Erised

You remember how I mentioned way back in September that I was in a Creative Writing Class that semester? And how I said I would blog about stuff we talked about? Well, I didn’t lie to you; I’m going to do that now.

See, during the semester, I always have time excuses for not blogging. Now that I’m off for a little while (‘til April), I don’t really have that excuse, only the excuse that I can’t think of anything to talk about, and even that’s only sort of true. So, now, I’m going to talk about one of the Rules of Good Fiction (which are different than the Rules of Being a Writer that I talked about before) that Brother Allen (my teacher) taught us.

This is the first, and in my opinion, the most important rule: Good Writing is about Desire. Every character in any story you have read, heard or watched has had a desire. If they don’t, why are we reading or hearing about them? Think about it. What did Mulan want? She wanted to protect her father. What did Shrek want? He wanted his Swamp back. What did Harry Potter want? According the mirror of Erised, he wanted a family (though that’s kind of a cheap trick, telling us flat out like that). He also wanted to be what a hero. We could do this for any movie, book or myth you care to throw out. Characters always have desire.

So, how do you go about giving a character desire? Sometimes it’s actually the desire that sparks the idea for you—if that’s the case, you’re lucky. For me, there’s usually another spark, and I have to figure out the desire separately. Once, I actually tried writing a story (or a rambling tale, as I knew it was even back then) without knowing the Desire or even any semblance of the plot. It was full of barnacles, let me tell you what. It’s still full of barnacles, even though I know both of those things now; there’s still something not quite there, and I’m beginning to suspect that I’ve got the wrong character for the main…but that’s a topic for another day.

Anyway, Brother Allen gave us a device that would help us give our characters desire. I’ve found it pretty useful, and it helps you sum up your story in a neat little package as well (though it has something to be lacking in the setting department). It goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a ________ , and what he/she/it wanted more than anything else in the world was _______.

Pretty simple isn’t it? It’s not what you want to give to someone to sell a story with, but it helps you to get their desire in order. Without desire, characters are inanimate lumps that just sit there, and nothing will happen in your story. They need desire. You’ve never met a person who didn’t want something; I’ll guarantee you that.

I Can Only Imagine

Hey there!

Today, I want to talk about a book I read the other day: Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation by Matt Myklusch. (Wow, what a last name!) Apparently, the book is also known by another name: The Accidental Hero. 

So when I began reading this book, I wasn’t really all that impressed. Everything seemed absolutely predictable. The main character started off in an orphanage, was rescued by an android named Jazen and taken to a place called the Imagine Nation. Felt extremely Harry Potter-ish with a robot instead of Hagrid.

Actually, a lot of the beginning felt reminiscent of Harry Potter, even after Jack arrived. Jonas Smart was Snape. Stendeval was Dumbledore. But here’s the thing: It didn’t stay that way. No, while parts of it felt distinctly Harry Potter, something happened that threw the whole thing for a loop.

A Plot Twist. An Honest-to-Goodness, Holy-Cow-I-did-not-see-that-coming Plot Twist.

So, suddenly, the whole story is different. Instead of being slightly bored, I’m freaked out of my wits! I want to know, to understand this. How could this happen? What in the world does this mean for the characters?

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what good writing is about. Giving your readers something that makes them love these characters, this world, and then throwing them for a loop. Lightning strikes! Of course, the story could be much, much better if the initial writing was better; I think he really needed a better editor. So much more could have been done! But, as it is, Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation is awesome. I’d love to actually own it. (Though if I did, I’d probably go through and mark all the summary that should have been a scene. There’d be at least one mark every other page.)

So, yeah, I really liked this book. The world was brilliantly described; the characters were interesting; and the author led us right to where he wanted us and then spun everything around like the streets in Cognito and sent us somewhere else. He even handled the orphanage thing pretty well. The first line says, “The sign in front of St. Barnaby’s Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost read CRUSHING THE SPIRIT OF CHILDHOOD SINCE 1898.” Though the beginning could have been better, and there were many places I’d have rather seen than been told what was happening, it kept me going. I didn’t want to put it down. This is the kind of book you can read and learn something from as a writer, some good things to do and maybe some things not to do. But in the end, you have a story that’s just fun to be in, a story we can all learn from.

Finish What You Start

Happy New Year!

It seems that every year goes by faster than the last. I guess that’s the nature of things; the more years there are behind you, the less significant each new one is.

Anyway, I realize I haven’t posted since September, and if anyone where actually watching, they’d probably think I’d died or something. But I haven’t, so here I am. Just so you know, I’m not here just because it’s a new year, and I wanted to start it off right.

 I’m here because it’s a new semester, and I wanted to start it off right. (When school effectively divides my life up into 3½ month chucks, it’s easier to just let everything in my life be divided up that way.)

At the beginning of each semester, I always think “I’m going to get so much done this semester!” and I get some done. But like everyone else, I don’t usually get everything I want to done. Right now just happens to be the time of year when everyone talks about it.

So, I’m going to stop my talking about that right there to keep from boring you to death.

What I really wanted to mention is a book I got for Christmas called Revision by David Michael Kaplan. It’s an awesome book about—wait for it—revision! I’m only a few chapters in, but that’s because after every one, I have to stop and re-evaluate my current situation in my writing. What am I doing in regards to revision that I shouldn’t be? Am I stopping my current draft to go back and start over to fix the things I want to change? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Before school ended, I had decided that my manuscript of 50,000 words was too garbled and messed up (because I hadn’t gone back to fix anything) to keep writing to the end.

Even though I’m this close to it: ||.

Yeah. That close. After reading Chapter 3, “Revising While Writing the First Draft,” I realized that the reason I haven’t started again is because I’m afraid I’ll never get to the end. I keep starting over before I finish. I’m not starting a second draft because I never finished the first! So, I’m taking those 50,000 horrible mixed-up words and finishing it. I’m going to write that ending, even if it makes absolutely no sense with the rest of the draft because it needs to happen. When I’m done, then I can start over again and get things in the right order. Because you can’t revise if it was never there in the first place. I have to finish; I haven’t finished something (well, haven’t finished a longer work) since 2007. I’ve been working on bits and pieces projects since then, short stories, but no complete manuscripts. I’m going to finish, partly so that I can better rewrite, but also to prove to myself that I can still do it. You'll never get published if you don't write the ending.