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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #1: Batman and The Joker

9/29/2013

Come on, who else could it possibly be?

(Click the links to check out Hero/Villain Pairing #2, #3, #4, and #5. You might also enjoy my Favorite Fictional Couples list entry on The Joker and Harley Quinn, if you can forgive the lack of pictures in my earliest blogging efforts).

Individually, Batman and The Joker are one of my favorite heroes and quite possibly my favorite villain respectively. Put together, they’re magic. The two of them and their relationship are so complex that it’s hard to know where to begin analyzing them for the purpose of a bite-sized blog entry, and I have to fight the urge to stand back, point at them, and scream, “Wow, look at that!”

Can you feel the epic?

I’ll try to be more coherent. If you’re not familiar with even the absolute fundamentals of Batman… who are you and what the hell are you doing on my blog? Seriously. I mean, I understand having to give out some cliff notes on Shakespeare, but this?

*Deep breaths.*

Okay, okay, here’s how it goes:

Batman is the superhero alter ego of Bruce Wayne, whose billionaire parents were murdered in front of him by a petty criminal when he was eight years old. He’s spent his life obsessively studying all physical and mental skills that could possibly be of use in fighting back against crime and, as an adult, applying those skills through his Batman persona to protect his super-crime- and ordinary-crime-riddled city of Gotham.

The Joker has no secret identity and no agree-upon backstory. He’s had plenty of aliases, but whoever he used to be was lost when he detached from reality and became The Joker after a particularly bad day that even he doesn’t remember all the details of. In most interpretations, part of it involved being disfigured by contact with unknown chemicals. In some, this was indirectly caused by Batman interfering in a robbery he was taking part in.

Now, he’s a psychotic killer clown. It’s not as simple as that, of course. He’s an embodiment of chaos and malice, detached from reality and logic, utterly unpredictable. Sometimes he feels like proving that everyone is one bad day away from being like him, sometimes he feels like blowing up the city, sometimes he wants to be recognized as a legitimate comedian, and sometimes he just wants to steal stuff.

Already you’ve got a clash on plenty of levels. Good versus evil, justice versus anarchy.

Batman responds to his life-changing bad day with seriousness, order and nobility. Joker responds to his by completely rejecting those things.

What they’ve got in common doesn’t help matters any either, like mental illness. Yes, Batman too. He’s rational and moral, but he’s got a major god complex and an obsessive-compulsive behavioral pattern bad enough to preclude the possibility of any healthy interpersonal relationships. No psychiatrist would give him a clean bill.

Not even these guys

Of course, similarities and contrasts aren’t enough to create a great hero/villain dichotomy, just enhance one. The fact that the two of them both act out their opposing philosophies very publicly in the same city, a city that both of them, Batman especially, feel very possessive of, is enough to put them at odds but not enough to add that personal touch that makes them special.

Like Dr. Frankenstein and Seymour Krelborn, Batman’s got the guilt of having created his monster antagonist, at least in his head. Even in the interpretations where Batman had nothing to do with Joker’s accident, he does make the conscious, repeated decision to preserve Joker’s life, knowing how dangerous and incurable he is, and how very far from escape-proof Arkham Asylum is.

Why does he keep on doing it? That’s the crux of their eternal impasse, what locks their two obsessive personalities together. Batman’s on the dark side as heroes go.

In case you couldn't tell.

But he draws a non-negotiable line at killing. He won’t do what was done to his parents, not to anyone. And it’s that determination, combined with his seriousness, that compels Joker. For all Joker’s wild mood swings, Batman is the one obsession he never forgets for a moment. Batman is the ultimate challenge of incorruptibility. If he can lose control, anyone can.

Likewise, Joker is the one villain out of Batman’s extensive rogues gallery who obsesses him nearly as much as the task of being Batman itself, the one who can get in his head and shake his formidable confidence, just a little, thanks partly to his absolute lack of human decency, mostly to his ever-growing history of going to any lengths necessary to do exactly that.

Joker can’t actually kill Batman, even if he sometimes thinks he wants to, because he’s built too much of his own identity around their relationship, and Batman can’t kill Joker, because then Joker would win. And so they stay, because that’s the magic of comic books. No matter what happens to either one of them, they’re eternal characters in a floating canon, always waiting for the next chapter, reboot, or reinterpretation.

As Heath Leger’s Joker succinctly puts it,

"I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

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Guest Post by Lehua Parker, Author of the Niuhi Shark Saga

9/28/2013

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Today I'd like to welcome Lehua Parker, author of the Niuhi Shark Saga! The second book in the series, One Shark, No Swim, is available now!

Click here to order your copy!

Or here to check out the first book, One Boy, No Water!

On this occasion, naturally, I have a question for her!

What do you find most important about series writing? How are the criteria for a great second book different from those for a great first book?

Beyond snappy writing and fresh ingredients, I think what makes a great second book to a series really depends upon whether you’re a chef creating a formal dining experience or manning the grill at a creperie.

Some series are like the chef’s table at a five star restaurant. Each book serves as a single course designed to delight for the moment it’s on the tongue, but to never fill the epicurious up until the last sip of coffee. The goal is to tell a complete story in parts, and the author wants to keep the reader hungry for the next covered dish.

Think of the Harry Potter series as written by Iron Chef JK Rowling. In each book the wizardlings had adventures and specific challenges to overcome, but there was a more important over-arching tale that advanced until it was resolved at the end of the last book. When the Iron Chef wipes down the counters, everyone knows it’s time to hand the valet their parking slip.

For chef’s table fans, as important as knowing that the entire story’s going to be (mostly, eventually) told is understanding that the chef intends the meal to progress in an orderly fashion from soup to nuts. While I’m a big fan of eating dessert first whenever chocolate is involved, with this type of prix fixe series there’s usually little reason or point to going back and sampling the carrot soufflé once you’ve filled up on the cherry cheesecake. Knowing Dumbledore’s end game and Snape’s true character spoils all the delicious tension built and sustained throughout the previous six books.

A chef’s table pay-off’s big, but final.

A different kind of series is more like being a tourist in a Parisian crepe shop. You pretty much know what you’re getting when you order and that’s the best part. Crepe lovers are never bored because they know they can experience an endless variety—chocolate and banana, cheese and ham, strawberries and cream—sweet, savory, salty, spicy—but all held together by the same yummy crepe batter.

A lot of serial detective fiction like Robert Parker’s Spencer series falls into this category. First book to last, Spencer changes his underwear and not much else. A crime is committed. It gets solved. Some shooting, drinking, and bed-hopping happens in between. Readers can jump around sampling the novels Vegas buffet-style; the order generally doesn’t matter; it’s all about enjoying similar experiences with beloved characters over and over again.

But maybe this time Spencer’ll find true love and settle down…Ugh! Foiled again! With infinite combinations of new ingredients to offer, a creperie series can give the Energizer Bunny a run for his money—and make consistent bank for an author because it never really ends.

So long story short, what makes a second book great depends on whether it’s the soup course or a variation on a theme.

Regardless, I gotta admit there’s a lot of relief in cooking up plots for a returning cast of characters in a world you already built. At the very least, you know where all the pots and spatulas are in the kitchen.

The Niuhi Shark Saga is really one looooong tale broken into bite-sized MG/YA chunks. In a perfect world, it would’ve been a single book the size of a dictionary—the scary kind that perches on its own stand in the corner of the library. In my head at least, it’s a multi-course luau complete with roasted pig, hula dancers, and coconut cake for dessert.

Book 1, One Boy, No Water, was the maître d’(in spiffy aloha attire) placing an appetizer of ahi sashimi with a shoyu-wasabi reduction in front of the reader. Appetite piqued, book 2, One Shark, No Swim, starts getting into the thick curry stew of Zader’s water allergy and trouble fitting in. Served over sticky white rice seasoned with hints about his true heritage (also scattered like Gretel’s trail through the first book), I hope readers find the second book rich, savory, and chewy—a heartier, more rib-sticking read.

But not too filling. After all, the fish course come next. You won’t want to miss it. Promise.

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Fiona!

About One Shark, No Swim

There’s something bugging adopted Zader Westin, something more troubling than his water allergies where one drop on his skin burns like hot lava. It’s bigger than his new obsession with knives, designing the new murals for the pavilion with Mr. Halpert, or dealing with Char Siu’s Lauele Girlz scotch tape makeover. Zader can’t stop thinking about a dream, the dream that might not have been a dream where Lē‘ia called him brother then jumped into the ocean and turned into a shark.

Zader’s got a lot of questions, not the least being why he’s hungry all the time, restless at night, and why he feels a constant itch on the back of his neck. It’s making him feel like teri chicken on a pūpū platter, but Zader doesn’t want to think about chicken, not with his growing compulsion to slip it down his throat--raw.

With Jay busy at surf camp and Uncle Kahana pretending nothing’s happening, Zader’s left alone to figure things out, including why someone--something—is stalking him before it’s too late.

Summer in Lauele Town, Hawaii just got a little more interesting.

You can find out more athttp://www.niuhisharksaga.com,

Or order your copy here!

About Lehua Parker

Lehua Parker is originally from Hawaii and a graduate of The Kamehameha Schools and Brigham Young University. In addition to writing award-winning short fiction, poetry, and plays, she is the author of the Pacific literature MG/YA series the Niuhi Shark Saga published by Jolly Fish Press. One Boy, No Water and One Shark, No Swim are available now. Book 3, One Fight, No Fist will be published in 2014.

So far Lehua has been a live television director, a school teacher, a courseware manager, an instructional designer, a sports coach, a theater critic, a SCUBA instructor, a playwright, a web designer, a book editor, a mother, and a wife. She currently lives in Utah with her husband, two children, three cats, two dogs, six horses, and assorted chickens. During the snowy Utah winters she dreams about the beach.

You can find her on her website, on Facebook, and on Twitter, or email her here!

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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #2: Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes (Misery)

9/24/2013

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(Click the links to read Hero/Villain Pairing #3, #4, and #5)

Misery is a strong contender for my favorite Stephen King book and a lock for my favorite Stephen King movie adaptation. Yes, my being a writer has plenty to do with that fact, and if you don’t already know why, you soon will.

For the purposes of this entry, I’ll be referring to both the book and the movie, because while they’re both excellent standalone pieces, they handle different parts of the relationship well. The book takes advantage of plenty of internal monologue to explore Paul’s side of it more thoroughly than a movie could, but the movie has Kathy Bates, whose performance adds a whole lot of depth to Annie.

If you haven’t read or watched it, here’s how it goes:

Paul is a wildly popular cheesy romance author who’s just killed off his heroine, Misery, so he can reinvent his career. He gets in a car accident on a snowy, secluded mountain road, breaks both his legs, and is rescued by Annie, a former nurse and, in her own words, his number one fan.

The movie does the slow burn creepiness of this next part best.

Subtle villains aren’t King’s strong suit.

They’re snowed in. Sure, the phone lines are down. Sounds reasonable. Annie’s clearly a lonely shut-in with a stalker-y fangirl crush on Paul and his books, but that’s not too strange. There must be lots of lonely women out there who find comfort in the Misery books. And she did just save his life, that’s gotta earn her the benefit of the doubt.

They get to talking, he opens up about his career doubts and shows her the literary fiction manuscript he’s just finished.

Then the storm passes, the snow plows come through the road to town, and still her phone is out, and she’s not taking him to the hospital. She does go out and get the final Misery book though, and when she reads the ending, creepy turns horrifying.

Annie’s violent tantrum is the easy part. Her confession that she’s letting the world believe Paul is dead isn’t too much of a shock. The worst comes when her mood swings back to calm. In a scene I’m sure is more difficult for any writer to watch or read than anything the Saw franchise has to offer, she makes Paul to burn the new, non-Misery manuscript, then immediately sets him up at a clunky old typewriter and forces him to write an new Misery book undoing Misery’s death.

****R Rating ahead****

Most relatable thing ever? Most relatable thing ever.

****Back to PG13****

Annie won’t accept just any sequel, either. She’s not the most sophisticated literary critic, but she knows lazy writing when she sees it, and it’s the one thing she won’t stand for. Well, that and escape attempts. That’s when this happens:

Fun fact: In the books Misery and The Shining, Annie Wilkes and Jack Torrance wield an axe and a blunt weapon respectively. In their movie adaptations, it’s reversed. I personally think both changes were for the best.

The two of them spend months alone together in Annie’s house working on the book. Much like Seymour and Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, the codependence between them gives them one of the closest relationships you’ll find between hero and villain, but in this case it’s the hero who can’t walk, the hero who is dependent for his very survival, the hero who has to be clever enough to keep giving the villain reasons not to dispose of him. Paul has to keep Annie in her good moods as much as possible, keep her desperate to read the next chapter, and play into her growing romantic fixation on him to survive.

Their isolation makes it impossible for him to avoid being affected by her as well. He never goes full Stockholm syndrome in his head, but he does start to dread her sanest moments as well as her bad ones, because they make him aware of the good, fun person she could have been if she weren’t crazy. More importantly, he grudgingly realizes that having to write to please her is forcing him to be better at it, eventually curing him of his artistic crisis of faith.

Sledgehammers. More effective than writtenkitten.net.

****Spoiler Alert****

In the movie, where much of Paul’s inner progress is lost in translation, he acknowledges Annie’s later influence on him in a one-off line after burning the new Misery book to distract her long enough for him to kill her and escape. In the book, my preferred ending, he burns what Annie thinks is the new Misery book and then publishes the real one and returns to the series with renewed enthusiasm.

So, yeah, this one’s got a happy ending.

****End Spoilers****

For me, it’s that depth of influence they have on each other, beyond a simple power struggle, that pushes Paul and Annie above everyone’s other favorite nurse and patient, a pair who very nearly took this spot on the list.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

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The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - Guest Post by Johnny Worthen, Author of Beatrysel

9/21/2013

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Today I'd like to welcome Johnny Worthen, author of the new occult thriller, Beatrysel, which is available now, and which is ideally suited for Halloween-season reading, if I do say so.

(Click here to order your copy)

I'm halfway through it myself (already I sense a glowing review coming on), but in the meantime, I've asked him to share what scares him most and how it influences his writing, and he has gamely obliged.

The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - What Scares Me

I don’t write about what really scares me. I can’t. I can only circle it and dance around it. I poke it with a stick from a distance. I shout at it in metaphors and mirrors.

I do this because I cannot put a name to it. The fear, the primordial ooze in my gut that stirs and bubbles up, is difficult to identify. It is so dark and so base that beyond a grunt or a scream, any other description is too flowery and portioned. “Fear” will have to do.

I know some of its minions, mortality, disappointment, rejection, betrayal, failure. These are but shadowy representatives of the deeper whole of that ooze. Blessedly the ooze uses these agents to vex me and here, since I have names, I can hope to overcome them. Once banished, I can examine the corpses and understand something of the ooze and write about it.

Oh there are other things, tangible things that fright me. Serial killers and climate change, social collapse and asteroids, but these things are beyond me and strangely, less terrifying. No, it is the ooze that worries me.

In Beatrysel, I struggled with the armies of the ooze. I wrestled with jealousy there and loss. Love and hate - the foundations of emotion. I brought in murder and possession, damnation and death. I mapped some of the ooze with Magick and approached its western borders and boundaries.

I gathered some insight, some intel for the brain, but the power of the ooze is unimpressed. It is the darkness behind the eyes, the ancestral shadow before language, the fear of nothingness, the terror of it all. Its full power is still unmeasured.

When I meditate upon the concept of fear, follow it through the doors of Magick and imagination, I sense it, but I have not approached all the way. I am not so brave.

About Beatrysel

Unsatisfied with the ancient grimoires, the Magus made his own. Unsatisfied with the ancient demons, the Magus made Beatrysel. She was a creature of love, but there is no love without hate, no light without darkness, no loyalty without betrayal. And demons covet flesh.

Johnny Worthen's novel Beatrysel is a modern Faust tale set in the American Northwest where the cold winter rain melts the barriers between what is real and what is more real.

Beatrysel is a terrifying journey through modern metaphysics, High Magic and ancient religions where secret dreams turn to nightmares when Will becomes Form. Power-hungry magicians, serial killers and scorned lovers must contend with the power of the most beautiful and dangerous Magick in creation -- for Beatrysel is a creature of love.

You can find out more at www.beatrysel.com,

Or click here to order your copy.

About Johnny Worthen

Johnny Worthen is a lifetime student of the occult. Raised in a secluded suburb of Salt Lake City, he gravitated to the more obscure paths of spiritual knowledge. He is a Freemason, twice Past Master of his Lodge, youngest ever at the time.

From the University of Utah Johnny received degrees in English and Classics with a Master’s Degree in American Studies. He married his junior-prom date and together they have two sons.

After many varied and interesting careers, Johnny writes full time now. He is the author of a popular blog, The Blog Mansion. Besides Beatrysel, Johnny has four other novels under contract for publication in 2014 and beyond.

You can find him on his website, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, and email him here.

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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #3: Seymour Krelborn and Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)

9/17/2013

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(Click the links to read Hero/Villain Pairing #5 and #4)

This play is awesome, and everyone should see it. The movie is less awesome, due to studio interference, but will make pictures considerably easier to come by for me. Both involve human-eating plants from outer space. That’s about all I can say before one of these:

****Spoiler Alert****

Okay. It’s a tragedy, one of my favorites. At least, the stage version without the forced happy ending is.

For those who don’t know, here’s how it goes:

Seymour is an awkward, insecure orphan who’s been raised and used as unpaid help all his life by the owner of a struggling florist shop. He’s good with plants, and through some convoluted circumstances, he acquires a specimen never before seen (on earth), names it Audrey II after a coworker he has a crush on, and figures out how to keep it alive.

This is how.

Well, not at first. It starts small,

…nursing blood off of Seymour himself, bringing new business into the shop with its novelty value and winning Seymour the approval he’s always craved. But it gets bigger, and hungrier.

When it gets big enough to talk, and too big to live off of Seymour, it points out how much easier it’s already made his life and promises to get him anything he wants if he’ll keep bringing it fresh blood.

Something about this deal seems like a bad idea.

This would be an excellent moment to cut and run… but the first plant food candidate makes it so damn easy.

The original Audrey’s boyfriend… well, he isn’t the kind of guy you feel like rescuing when you see him accidentally asphyxiating while getting high on nitrous oxide. Which of course is exactly what happens. And why waste the body?

Then Seymour’s boss finds out and tries to blackmail him. Oh well, he was a terrible guardian anyway.

Seymour does get Audrey, and fame and fortune as a celebrity gardener, just the way Audrey II promised, but by the time he realizes that Audrey II is planning to infest and conquer the world and decides he can’t take anymore, the plant’s already gotten big and strong enough to devour people whole. Seymour swears to stop feeding it, so it lures the human Audrey close enough and kills her for itself.

Then we get one of my favorite hero/villain confrontations of all time. At least, in the play we do.

Seymour takes the cleaver to Audrey II, realizes he can’t make a dent in the tough outer husk, and jumps in its mouth to hack it apart from the inside. There’s a tense silence… and then Audrey II swallows and spits the cleaver out.

This is exactly as self-satisfied as a plant smirk can be.

Then the invading plant species gets the final musical number to take over the world.

In some ways, there’s an almost Frankenstein’s monster quality to the relationship between Seymour and Audrey II as well. Audrey II wouldn’t be alive without Seymour. He could destroy it at any time while it’s little, but he figures out how to keep it alive for the sake of his ambitions, and everything it does is ultimately his fault.

And like Frankenstein's monster, this is what it does.

Unlike Frankenstein’s monster, though, Audrey II is a self-assured and expertly manipulative villain from the very beginning. It’s the monster rolled together with Lady Macbeth. Seymour and Audrey II spend most of the play together, dependent on each other, Audrey II for blood, Seymour for the recognition and success he’s so desperate for.

Audrey II does everything it can to keep him dependent, to keep him from noticing that the human Audrey loved him before he was a success, that he’s smart enough to get a better job, that he could make a life for himself without cheating if only he thought so himself.

They’re as close as parts of one psyche. Audrey II is the devil on Seymour’s shoulder, the self-doubt necessary to cause the snowballing, it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time tragic series of events. It’s the worst part of him, and in the end, in the most literal way, it consumes him.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

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So, we all hate the synopsis. What else do we agree on?

9/15/2013

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I can’t seem spend five minutes browsing Facebook or anywhere else I go to connect with my fellow authors without seeing at least one meme or personal post about the horrors of writing synopses. And you know what? I never tire of it. Synopses are horrible. That’s something we can all agree on and relate to.

But it got me to thinking about what other parts of the process we can agree on, or, even more interestingly, disagree on! Below, I’ve laid out some of the usual broad parts of the writing process, the general public opinion of them as best I can glean from writer’s forums, and how I feel about them myself.

Whether you’re with the consensus, with me, or somewhere else entirely, chime in in the comments and share what your favorite and least favorite parts are. And let me know if I’ve missed any!

World building:

General opinion (at least among genre authors):

“It’s imagination in its purest form. It’s a chance to indulge the daydreaming habit that made us all writers in the first place.”

My opinion:

It’s… not without its charms. I love the feeling of artistic discovery as much as anyone, and some of that certainly comes during world building. Lots of my favorite stories take place in very vivid, detailed, distinct universes (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Delirium, DC, Star Trek), so there’s plenty of inspiration for me there.

But you know how you feel when you’re reading a book that goes on for chapters and chapters describing and demonstrating all the details of the world without anything actually happening? That’s how I feel when I spend too much time building the world. I want to get to the story. Often I jump into drafting with a half-formed universe in mind, fill in the holes where the story demands it, and spend much of the second draft adjusting to make sure it all makes sense together and adding extra bits of color where I feel the environment not coming across.

Outlining:

General Opinion:

There seem to be two schools of thought on this:

“Outlining is the easy warm-up level before the real writing.”

And,

“Who needs an outline? Planning things smothers my creativity!”

Since one of these sides rejects outlining entirely, I’d estimate they average out to about two stars.

My Opinion:

I’m not a pantser. I respect the fact that such people exist and that they can and do produce quality books, but I’ll never understand how. I’ve tried it, and I meander all over the place and end up either with far too many words that don’t say anything together, or unable to produce any words at all because I don’t know what I’m trying to do with them. For me, outlines are essential.

Are they fun? Not especially. Easy? No. Give me a chapter out of an outline I’ve already written over the outline itself any day. Trying to give a story its structure feels to me like trying to wrestle Jabba the Hutt into a shoebox. But when everything does finally fit, that’s when I feel like I have a future book on my hands rather than some vague notions, and that feels great. Plus, outlining gives me my first look at a lot of the scenes I’ll get to look forward to writing in the next step.

First draft:

General Opinion:

“It’s great when it’s flowing, but this is where writer’s block happens, which is the worst part of writing.”

My Opinion:

I love the first draft. It’s probably my favorite part. This is where I feel truly creative. This is where those moments that were one bland sentence on an outline come to life, where those dry resumes of characters become people you can fall in love with. This is where we get to answer the all-important question of fiction, “Why should I care?”

I don’t daydream worlds to the extent a lot of people do, but I do daydream scenes, and putting them on the page is the heart of writing for me. I’ve been known to get blocked on occasion, but if I’m working on a story I’m confident in, and I’ve made it through all the other steps and done them right, it’ll usually be rare and brief in this phase.

The next couple drafts:

General Opinion:

This part also seems to have a polarizing effect on people.

“Oh no, now I have to mutilate my poor baby of a first draft!”

Or,

“Finally, the round of mistake-making is done! Now I get to make it good!” (This is my husband’s favorite part).

Three stars sound like about where they even out?

My Opinion:

I’m not on one pole or the other but right in the middle. I do love the feeling of watching my rough manuscript become a solid work I can be proud of. I’m also not immune to the pangs that come with changing parts of that first draft that I poured my soul into, but by second draft time, I usually have just enough emotional distance that I can do it and be happy about it, as long as I can confidently envision the better version this will create. So that’s not what brings this step down to three stars for me.

What I lack in susceptibility to writer’s block I make up for with editor’s block. That dreaded feeling of staring at a blank screen actually hits me more often when I’m staring at a full one. Reading my manuscript, realizing that it could be good but isn’t yet good, and not being able to pin down exactly what I have to do to make it good, is the single most difficult part of the process for me.

Proofreading:

General Opinion:

“It’s hard and boring.”

My Opinion:

Okay, I’ll admit, I take this difference of opinion more personally than the rest. If proofreading is a part you feel you have to slog through to get back to the fun, creative parts, I won’t blame you for that. Hate it if you want to, just like any step on this list. Just don’t disdain it, and we’re cool. I’ve ranted before about how the importance of proofreading doesn’t get enough respect, and I’m sure I will again, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll just pretend that everyone in the world acknowledges how critical it is to the finished product and focus on how much fun we have (or don’t have) doing it.

Personally, on top of feeling the need to defend its value, I also (sometimes) enjoy it.

The fact that I was trained in proofreading from an early age, have done it professionally, and am quite good at it certainly has something to do with this. Technical details are the easy part. This is the part with solid, written rules that I know, the part that I can tell I’m doing right, objectively and without doubt, even when I’m in a pit-of-artistic-despair sort of mood.

No, it’s not the most creative part, hence four stars instead of five, but it does give me a chance to read what I’ve written in its nearly finished form. Sometimes I’ve been over it so many times by this point that I can barely see the art anymore, another reason for only four stars, but the times when I can see it, the times when I look at something I’ve created and realize that I’m truly proud of it, those are some of the moments I live for, maybe as much as the initial first draft creating.

Synopsis and query letter:

General Opinion:

“They’re evil.”

My Opinion:

Yes, they are. A thoroughly necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. A novel that can fit on two pages without losing its soul is not a novel that ever had one. They’re part of the business, not the art, a necessary tool for communicating bare essentials quickly and efficiently, but that doesn’t make the necessary soul-sucking any easier or more pleasant. As I said, that’s something I expect we can all agree on.

Promotion:

General Opinion:

Another polarizer.

“I get to goof off on Facebook professionally! I have the best job in the world!”

Or,

“I studied writing, not marketing. I’m not cut out for this stuff.”

Three stars meet in the middle.

My Opinion:

Again, I’m between the two sides. The necessity of self-promotion has put me in touch with a community of awesome people I’m happy to be a part of. The practice I’ve gotten discussing fiction on top of writing it has given me a lot of confidence, and I find satisfaction every day in logging on, looking at my hits, likes, etc., entertaining people how I can, and knowing that I have power over the fate of my career.

But if I could, without consequences, spend less time than I do on promotion and more time on the fiction I’m in this for, would I? Yes, definitely.

What say you, fellow writers? What parts of the process do you simply survive, and which parts do you live for?

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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #4: Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Q (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

9/10/2013

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(Also check out Hero/Villain Pairing #5)

I’ve hinted at my love for Q in my mini-list, Fi’s Five Favorite Star Trek Villains, but his relationship with Captain Picard demands its own full entry here.

With Star Trek taking place in one of the most sprawling fictional universes ever created, they’re not the most – for lack of a better word – monogamous of hero/villain pairings. Picard faces new bad guys practically every week and has a few other recurring nemeses, and Q branches out to pester the casts of Deep Space Nine and Voyager when The Next Generation is over, but the dynamic between the two of them is something special.

Yes, Q dares to take Picard's chair.

Q isn’t the first character to spring to mind as archnemesis material. He’s essentially a trickster god. His omnipotence allows for lots of surrealism and absurdity, so his episodes generally have a lightness to them that doesn’t accompany other recurring villains, like the Cardassians or The Borg.

Though all three have canonically seen Picard naked.

For main villain credit, though, Q does have the advantage of being the first villain of The Next Generation. He sets the scene for the whole series in the first episode when he intercepts the Enterprise and decides to put humanity on trial for his own amusement.

This episode isn’t funny. It’s terrifying. It ruthlessly establishes how very far out of its depth humanity is in its exploration of the universe. Picard and the crew have absolutely no recourse against this omnipotent being, no options but to keep humoring and talking to him and hoping that he’ll get bored with them and leave them as they were when he does.

And in the final episode, Q is the one who ties everything together, reminding Picard of how they met and telling him, before sending him on his way again, that the trial never ends.

There’s plenty of silliness in between…

But that’s what makes their relationship so fascinatingly different from the unrelentingly serious ones. It’s not about trying to destroy each other. All Q really wants out of Picard is attention and amusement to break up his eternity of boredom.

All Picard wants out of Q is to be left alone, and even though he knows Q is all-powerful and could think him out of existence in an instant, he refuses to bend an inch for him or be anything but himself.

Whenever Q shows up with his distinctive introductory sound effect, announcing that everyone is now subject to his whims for an indeterminate period of time, Picard isn’t scared or even seriously angry.

Go away, Q. I don’t have time for your shit.
(Okay, not a direct quote, but almost)

And that’s exactly what Q finds so interesting about him. Groveling would be boring.

The odd closeness this creates between them comes out in the episode when Q is banished and stripped of his powers by his own kind for being too much of a troublemaker. He can live out a mortal life as anything he wants, and he chooses the human form he’s been using to appear to the crew of the Enterprise and asks Picard to take him in.

Why? He confesses to Picard,

“Because in all the universe, you are the closest thing I have to a friend.”

Not much changes when Q regains his powers. The two of them continue to clash. Q never stops being a villain, and Picard never stops regarding him as an irritation. And it continues to be fascinating, because Q isn’t a villain who can be fought, but what Picard has done is even more impressive under the circumstances. He’s made an impression on him.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

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Interview with Author Elsie Park + Amazon Giftcard Giveaway!

9/8/2013

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Today, I'd like to welcome Elsie Park, author of the brand new Historical Romance, Shadows of Valor, which was released yesterday, September 7th!

(Click here to order your copy)

(Or here to read my review!)

And yes, there is a giftcard giveaway at the bottom of the post!

FJRT: First, congratulations on the release of your debut novel, Shadows of Valor!

EP: Thanks so much for having my as a guest on your blog, Fiona! I’m honored and grateful to be here!

FJRT: Shadows of Valor takes place in a medieval setting. What kind of research did you do to prepare? Did you learn anything interesting and unexpected?

EP: I spent weeks at a time researching the history, monarchy, wars, old maps, weather, clothing, weapons, castles, towns, speech, food, politics, armor, tournaments, knights, medieval terms, feudal titles, names, customs and basic beliefs of England in 1300 A.D. My father’s library of historical books was indispensable as I cross referenced those books with internet sites to make sure I was getting accurate information. Lots of books, lots of time and lots of notes.

An interesting thing that I learned was that during King Edward I’s reign, he outlawed the use of sharp weapons during tournaments. Previous to this, there had been too many fatalities during the “practice” combats, and Edward thought it idiotic to be killing off his army of warriors on the practice field. So he ordered an edict that only blunted weapons could be used in tournaments, thus reducing the number of knights and warriors killed. I incorporated this information into my story during a particular tournament.

FJRT: What’s the most challenging part of writing a story set in the medieval period?

EP: All the time spent researching and then finding a happy medium between illustrating the flavor for the time, yet keeping it modern enough to hold the interest of the contemporary reader. I hope I’ve succeeded in a good balance.

FJRT: What’s the best part?

EP: I love writing about times past, but putting modern day perspectives into it to appeal to the contemporary reader. I like writing about issues we have today, but in a wonderful, historical setting, making it kind of magical in a way. Most people, then and now, all wish to be a better person than they were the day before.

FJRT: The drama between Elsbeth, Sir Calan, and his alter-ego as The Shadow is often reminiscent of the comic book superhero genre. Are you a comic book fan? Is there any element of characters with secret identities that particularly appeals to you, or that you wanted to depart from in Shadows of Valor?

EP: I’m really not a fan of comic books, though I enjoy a good Batman, Spiderman, Superman, movie and the like. When my husband read Shadows of Valor, he compared it to Batman, but I didn’t have Batman in mind when I wrote the novel. I just had the idea that spies, in general, need to keep a duel identity. I was hoping for a fresh new character that was like no other in a way, but I suppose there will always be another character that's comparable.

FJRT: Tell us about the process of shaping Shadows of Valor from an idea to a finished novel. Are there any parts that practically wrote themselves, or parts that went through extra difficult rounds of revision? Any cool deleted scenes lost due to pacing or other practical reasons?

EP: After leaving some high-danger jobs behind to be a stay-at-home mother, though I LOVE being a mom and wouldn’t trade it for anything, I got antsy to do something for myself again while I changed diapers, ran errands, cleaned house, etc. I’ve made up short stories since I could write coherently in grade-school and, always a fan of a good action-packed, fantasy, romance movie or novel, I had ideas in my head of what I thought would make good scenes (especially if I didn’t like the way one was played out in a book or movie - LOL), so acting on a whim, I jotted them down. The thought of a full length novel was daunting to me, so I started out with only these few scattered scenes, typing them out in no particular order. I then pieced them together with a tentative plot. Then I put in a few more scenes here and there, and then a few more. Little by little, the story grew in pages and before I knew it, I had a full-length novel on my hands.

Coming up with the dialogues were fun and easy for me. They wrote themselves as I pictured how the conversations between my characters would be on a movie screen, and then described them as I saw them in my mind. I had difficulty describing scenes in my story, however. I wanted to be historically accurate in my descriptions, so I took lots of breaks from my typing to research how rooms and chambers looked, banquet halls, articles of clothing, weapons, etc. I didn’t want to just rely on movies I’d seen, because movies aren’t always accurate in what they portray. Lots of medieval books sat open on my computer desk and took up a ton of precious writing time.

I had a lot more detail in Shadows of Valor about home structures and food and such, but it slowed the story a bit in parts, so the editors took some of it out. I hope that what remains allows the reader to effectively picture the medieval world as I had wanted to describe it.

FJRT: What can you tell us about what you’re working on next?

EP: I’m working on another story that takes place several years after Shadows of Valor. I’ve taken a minor character from Shadows of Valor and weaved a story around him. The story takes place in England again, but ventures into Scotland as well, drawing on the historical happenings and battles that took place between the countries at that time. You don’t need to read Shadows of Valor to read my next book. Though they share a common character, it’s not a sequel. It’s a separate story. I will, of course, compose a song for it (probably not three like I did for Shadows of Valor) and it will be another PG-rated romantic adventure.

FJRT: Finally, in the pursuit of your writing career, what question have you most fantasized about being asked by an interviewer, and what’s the answer?

EP: Interviewer: “So how are you handling all the fame from being the current best selling historical fiction writer in the world?” (Okay, I think every author dreams of hearing this question *smile*)

My answer: “I’m taking the fame in stride. I feel honored, grateful and humbled by my many fans who have fallen in love with my story and characters. And, yes, I’m elated that director Peter Jackson has taken an interest in making my book into a movie and using my musical compositions as part of the score *BIG GRIN*.”

FJRT: That would be a dream match.

EP: Thanks again for your great questions, Fiona, and for having me as a guest! I’ve had a blast being here!

About Shadows of Valor

On the surface, Graywall is content and booming. Lord Shaufton, who presides over the city, is a fine ruler. The poor are well-cared for, the area is popular, and morale is high—but within Graywall’s roots, something dark is stirring. This darkness threatens to overpower the once-peaceful town, until a mysterious figure appears: The Shadow.

As much a figure of fear to the unruly as legend to the innocent, The Shadow is an enforcer of justice and aid to the King. Due to an outrageous export tax set by King Edward, smuggling has tainted the kingdom, so The Shadow is sent to hunt the smugglers down. Contrary to legend, The Shadow is simply a man known as Sir Calan who, although talented and just, struggles to keep his dark thoughts of revenge from becoming ruthless action.

Due to sheer coincidence, The Shadow learns of a deadly plot against Lord Shaufton on a journey to Graywall. Now, he must enter a pseudo courtship with Lord Shaufton’s daughter under his original guise of Sir Calan, all while old emotions are stirred by the lovely Elsbeth, Lord Shaufton’s niece. Elsbeth, it seems, is the only woman who can heal his troubled soul, but she has a story of her own. What transpires is a glorious tale full of deceit, greed, inner struggles, betrayal, and most of all—love.

About Elsie Park

From a wildland firefighter to a security guard, police officer, and student of botany and zoology, Elsie Park has done it all. It was only a matter of time before she wrote her first novel. While on a hiatus to Italy, Park was inspired by the thick presence of ancient and medieval history. She felt it in its walls, and slowly, yet surely, a story was born.

You can find Elsie Park on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #5: Dr. Frankenstein and the Monster

9/4/2013

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For the month of September, I’m going to be celebrating one of my favorite facets of storytelling, the fascinating, infuriating, sick, downright awful, and intensely powerful relationships between protagonist and antagonist.

At number five on the countdown of my favorite hero/villain pairings, we’ve got one of the big classics, Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.

First, though, I’m going to have to be a nitpicky English major and clear up a few things. I’m talking about the book, not the many film, stage, and other adaptations that have come since. In said book, Frankenstein is the name of our tragic mad scientist hero (Dr. Victor Frankenstein, to be precise), not the name of his monstrous creation, which is simply referred to as “the monster” and a number of other uncomplimentary monikers.

The monster is also not green, just so’s ya know.

If you haven’t read it, the words “Frankenstein’s Monster” and the phrase “I’ve created a monster” (not a direct quote from the text but consistent with the spirit) are now common enough parts of the English language that you’re probably aware of the bare basics of their relationship. Man creates monster, is horrified and ultimately destroyed by it.

Here’s how it goes with a little more of the juice left in:

Victor is on the verge of giving up his childhood passion for science, disappointed by the limitations of physics, when he secretly discovers a method to create life. He obsesses over building a person from scratch, has to scale him up considerably to get all the little details right, and tests his idea.

Once the monster is alive, Victor finds him so horrifying and unnatural-looking that he runs out of the room, giving the monster time to escape and brood on his new daddy abandonment issues in peace.

Classy, Vic.

The monster wanders around for a while, figuring out how to take care of himself, trying to make friends, but everyone runs away terrified of him. He spends months watching one family, learning language from them, secretly doing what he can to help them, only to be chased away when he finally works up the nerve to introduce himself.

Bizarro unhelpfully warns you there no am spoilers ahead! Why you run?

****Seriously, though, spoiler alert****

Finally, the monster vows revenge on humanity in general and Victor especially. Victor’s tough to get to at first, since he’s busy being a rich, paranoid, self-loathing, reclusive invalid…

Like this.

…falling into feverish spells and generally scaring the hell out of his parents and his fiancée, Elizabeth (yeah, she’s going to come up again in a bit).

But his little brother is easy enough to find.

The monster strangles the kid and gets the beloved governess, practically another sibling, hanged for it, ripping the family apart. When he finally does get to confront Victor, he makes him an offer. If Victor creates an equally hideous mate for him, to share and understand his loneliness, he’ll leave with her, find an uninhabited bit of jungle, and leave Victor’s remaining family and the rest of humanity alone.

Hence the name of the apocryphal sequel.

Victor postpones his wedding, runs off to set himself up in a new lab, and tries to work on the bride monster, but then he imagines a world infested with the monsters because of him, backs out and destroys his work.

Of course, the monster finds out and goes back to terrorizing him, starting by murdering his best friend, and threatens ultimate revenge on Victor’s wedding night. Victor can’t wait any longer to end this and get on with his life, so he goes home and somehow manages to convince Elizabeth that he hasn’t been cheating on her in all this time he’s spent cryptically sneaking around. She forgives him, they get married, and he tells her to stay inside that night while he goes out to meet and fight the monster he knows is going to show up.

Because leaving Elizabeth alone sounds like a brilliant idea, if you don’t know about the monster’s romantic streak. Say, because he just tried blackmailing you into creating a bride monster.

Yeah, the monster stands Victor up and kills Elizabeth instead. Victor chases the monster to the arctic to destroy it once and for all, realizes he’s no better at subzero survival than he is at parenting, and dies in the attempt. The monster ends up sobbing over Victor’s body, realizing that revenge hasn’t made his existence any more bearable.

This is the winning monster and bride pair from the effects makeup show, Faceoff, that’s going to be featured in this year’s Halloween Horror Nights. No, I don’t have much of a tie-in. I’m just throwing them in here because they’re really cool.

Victor Frankenstein and his monster are one of the most iconic and perfect pairs in that very special subset of hero/villain relationships in which one of them exists because of the other. Victor is responsible for the thing that’s ruining his life and the lives of everyone around him, an embodiment of that spirit of curiosity that he loves so much but has to cut himself off from to keep it from overwhelming him.

The monster is completely alone and directionless, dumped into the world without plan or precedent, and Victor is the reason, the only connection the monster has with who and what he is. There’s no way the two of them can avoid having it out in the end.

The monster gets to tell a huge part of the story, when he first explains to Victor what he’s been up to since running away, enough that the book really belongs to both of them.

Frankenstein is effectively two tragedies woven together, two heroes acting as each other’s villains. Victor gets something like the Aristotelian model, a good person with great abilities suffering a great downfall caused by his own mistakes, while the monster gets a revenge tragedy, a good person put in a horribly unfair position becoming a monster in his own right in the pursuit of justice.

VS.

Suddenly, I really want to see these two in a fighting videogame.

There’s nothing that could make this pairing any more perfect, so I’m just going to close with a picture of the eighteen-year-old woman who thought them up on a dark, stormy night in 1815.

Respect.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!

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Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #1: Batman and The Joker

Guest Post by Lehua Parker, Author of the Niuhi Shark Saga

What do you find most important about series writing? How are the criteria for a great second book different from those for a great first book?

About One Shark, No Swim

About Lehua Parker

Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #2: Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes (Misery)

The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - Guest Post by Johnny Worthen, Author of Beatrysel

The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - What Scares Me

About Beatrysel

About Johnny Worthen

Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #3: Seymour Krelborn and Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)

So, we all hate the synopsis. What else do we agree on?

Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #4: Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Q (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Interview with Author Elsie Park + Amazon Giftcard Giveaway!

About Shadows of Valor

About Elsie Park

Fi's Five Favorite Hero/Villain Pairings #5: Dr. Frankenstein and the Monster

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What do you find most important about series writing? How are the criteria for a great second book different from those for a great first book?

About One Shark, No Swim

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The Amorphous Ooze of Fear - What Scares Me

About Beatrysel

About Johnny Worthen

About Shadows of Valor

About Elsie Park

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