for making the book seem fast paced, but here’s the thing. These books don’t need it. They’re face-paced enough. Choppy chapter breaks are unnecessary, especially when they don’t really…divide…anything.
And here it comes, the deep thought for the day. Read more…
Tags: business of writing, musings, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Jul 12, 2010 in
Process So the hubby and I went to see Despicable Me on Saturday. It was an entertaining movie…solid story, solid character arcs, lots of funny moments that weren’t over-the-top. In fact, a lot of the humor was surprisingly smart for a movie of this genre, even the fart jokes and such.
But I was especially struck by the three girls. They were perfect for the role they had in the story, and they really called something to my attention that I hadn’t thought about before: how children are portrayed in movies now, versus how they are portrayed in much older movies, like Pinocchio and Peter Pan. Despicable Me had a tight soundtrack, one where you notice the music because the action in the movie is moving right with it (as opposed to just background ambiance). The three girls’ theme exemplified them perfectly: it kept the hip-hopish rhythm and beat that ran through the whole movie, but it had this very innocent, upbeat flute melody floating on top.
Read more…
Tags: movies and television, musings, reviews
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