I’ve begun re-reading my First Draft in 30 Days book, and thinking about how I’m going to approach re-writing the second installment in Shades. At the conference, I want to at least be able to say that I’m “working on” the second book. Hopefully if I start the re-write with a system, it will go faster than this first book has.

In other news, I finally got my hands on copies of the first two books in a series I was curious about: Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness. I’ve finished the first book and started on the second. I picked them up solely because their titles were so compelling. The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer. I mean, come on…titles like that beg to be read. The voice of the story actually irritated me at first; the protagonist speaks in a very Huck Finn sort of way, ain’t and yer and phonetic spellings of words. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but you get used to it. Premise of the story is interesting…not unique, but approached in a unique way. But man, those titles. That’s why a book title has to be compelling.

Also picked up a book called Shade by Jeri Smith Ready. Anything with a title or premise that seems remotely similar to my Shades, I make a point to read. Just to make sure my story is sufficiently different. Shade is a pretty run-of-the-mill paranormal romance, not the best thing I’ve read but far from the worst. I enjoyed it, but there was one aspect that annoyed the hell out of me. It’s a sin that certain anime shows tend to pull, also, and maybe it’s just a particular irritant of mine. But: don’t introduce a mystery you aren’t going to explain. Don’t hint at certain aspects of worldbuilding, and then never come back to them. Rah Xephon did this, Evangelion did this. Arg. When you haven’t explained what exactly the Mu are, or where the Angels come from and why they are attacking, I don’t feel like the story is over. I am left feeling extremely unsatisfied. Maybe that’s a personal problem, but there it is.

Shade was bad about that. Basic premise: one solstice, something called the Shift occurred, and all children born afterwards possess the ability to see ghosts. The story takes place sixteen years later, and is about a girl who was the first one born after the Shift. There’s a possibility that her birth caused the Shift, but like most of the mysteries in the book, this was not explained. There was a whole subplot about her trying to figure out why her mother was in Ireland a year before the Shift, and who her father was, and if that was all connected to the Shift. One of the other characters, Zach, was the last one born before the Shift, and has this ability to scare away ghosts. All these things are introduced, but never explored. Never explained. I got to the end of the story, which ends in kind of an odd place, and thought to myself, “That’s it? Is that it?”

If this is the first book in a series, I would be willing to forgive everything I just complained about. However, there’s no indication anywhere in the book or on the cover that this is a series, or if there will be a sequel. I finished the book without being convinced that the story was over. It just kind of stopped. Only one plot threat was resolved. Everything else still hangs wide open. That sort of thing frustrates the hell out of me as a reader. Maybe that’s why there are so few anime shows I feel like I really “get”.

Anyway, I have Towers of Midnight, The Clockwork Angel, Linger, Last Sacrifice, and a few other titles still in my library queue. I do hope they don’t all come in at once (because, OMG, ToM is like 300,000 words or something). I checked out Wicked, and may attempt Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…that whole emerging genre of hijacking and twisting classics as they enter public domain is fascinating.

I also have Orson Scott Card’s Characters and Viewpoint sitting on my floor, since I liked his other writing book on sci-fi and fantasy so much. However, lately I’ve been reading some blogs online and realizing that a lot of people have a pretty negative opinion of the man and his writing. It puts me in a bit of an odd place, because on one hand, I don’t know anything about Card’s personal beliefs, and I haven’t read many of his books. It’s kind of scary to discover that I’ve been absorbing writing advice from a person who many people believe writes badly. However, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy is undoubtedly one of the most useful books on writing that I own, despite being about twenty years out of date. I can’t deny that book’s value to me just because other people don’t like the man. Eh, it’s a weird mental situation. I’m willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, at least to his writing books.

In other writing news, I discovered a great, gaping plot hole in my Grimms premise. But that’s a subject for a separate post. Mostly I’ve just been struggling with getting Hands Like Secrets line edited, and ready to submit by January. I think I’ll get there.

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So what does that make us writers?

Anyway, I just finished The Maze Runner by James Dashner. It was good, but not the sort of book I’d write. Although I could take a page or two from him on how to pace a YA story, and how to sustain a mystery throughout a book in a way that’s intriguing, but not irritating. My only complaint was that sometimes the kids’ relationships in that book didn’t quite ring true. Honestly, they weren’t mean enough, petty enough, cruel enough. There wasn’t enough Lord of the Flies for me to quite believe it. But maybe that says more about me than it does about the author.

On the recommendation of several different people, I have started The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I’m enjoying it so far, but I don’t think it’s going to quite match the sheer scope and power of The Way of Kings. However, one quality that I appreciate is that fact that it’s not as fast-paced as most epic fantasy, and far less fast-paced than the typical YA fare I devour.

It puts me more in mind of Robin Hobb’s Assassins trilogy, in that the main character is telling the story of his life, and is in no particular hurry to get to the “good” parts. The character’s voice is equally if not more intriguing than the events taking place. It’s not that there’s nothing interesting going on, but it’s a book than I can read a few pages and then put down again without…pain? Can’t do that with The Wheel of Time. Can’t do that with The Way of Kings. I don’t think this is a book I could just sit there and read for hours and hours at a time…it doesn’t spur you on and on and on. He eases you into the character at a nice leisurely pace. Yet it’s interesting enough that I want to get back to it.

I think that’s the sort of pace I want my Tindaari epic to have. Because while it’s an epic, it’s a character epic. I’m following five or six people throughout a large chunk of their lives…several decades. Stories like that just can’t run at a breakneck pace. Tindaari is also less about War (like most epic fantasy), and more about the interaction of Religion, Intrigue, and History. Yes, there is war, but the story is much more about all the threads that led up to the war…the war itself is rather short, and right at the end. More like an almost-war. I will reserve final judgment until I actually finish The Name of the Wind, but so far I think it’s one I will definitely try to emulate in pacing.

My chief complaint about the book so far is that even though it takes place on a completely different world, the author keeps using specific fantasy tropes from our own world. (And I’m not talking about demons…that’s become a fairly generic class of creature.) For example: The Fae. I can accept that another world might have fairies, but I would expect those fairies to be somehow; in language, behavior, lore, whatever; connected to that world. Rothfuss is not doing that with the Fae in The Name of the Wind. He’s using OUR fairies, OUR faery lore, OUR conventions to characterize them. (Allergic to iron, sometimes called the folk, same organizations: Twilight Court and such, graceful, ethereal, elusive, mischievous, cloven feet, etc.) And every time he does it, it throws me out of his fantasy world…because I associate those kind of faeries with OUR world. They’re too specific, and thus they don’t mesh with the rest of the world he’s created.

I think maybe he’s trying to follow the rule of not calling a rabbit a shmeerp, just because it exists in an exotic world. He wanted Fae in his story, and so he simply called them Fae (instead of making up some word for essentially the same beings). The problem, however, is that the history and existence of the Fae are all tied up in the history of Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, and other real countries.

Same thing with using words like Aleph or Ruach. Those are actual Hebrew concepts…with Hebrew connotations, weight, and subtleties that just don’t make sense and would probably never develop in a world where Hebrew culture never existed. It’s like the author has taken these ideas without bothering to really integrate them into the fabric of this other world he’s created. Aleph and Ruach don’t naturally arise from the history, lore, and mood of the his world. He hasn’t provided any reason for Fae, or words like Aleph and Ruach, to exist as they do in THAT world. It begins to feel like a cheap substitute for worldbuilding.

Which is odd, because other elements of that world are completely unique…like the Chandrian…and those play right out of the history and fabric of the world. Those belong, in a way that the Fae do not. It’s not like the author didn’t do his worldbuilding. The history of this world is actually quite interesting, and seems very well-thought out. I think maybe he though he could use the Fae like he used demons…in a generic sense. But to me, the Fae are too specific, and too tied into this world to transfer. It’d be like, instead of angels and demons, using Lucifer and Christian saints in a completely fantasy setting where Christianity never existed. You can’t do that. They don’t belong there.

That turned into a bit of a rant. Let me be clear that otherwise I’m really enjoying this book, and would recommend it.

Also on the reading list:

Finally finished White Cat by Holly Black. Not bad. Will be reading The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Claire as soon as I get my copy from the library. Also thinking of reading the Coldfire trilogy by C. S. Friedman. I’ve read two other of her books and quite like her writing style. Going to see if I can find the Uplift trilogy by David Brin as well, on the recommendation of the guys on Writing Excuses.

And um, I’m going to be writing in there somewhere, too. I hope. Like I said, good books are dangerous.

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However, Guardians is worth seeing for about the same reason Avatar was worth seeing: it’s really, really pretty. The characters and story were all basic formula, but it actually wasn’t as bad or cheesy as you might expect. I think it worked simply because all the characters were owls, and that alone was novel enough to offset the cliche-ness. Having said that, it was very predictable. There were absolutely no surprises in that movie. All of the characters did exactly what I guessed they’d do, and I basically knew the part they were going to play before they played it. “Ah, there’s the love interest…there’s the traitor…there’s the gruff old mentor…etc.”

On the way home last night I was thinking about this seeming reluctance of movie-makers to allow non-formula stories in their films. Is it because movies are so much more expensive to produce than books, and therefore cannot afford to fail as badly? I mean, there’s a reason certain stories are “formula”…they work! But I’m kind of tired of walking away from every single movie feeling like I’m just seeing the same thing over and over again. Come on. Somebody do something different. Somebody take a risk and try something new!

And then, when they make books into movies, there’s this annoying tendency to make those follow formula too, even if the actual book did not. The Lightning Thief was actually a good book, and the rest of the series is good as well. I think it would have translated well to film as it was. But of course, with a series, they’re never sure if they’re going to be able to keep making more movies, and so they make sure the first movie can stand on its own. With The Lightning Thief, that meant cutting out any references to Kronos and the overarching plot of the series. But in doing that, they had to make Luke into a cookie-cutter villain. Remember my whole “they broke his GMC” post? Yeah, well, it doesn’t break in the book. And what’s worse, if they do make more Percy Jackson movies, they’re going to have to go and dump the Kronos plot back in, and it isn’t going to make as much sense as it would if it’d been set up naturally from the get-go.

Ah, well.

On a slightly depressing note, I have deleted 25 spam accounts from the database in just the last week. That’s probably about average. I wish they’d just make spamming illegal.

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It’s both similar to and very different from The Wheel of Time. For one thing, it’s still not entirely clear (to me, at least) where the overarching story is going. In TWoT, that was set up pretty concretely at the conclusion of Book 1: The Dragon Reborn is going to fight the Dark One in the Last Battle. Rand is the Dragon Reborn (that was pretty obvious at the end of Book 1, even though it wasn’t officially revealed until later). That is the quest; all else leads up to that.

In TWoK, things are not quite so clear. We know the Last Desolation is coming, but we don’t know exactly what that is. We know the Voidbringers are going to return, but we don’t know exactly what those are, either. We don’t know if the Knights Radiant will get rebuilt, because we don’t know why they disbanded in the first place. I’m not even entirely sure which side of things the Heralds are on.

I actually kind of like shrouding the central quest in mystery. Not that TWoT doesn’t have revelations and stuff you don’t know and have to guess, but the central quest itself is clear. I have a suspicion that my Tindaari epic (the one that’s been sitting on my computer for years, and will continue to sit there until I’m ready to write it) will need a mystery-shrouded central quest…which means that, like The Way of Kings, I will need to have some incredibly strong characters from the start.

On a somewhat related note, TWoK concentrates a whole lot more on the main characters’ lives, rather than the main characters on a quest. What they are doing is not unrelated to the central thread, of course, but they are not yet directly moving towards it. It’s a departure from the Tolkienesque plotline that seems to dominate most epic fantasy, and I like that.

Also, I swear I’ve never experienced three separate “holy shit” revelations within the space of fifty pages. The last section of the book was awesome.

If you are at all a fan of The Wheel of Time or epic fantasy in general, and you haven’t read The Way of Kings by Brandan Sanderson, then you need to.

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I think the last film I saw starring DiCaprio was Titanic, when I was what…12? 13? It’s not that I don’t like him as an actor, although there is a part of me that still remembers the Titanic hype and secretly thinks DiCaprio will never live that down. But mostly it’s because he’s been in movies that I had no real interest in seeing. I’d heard that the Aviator was good, but personally I found the trailers for it cringe-worthy. DiCaprio simply cannot do an authentic-sounding southern accent. Yikes.

But you know…he’s not a bad actor. In fact, after watching Inception last night I’d say he’s a pretty good actor. He emotes very well and he never sounds like he’s just reading lines.

I’m not a fan of the action genre, most of the time. Inception was certainly that, but they managed to include a number of sympathetic characters, which made all the difference in the world. The movie was also unpredictable in a way that not many movies lately have been…where there are times when you genuinely don’t know what the characters are going to choose. That said, I caught myself in writer mode several times, thinking things like, “Ah, they’re raising the stakes again” or “this is an info dump” or “ooh, interesting symbolism”.

The story told in Inception revolves around one basic idea: “What is real? And how do you know?” Which put me in mind of another story that asked the same question: The Matrix. Now most people acknowledge that the first Matrix movie was very good, while the next two were anywhere from so-so to utter crap, depending on who you ask. The conclusion, in particular, was very disappointing. I did some brainstorming last night, comparing the two stories, trying to figure out why Inception succeeded and the Matrix failed.

I think it has to do with promises and expectations. An author, knowingly or not, will set up a certain number of promises that the reader will expect to be met by the end of the story. If the story begins with a question, the end needs to answer that question. If the story begins with a certain character, the end also needs to be about that character. If the story begins with a quest, the quest needs to be completed. You can’t mix those up. If you begin a story with a troubled character, that character can save the whole world but if their inner conflict isn’t solved, the audience won’t be satisfied. Conversely, if you begin a story with a threat to the world, and then proceed to tell a great story about a set of characters whose arcs are all neatly wrapped up at the end, it won’t be enough. There’s a great book by Orson Scott Card that deals with this: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Inception accomplished what it set out to do. The characters are given the task to perform inception on a person, and they do it. The main character starts out with a lot of inner conflict, which is resolved at the end. Even the little zinger at the end serves a purpose. It provides an answer to the underlying question of the story: “How do you know what’s real?” Answer: “You can’t always know”.

So where did the Matrix fail?

The overall story of the Matrix failed because the ending did not fulfill the promise set forth in the beginning. The overarching problem was that machines had enslaved the entire human race and were using them as fuel. The hope of the resistance was to one day overthrow the machines and free everyone from the Matrix. That was the promise. The crux of the rebellion was the One…Neo. Neo was going to save the human race. That was the promise.

Only…that’s not quite what happened. The story ended with a compromise. Neo’s unique status as the One didn’t matter in the end…only his ability to kill Smith as a bargaining chip. The war was not won at all, and what was gained in the end really had more to do with Agent Smith than with Neo. That’s not what we were promised. Neo’s sacrifice didn’t win freedom for the entire human race…only the ones who “wanted” to leave the Matrix. The machines weren’t defeated…they stood down. It’s a plausible ending, perhaps even realistic…but it’s not the ending the audience was promised, and I think that’s why everyone was so disappointed without knowing why. The machines should have been taken down. Nothing short of that would do.

I also think Agent Smith should have eventually joined the human cause. Not as an ally, exactly, but he was well on his way to “going native”, as it were. He was a perfect antagonist in the first movie, but I think his character had the potential to be more than what it was. I’m sure everyone appreciates the irony of him comparing humans to a virus, and then him practically becoming a virus himself. But they didn’t carry that arc to its conclusion. Agent Smith, like the human resisters, was once a part of the system before getting “unplugged”. He began to think and act in ways that were remarkably human, if you think about it. He was becoming the very thing he despised, and I think he should have been made to face it within the story. But the writers made him too much of an outright villain. He was trapped in that role, and the story suffered for it. The final battle between Neo and Smith was one of the most anti-climactic scenes I’ve ever watched onscreen, and I’m pretty sure that’s because something within me knew that Smith wasn’t supposed to be the ultimate enemy. That wasn’t the expectation set forth in the beginning.

He might not have ever joined the humans…in fact I think it would be far better if he didn’t…but I think he could have been talked into turning against the system, against the machines. The system was the ultimate enemy in the Matrix, after all…not the agents. Agent Smith and Neo should have brought down the system together, not as allies, but as enemies with a common enemy. Then, afterwards, Neo would let him walk away. (Smith would probably be inclined to fight Neo to the death, but that would be anti-climactic.)

See, letting Smith walk would set up future conflict and an entirely new storyline (read, more movies).

I think what may have happened is that the writers became too enthralled with the Christ metaphor aspect of the story, while simultaneously misunderstanding the Christ metaphor. They thought having Neo sacrifice himself in the end would be enough, that having the machines back off in response to that sacrifice would make a satisfying ending. First of all, you can’t promise the downfall of the machines in the beginning and then have it all end with a compromise. Secondly, Christ may have submitted himself to death and the enemy, but he did it in order to defeat them. He didn’t haggle or compromise with death in order to gain a few benefits. He won against death. Christ won, which is why his death is satisfying. (Please keep in mind that I’m not speaking from a religious perspective, but a narrative one). Christ’s death accomplishes what the man set out to accomplish, even if it wasn’t quite what his disciples or the enemy had in mind. The hero’s sacrifice means nothing if it doesn’t accomplish what the story set out to accomplish. Neo could have still died at the end, but his death should have bought the downfall of the system…not just a compromise.

Anyway, go see Inception. It’s a good movie. And I guess we can always hope that someone will eventually come along and redo the second two Matrix movies…but I’m not holding my breath.

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Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.

I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.

You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.

I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. I’d only given it so much thought the first time around, and I’m realizing that I really need to know how it’s going to work. I need to know how the government functions. I need to know how Cowls occupy the cities they conquer. I need to know what they do with the cowan citizenry of conqured places. I need to decide what they will do with the majahel students at the school who don’t escape. I need to decide how many cabals it would take to occupy a large city like Aschera, and how Raphel is going to contact these cabals. I need to figure out all the complications that will arise when Raphel basically bails on his cabal right after they’ve captured the city.

Aschamon’s professors are also the governing body of Aschera. The High Priestess is the High Priestess of that entire region; her role as headmistress of the school is really more of a side job for her. As commander-in-chief of the forces from the Aschera region, she is occasionally called out into the field, and thus absent from the school for days at a time. Donnevan, the Angelic Studies professor, acts as head of the school in her stead. A group of nine or ten professors make the larger decisions for the city as a whole, and each has a number of guild heads and craftmasters that report to them.

Students pay a tuition to attend Aschamon, but those who can’t afford it are generally taken on scholarship anyway. (This only applies to local students…student from outside cities like Chisge pay tuition, and it tends to be a little higher). The city tithes to the school, and provides for scholarship students and generally what tuition doesn’t cover. Aschamon students are encouraged to work in the city, offering services only majahel can provide. The more a business or trade donates to the school, the cheaper majahel services become for them. In the last couple of decades, Aschamon also began demanding a tax on top of the tithe, to better fund the war. After the capture of Iadnah, the last really big Cowl stronghold, the war turned in the Mantles’ favor. Thus they stepped up their efforts, hoping to finish it in a few short years. However, the tax began to really hurt some Aschera businesses, which led to closures and the price of certain items rising. Fewer families could afford to pay for their young majahel to attend Aschamon, but since the war was “almost over”, Aschamon felt they really couldn’t turn any aspiring student away. Thus, Aschamon began to have a surplus of scholarship students, which then put more pressure on the city to provide for the school’s needs…and thus more business and families began to hurt, financially. It’s a vicious cycle that Aschamon’s professors are aware of, but choose to ignore…because they are still hoping that if the Mantles can just push a little longer, the Cowls will be defeated once and for all.

I need to decide how many people live in Aschera. Luckily I had already sat down at some point and worked out all the logistics of Cowl raider culture. A typical cabal of raiders has anywhere from 15-40 members, average being 20 or so. Raphel’s cabal has 17-18, but these are very, very good, because Raphel has the reputation to be selective in who he allows to join. I’m deciding that Geris’ cabal has closer to 40, but he tends to attract the scum of Cowl society and as such, his crew is more of a rabble or mob than an trim fighting unit.

When Cowl cabals join together to accomplish a bigger mission, the operation is called a raid. Yes, I totally stole that from Warcraft. The term works. The ras from each cabal get together and decide who is going to lead the raid, by duel if necessary. The other ras in the raid function like suras to the ras in charge of the whole operation, but maintain control of their own cabals.

I think there needs to be two, possibly three more cabals involved to effectively occupy Aschera. When both Raphel and Mora disappear through Saeli’s portal, Raphel’s cabal is probably going to be taken over by a fellow named Jaime. (If the ras of a cabal dies/abdicates/is captured/etc., command of the cabal goes to the suras. In the unlikely event that both the ras and suras are killed/abducted/whatever at the same time, command goes to whomever is strong enough to take charge.) The fifteen of them will probably be nominally in charge of the whole occupation effort…until Raphel returns, that is. Thus, Jaime will be ras of the Aschera raid.

We’ll have Geris’ cabal still there, under the command of Egan, their suras. However, Egan is going to be killed by the student resistance, and I think after that the whole cabal is going to fall apart. Some of them might migrate to the other cabals, but on the whole, they’ll probably just take what they can and slink out of the city in the night.

We’ll have Teja’s cabal. I didn’t introduce her until the third book in the first draft, and I may still save her for then. Teja has a relatively large cabal, let’s say 30 or so, and she’s reasonably competent. After Egan is killed and the remnant of Raphel’s cabal abandons Aschera when Raphel returns, Teja will claim leadership of the occupation and become ras of the Aschera raid.

So we need at least one additional cabal, possibly two. Maybe two smaller ones of about 15-20. These are probably going to be Cowls that Raphel or possibly Mora knows, and trusts. I haven’t decided which of them knew Teja.

Now, the occupation itself. As a rule, majahel don’t kill cowans if they don’t have to. It’s kind of like the soldier/civilian dynamic…you don’t kill civilians if you can help it, and you certainly don’t target them. Killing cowans is bad form. Using cowans as cover is cowardly. Etc. Thus, the Aschera raid isn’t going to kill everyone in the city. Also, Prof Micah and Prof Lo do manage to get a sizable chunk of Aschera’s citizenry away from the city before the other cabals get there, so probably large parts of the city are going to be empty.

The students are somewhat of a gray area. On one hand, they are all majahel. On the other hand, a lot of them are not trained enough to really be a threat. The senior red cords and the Anjahel students are obvious threats. Probably any student sixteen or older will be treated as a threat, though the Cowls might decide to imprison them instead of executing them. The younger Mantle students would be treated like cowans. The gray students may be given the opportunity to take the Cowl.

Aschera’s going to get looted and torched pretty bad. Cowls are more accepting of looting than Mantles. (Not that Mantles don’t loot. They do. They just pretend they don’t, or they call it something else.) Aside from Geris’ mob, many of whom are thieves anyway…every Cowl that enters the city is going to take stuff. Plus, taking Aschera is the ultimate payback for Iadnah, and I’m sure the raid is going to destroy everything they don’t need, simply for revenge.

Aschamon is going to become the staging ground for the raid, and as such, the dormitories are probably going to be where they all sleep.

This is what Saeli is going to come back to. Not to mention a very pissed roommate who blames her for it all.

Alas, it is late, so I must give off my brainstorming for the night.

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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.

Children in movies now, when they are actual characters in the story, are much more worldly than they are in, say, movies from 50 years ago. Monsters Inc. actually played with this idea a little; the monsters were having energy shortages because children were getting harder to scare. The girls in Despicable Me were never afraid of Gru (the main character), even though he was what amounted to a super-villain. And it wasn’t because they were too young or stupid to see what he was. They didn’t like him. They didn’t trust him. At times, they were a bit intimidated by him. But he didn’t scare them. Perhaps they saw through him? He really wasn’t such a bad guy, after all. In that way, they remind me of Boo, from Monsters Inc. The only monster Boo was really afraid of was Randall, but I don’t think she was afraid of him because he was a monster…she was afraid of him because he was bad. Sully came through her closet just like Randall would have, but she was never afraid of Sully (except for that one time when she saw him act like, well, a monster.)

The kids in Peter Pan, even though they dealt with pirates and Indians on an almost daily basis, were really very innocent. It was all a game to them. Even the pirates and Indians in Neverland, in a sense, were more like children than adults…after all, only a child would be utterly humiliated by being forced by another child to say “I’m a codfish”, as Hook was forced by Peter Pan to do at the end. Also, children in popular media from 50 years ago always expect to be rescued. I think that stems from a basic expectation that children needed to be saved, protected, sheltered from bad situations. However, today’s media is not afraid to point out that sometimes children don’t get rescued, don’t get protected, don’t get sheltered from bad situations…and that sometimes a child is forced to save themselves, as it were.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I really don’t think that children from 50 years ago were actually more sheltered or more protected from bad situations than they are today. Parents have always fought. Kids have always been abandoned, beaten, neglected, etc. However, today’s society and today’s movies, books, television, etc are, on the whole, more willing to acknowledge such troubled childhoods. Childhood is, perhaps, not the idol it was in years past…and so we’re not afraid to show the tainted, dark sides of it. Thus, children in movies today are more adult, more shrewd, more self-sufficient on the whole than children in movies were in the past…and I think it has to do with both that toppling of the idol of idyllic childhood, and with the relatively modern shift to a more transparent society, where taboo behaviors are exposed and discussed instead of shoved away and ignored.

The boys in Pinocchio were probably about as worldly as boys that age could get, but there was still a basic innocence to their characters. They were drinking, smoking, playing pool, vandalizing stuff…but it was almost like they were playing dress-up with adult behaviors. They had no understanding of the dark feelings and tragedies that drive adults to do destructive things…they were just imitating what they saw. They didn’t get it, you know? They were portrayed as being naughty because they were boys, and that was just something boys did. The same scene, if played out in a movie today, would have those same boys being naughty because their parents are divorced, or because their father drinks and beats their mother, or because their mom is dating a man who hates them. In general, it’s less socially taboo to portray dark motivations and scary skeletons onscreen now, and that’s especially apparent in the portrayal of children. Compare the three orphan girls in Despicable Me to Penny from the Rescuers, or Oliver from Oliver and Company (Oliver is a cat, but he’s essentially a child).

However, the ever-increasing worldliness of children in popular media has not swallowed up the essential innocence of childhood…in fact, the worldliness makes the innocence stand out all the more to me. Children are still essentially good in most movies. I think this really comes out in the modern onscreen child’s ability to sense which grown-ups are truly good and truly evil, no matter how those grown-ups appear or act to everyone else. In fact, children are often the only ones not fooled by appearances. A combination of worldly shrewdness and childlike innocence, perhaps? It’s almost like children are portrayed as understanding the adult world better than the adults do, in a sense. They see the crap (as opposed to being sheltered from it), and they see through the crap because they still have a child’s innocent understanding of How Things Ought to Work.

Interesting. Children in movies like Peter Pan teach by demonstrating the purity of childish foolishness. Children in movies like Despicable Me teach by demonstrating the incorruptibility of childish wisdom. Children in older movies are pure because they don’t see or understand adult things. Children in modern movies are pure despite seeing and understanding adult things. So has the basic concept of childhood really changed over the years? Is it more corrupted…or is it actually less corruptible?

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Toy Story 3 was good, but surprisingly…well, dark. I mean, some of stuff those toys were doing, some of the scenes, whew. Just the fact that these are children’s toys makes it all the more disturbing when they imprison and hurt each other, you know? It reminded me of one of the interesting aspects of faery lore: the grotesque is hidden within the enchanting and innocent. Everything seems fine and beautiful, but there’s something…off…that you just can’t put your finger on. Until it’s too late.

But they wrapped up the Toy Story saga quite well. Yes, I cried.

The Karate Kid was a different beast altogether.

I’m very glad we opted to see it without Eli. I’ll not review the movie itself except to say that I found it a pretty good retelling of the original. I really don’t think it was trying to be anything else…just updating a classic story. What struck me was the intensity of the martial arts.

I have a second degree black belt in Taekwon-Do. Normally when I watch a martial arts movie, I find myself thinking something along the lines of, “I could do that, if I really wanted to.” I’m familiar with the basic breakdown of moves. It’s not so much that I think I could hop up and mimic the moves right then and there (ha!)…but I know what they are doing. It’s something I could learn. You know? I do the same thing with art. I can look at a painting and be reasonably confident that if I don’t already know the technique, I could learn it.

So when I watched this round of The Karate Kid, I had the rather unusual experience of watching with my mouth hanging open and thinking, “There’s no way in hell I could do that. Even at my peak, I wasn’t anywhere close to that good.” It was a humbling experience. I suppose those are good for me. It started me thinking about humility in general, and how it relates to something a person is good at.

It’s easy to be humble in the presence of skill you don’t have and don’t have any particular wish to acquire. For instance, I’m constantly in contented awe of Hanson’s ability to produce good music. I have dozens of favorite bands (who doesn’t?). But I’m not a musician. I can go on and on about stellar music because I’m under no delusion that I could create stellar music. It’s not a skill of mine.

However, I have a rather different relationship with art. For example, I can vividly remember being jealous of NeonDragon‘s work, because, well, she was better at drawing than me. Knowing intellectually that there will always be people more and less skilled than you in a particular area is not quite the same thing as actually being confronted with it. I discovered that you can either stay annoyed, or you can choose to be inspired. Ideally, a person can train themselves to automatically choose the latter, but I think the better you are at something, the harder this is. And, paradoxically, the easier it is, because you can more easily discern how you could improve.

(By the way, I would highly recommend NeonDragon’s books. They are awesome!)

Again with the martial arts. Now, martial arts is not something I’d consider a primary skill of mine, and so I’m not as inclined to be jealous when I encounter someone who’s a lot better than I am. I suppose in that area, I’m easily inspired. Maybe because I don’t have a burning need to be really, really good…it’s fun, and I like it, but it’s not a passion with me, like writing or art. (And when I talk about needing to be good, understand that I’m not talking about needing to be better than everyone else. It’s about a personal drive to make the best work I possibly can.)

Writing is a relatively new passion for me. I haven’t yet come across any writing that has truly humbled me, in the way that The Karate Kid‘s martial arts humbled me (in that “no way in hell” sort of way). I have seen writing that affected me the way NeonDragon’s art did (in that “grrr, this is really good” sort of way) But I haven’t been jealous.

Now, the thing I’m not sure of is whether that’s a humble reaction, or a terribly arrogant one.

Hopefully it means that I’ve learned to be inspired by greatness, instead of annoyed by it. I’m not in competition with anyone. Every writer has their own style, and every author will have readers who enjoy that style. I think maybe it helps that I love to read, and so I like finding writers who write amazing stuff because, well, I enjoy reading it. Maybe it also helps that I stepped into writing with no real knowledge of the craft…I mean, I knew how to *write*, but crafting a novel is not quite as simple as barfing words onto a page.

I can be titchy about art because I’ve been drawing all my life. I have to struggle more to be gracious. It’s easier to be gracious when you’re a student, which is what I feel I am as a writer. I haven’t really earned any authority or credibility in that area. I can happily admit that I’m not very good at certain aspect of writing. Whereas with art, when I was in high school, I was an authority because I was skilled at it. It becomes harder to admit that I’m not as good as some artists, because I’m used to people expecting me to be. I’m better at having a humble attitude than I was…or at least, I’d like to think I am.

I know that the student mindset is a healthier one for me to have, especially in the writing business, when it’s necessary to cultivate a thick skin. I’m not entirely sure how I would react to a piece of writing that just blows me away and makes me think, “Wow, I could never do that.” Especially if that happens after I’ve been published, and have a few books under my belt, as it were. Part of me is convinced that would never happen, that the most I’d think is, “Wow, I can’t do that…yet.”

Is that arrogance, or confidence?

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House of Night has a good storyline going, but the language and the pagan-esque crud puts me off of that series. Nightworld is okay, if simplistic to me. (And they all have happy endings. C’mon, vampires, people! Let’s have a little tragedy, please?) I’ve only delved a little into Vampire Diaries, but honestly, it’s like reading Twilight all over again. (I’m told VD came first, but still. Beautiful but clumsy protagonist meets tortured but good-hearted vampire. Been there, done that, didn’t buy the T-shirt.) I picked up Vampire Academy expecting more of the same. I know there are more series out there, and I suppose I’ll get to them eventually. I’d like to read some of the inspiration for True Blood, in particular…probably where I’ll go next.

Vampire Academy has the classic YA trope of “there are good vampires, and there are evil vampires, and you shouldn’t confuse the two because even though they all drink blood the good vampires are, you know, good.” And like House of Night, you’ve got the vampire story meets high school story. And you’ve got the confident, badass, sometimes bitchy female protagonist who finds herself juggling a number of boys and can’t seem to get her love life together…also not uncommon.

And then you just get blindsided by this incredible, tragic love story that unfolds in the midst of all the tropes.

Rose, the protagonist, falls for her much older mentor, Dimitri…and of course I’m thinking, “Ah, teenaged girl falls for hot, unobtainable guy. And either he will turn out to be not so nice and use her and break her heart, or after a lot of bumps, she’ll get over him and realize that the perfect guy is that one who’s been right there the whole time. Meanwhile, this crush will get her into no end of trouble and I’ll end up being very annoyed with her before the end of the book. This is what happened in the House of Night series, and was one of the reasons I wanted to shake my fist at Zoey. Frequently.

Only, these two have several legitimate reasons why they can’t be together (age, teacher/student relationship), but the main one is actually based on their own morals. They both are ridiculously dedicated to protecting the Moroi (the good vampires), and that makes them a lot alike. But they both know that their ability to do this will be compromised by a relationship…and so they fight it. And Rose actually fights it, instead of just talking about how she should fight it and giving into it every few chapters (and then spending the next few chapters beating herself up about how she shouldn’t have, but he was just so hot that she couldn’t help it…blech). Dimitri does even better. They both conduct themselves so honorably that when they DO give in, you feel for them (instead of rolling your eyes and bemoaning the lack of character). See, that’s where Twilight screwed up. Edward lamented and tortured himself over how he shouldn’t be with Bella, but he didn’t actually have the willpower to walk away. Yeah, he walked away in New Moon, but it was too late by then…and I’m not entirely sure he didn’t do it for selfish reasons (“I’d never be able to live with myself if I hurt her” instead of “She deserves better”.)

And Rose’s affection for Dimitri actually improves her as a character…it’s a true strength, which is refreshing when it’s so often portrayed as something fuzzy and heady that’s worth alienating yourself from your friends and subsuming yourself in the other person, but really doesn’t improve you much. These two assimilate each others’ characteristics and it makes them better people. Two books into the series, and there’s still no way they can be together…and by then, their being apart was killing me. Finally, they both make the decision that they love each other too much, and they can’t stand it anymore. And it’s not all roses and happiness, because they’d both have to sacrifice some of their goals in order to be together.

Then the bad vampires (Strigoi) attack the school, and Dimitri is turned into one of them. Worse than dead. This is the ultimate hell for Rose, because not only is she grieving him as dead, he’s still out there as a monster, the antithesis of everything he was. She can’t get him back…there’s no going back once you’re turned. She could never be with him while he was alive, and now he’s gone. So she can either hunt him down and stake him herself, or live with the knowledge that he’s out there killing people. Ouch. She chooses the former, because they’d once made a promise to each other that they’d rather die than be Strigoi. This is one of the unique things about the fantasy genre…the ability to turn people into monsters puts this whole other dimension on things like dealing with grief, and what killing a loved one as a mercy would do to someone.

The fourth book is one big agonizing trip through Russia (his homeland), meeting his family, living where he lived, visiting his haunts, and then she finally confronts Strigoi Dimitri. And he tries to turn her. It’s just one big heart-breaker, because no matter what happens, it can’t end well. (Only I think it actually can, because we find out near the end of Book 4 that there might be someone out there who can turn Strigoi back to normal).

I don’t know how these books managed to hit every emotional hot spot in me, but they did. (In fact, I may have to go back through and actually analyze how the author did it. Dude…Mask of Eldarmarch, Dragon Singer, Briar Rose, I have so many stories that are primarily tragic romances. I want to make my readers cry.) Had I been alone, I think I would have cried all the way through Book 4. It was just that…poignant, for me. (Maybe because I have a husband, and so I can imagine what it would feel like to lose someone you loved that much). If I can write a tragic love story like that some day, I’ll be happy. Incidentally, I think this particular story needs a happy ending to be satisfying…because at this point, even if the impossible is accomplished, Rose and Dimitri aren’t set up for a true happily ever after. Edward and Bella felt inevitable in a way that made all their struggles feel a little bit contrived sometimes…I would have enjoyed a tragic ending, in their case.

There’s a lot of just good storytelling going on: complex characters who behave realistically, themes that cycle, no throwaway characters, language that isn’t overly juvenile, etc. I like Rose as a character, which is interesting, because I don’t think I would like her too much in real life.

There are two more books in the series, the first of which doesn’t come out for another two weeks. Bummer, but I just blew most of today reading Book 4…so maybe it’s just as well. So in honor of a thoroughly enjoyable series, I give you this song in honor of Rose and Dimitri (Gods, I feel like such a fangirl, saying things like that):

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Honestly, it wasn’t the most impressive or enthralling piece of fiction I’ve ever read, but it was good. I never had the urge to put it down and go do something else. The magic premise, BioChroma, was fascinating, and one I’m tempted to steal from. And he managed to successfully fool me into thinking the good guys were the bad guys and vice versa, which I enjoyed. I’ve seen funnier snark…but not much funnier, and not in the adult genre. YA tends to have more snark, and characters who snip at each other. Sanderson’s snark is sophisticated (which you won’t really find in YA), and I like that.

I picked up his debut, Elantris, from the library the other day, and also I finally got my hands on a copy of The Gathering Storm, which is the next Wheel of Time book. I’ll be reading those over the next couple of days.

Shades is coming along…slowly. Last night I went through the whole second draft, formatting it to send to my critique group. Well, of course, I can’t go through my writing without editing, and thus it took a lot longer than it should have. But I made some good changes…mostly tightening scenes, making them as clear as I can. I’ve been a little stuck at my current spot because I’m about to introduce Scisaxar as a character for the first time, and I really don’t know him very well.

The problem is, I haven’t found a way to relate Scisaxar directly to Raphel, or even to Saeli. He’s still drifting around on the periphery of my main characters, and is thus distant to me. Yuril is much easier to write now because she’s had some stage time, and she’s in love with Raphel. I don’t know how Scisaxar feels about Raphel, or Saeli, or any of the main characters. I’m going to drop him into the scene just after Yuril breaks Raphel’s fingers, and I know that Scisaxar is going to be pissed that Yuril has been blasting holes in his Temple. We’ll start with that, and see where he takes it.

Another thing that I’ve been pondering, and something that might help me with Scisaxar’s character, is that I’ve been trying to determine what the “inciting incident” between the two gods was. Why do they hate each other? What started the war in the first place?

Things I know: 1) On a much deeper level, the war has to do with Yuril’s and Scisaxar’s frustration over the Oath. They pit their followers against each other when in truth, both of them would prefer a direct confrontation. It frustrates them to have to work through mortals, and thus each blames the other even more for forcing them to sacrifice followers. This leads them both to be cruel and distant with their peoples. Cruel, because they don’t understand the source of their anger, and thus they take it out on their people. Distant, because they cannot afford to get emotionally attached to people they are sending out to die for them.

2) Both gods helped curse the Midplains. Raphel is right about that. What Raphel doesn’t know is that they did it as a desperate measure, to stop a certain secret society of people. These were the original gray mages, who knew how to build inter-world portals, who could summon both light and dark angelics, and who were delving into angelic and spirit lore that would have been better left alone. These experiments actually drew the attention of the Keeper of the Oath, who paid a short visit to Verre just before the Cursing. Well, that scared the you-know-what out of Yuril and Scisaxar. The Cursing was both a desperate measure and a panic reaction, and was perhaps overdone.

Now, I have a choice to make. Was the Cursing itself the two gods’ inciting incident, leading them to go to war for more than a hundred years…or did the disagreement start before that, and the gods temporarily put it aside for the Cursing?

If the Cursing was the inciting incident, then the resulting war is genuine. Both gods think that the other handled their part of the Cursing badly, or they blame the other for having to do such a thing, or whatever. They have a legitimate, relatively recent grievance against one another. However, if the gods put aside their conflict temporarily for the Cursing, then the resulting war would have to be a farce. In fact, it’s even possible that the gods were never truly at war in the first place, and their “hatred” is a cover-up to keep the world from discovering the truth.

I honestly like the second option better, because it makes the ending to Shades more plausible. Having Saeli single-handedly convince two gods who genuinely hate each other to stop a war they’ve been at for over a hundred years seems unlikely. But if their conflict isn’t real, her job is much easier. However, it dangerously reduces any empathy one might have for these gods…because that means they’ve been sacrificing their followers for a lie. It makes it look like Raphel was right about them, which will make it difficult for the readers to empathize with them towards the end. It works for the overall story of Verre, because the gods really were preventing something that would be ultimately worse than a hundred year war. But Raphel doesn’t know that, and Saeli doesn’t know that, and so the gods are, to them, going to look like monsters. And the only way I can prove that they aren’t monsters is to reveal a whole lot of information and backstory that I don’t want to cover in this trilogy. That’s what the sequel is for.

Perhaps the war began as a farce, but then got personal for the gods. Scisaxar is winning, after all, when the story opens. Maybe he started to press his military advantage and broke the unspoken understanding between him and Yuril. But why would he do that? I have to pull this back to the Cursing somehow. He would have to have some sort of grudge, if not against Yuril herself, then against her followers. Several possibilities present themselves. The most obvious is that Yuril attracts more followers and Scisaxar is jealous. Or he honestly feels that her followers are degenerates, and despises/feels sorry for them. Or they did something that got a lot of his people killed. No, that’s too general. They did something that got one certain person that Scisaxar really cared about killed. That would be a very strong motivation for wanting to win a farcical war.

Ah, an idea. Scisaxar loved a pre-Cursing gray mage, one of the ones in the thick of the angel experiments. The gods decided, together, that the order of gray mages had to be destroyed and the knowledge buried. They devised the Curse between them and set it loose on the Midplains. Afraid for his love, Scisaxar pursued her and pursued her, and finally brought her around to his point of view. He made her a White Mantle, and thus thought she’d be protected. Then, while the Curse was still spreading, she and a whole mess of her cohorts got caught by Cowls. Both gods’ followers had orders to kill or convert any gray mage. Scisaxar’s love refused to become a Cowl, so they killed her. Scisaxar demanded retribution, but Yuril refused, saying that even though the girl had repented of what she’d done, she still had the knowledge. The knowledge had to die. Scisaxar’s grief leaked into the still-spreading Curse, and it devoured the land as well. Once they contained it, followers from both sides were shocked and confused over why the gods would do such a thing. Yuril suggested that they stage a war, and let each side blame the other. The true reason for the Cursing would surely be buried. Scisaxar, afraid of losing all his followers, agreed. The war began, both as a farce and as revenge, on the white god’s part.

That’s very vague, and I can probably tweak it. But it could have a number of ramifications. One, Scisaxar is going to hold a severe grudge against Cowls, and against Yuril for letting them do what they did. It’s not really her fault; Yuril probably wouldn’t have sanctioned killing the girl, but the Cowls didn’t ask beforehand. Scisaxar is going to make sure his own people follow a strict hierarchy that leads directly to him, and he’s going to make sure they never act outside of his jurisdiction. He’s going to be jealous that Yuril manages to attract more followers, but at the same time, he’s not going to take any pains to make himself likable. Something like how a grieving widower would feel about a sibling who gets a lot of attention…jealous, but unwilling to compete. That jealousy is going to be manifested specifically in how he feels about the Raphel problem…because he can see that Yuril loves Raphel the way he loved ____. But Scisaxar’s also the one who will be suffering the most remorse over the Cursing, because he essentially screwed it up. He’ll possibly be the one who is more willing to listen to Saeli in the end.

So the war is both a farce, and personal, but more personal on Scisaxar’s end. Scisaxar’s pain amuses Yuril, but she doesn’t allow herself to think about it too deeply…lest she be reminded of how she really feels about Raphel. And worse, Raphel is exactly the kind of Cowl the white god hates, because he’s a wild card. He does what he wants, and the gods can go screw themselves. It was those kind of Cowls who killed Scisaxar’s love. He’ll hate Raphel, and hate that a Cowl managed to steal yet another follower away from him (first Kaladan, then Saeli), and he’ll hate Yuril for wanting to spare Raphel, and he’ll hate that were the tides turned, he would do exactly the same thing as his sister. No wonder the gods have to abandon the scene…neither of them can act. Their hands are tied by their pasts, and by the Oath. And we’re back to the Oath again.

I think I have a handle on the white god now. Enough to start writing him, anyway.

Wow. Scisaxar is walking into this conflict with some seriously complicated crap in his past.

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