tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68191856360676899532024-03-08T12:54:13.763-08:00NaNoPalsThe place for people to share their work and be critqued in a friendly, supportive atmosphere where people wont act like dicks. (unless you ask us to)
Not officially related to NaNoWriMo, but we do love them.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-4055471313034735312014-08-06T08:42:00.002-07:002014-08-06T08:42:46.205-07:00Why I Write About Brown ElvesA few weeks ago, an author I respect (who is a shade of brown, not pure bleached white like my almost-aryan ass) said something like this: "I don't like brown elves." That was explained by a belief that tradition is important, and her European ancestry was just as important as her native american culture -- but mixing the two waters them both down. Elves are a European myth. Therefore they are white, and should remain so. Extrapolating, we should not change or use other culture's mythologies in ways they have not been used before, approved by dead people.<br />
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Obviously, I disagree. The author in question is of two ancestries. She had to have grown up in a household that celebrated both. And were they watered down? Have both cultures been lost, their importance and history ruined by impure mixing and changing? Since she professes to value them both, I doubt it.<br />
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The title of this piece references a wonderful essay by Terry Brooks: <a href="http://terrybrooks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/brooks-whyiwriteaboutelves.pdf">Why I Write About Elves</a>. If you've never read it, you should before you go any further. (although the amazon shlick sheen on the essay is new. And unlikeable)<br />
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TL;DR. Terry Brooks writes fantasy because fantasy, like Science Fiction (albeit SF is more direct) speaks about the real world, and real issues. But spirituality and culture are real. Racism is real. And yet these are stories that SF rarely engages in, because they are less tech-focused. And nobody cares what colour you are when you can just change it at any time.<br />
<br />But fantasy has all of that. Fantasy, with its medieval trappings, is full of our modern cultural values, our beliefs and superstitions, and our racism. Arab authors complain of overuse of "those people in the east who wear turbans and live in the desert and abuse their women" in the fantasy genre. The entire Forgotten Realms universe is a shining example: to the East, lies "the Orient."<br />
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Keeping elves white only adds to this problem. Segregating fantasy to protect real-world cultural identity isn't the solution to cultural misappropriation. If you've never heard the term "cultural appropriation" it basically means this: The West, esp white americans, are stealing from cultures (most offensively Native American and Asian groups) by wearing headdresses or calling themselves redskins, or forcing anyone who uses a katana to speak with a fake japanese accent (transformers). The argument against this is that anyone who isn't from that culture shouldn't be using these clothing items or saying things a certain way or whatever.<br />
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The argument for is mostly "we're all post-racist and so we should all be able to share! this is America, melting pot of the world where we all come together equally!"<br />
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I'd really like the argument for to be true, but it's not. The world is not post-racist. America is not post-racist. One look at how Arabs in the West are treated and you see that cultural emnity and the racism borne of that are alive and well. Our cultures are clashing, and we have no idea how to reconcile them.<br />
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Except we do. Every child with parents from two different cultures should know that. Every child from parents of ONE culture should know that. Culture is ephemeral, and is different from home to home. You may share one thing or another, and the distances may grow wider the farther you go from your home, but this is the digital age now. We are all connected, we are all flying around in airplanes to every part of the world, and everyone lives everywhere. Even our animals are "invading" where they weren't before.<br />
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Because we brought them.<br />
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All this makes it all the more important to write about brown elves. <br />
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I treat my cultural appropriations in fantasy novels like I treat tattoo ideas. With rules.<br />
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1. Does this fit who I am (what this novel is about)<br />
2. Can I explain why I have this tattoo (is the reason for this use compelling)<br />
3. Does this do harm (does this use reinforce negative stereotypes, either actively or passively)<br />
4. Would I do this exact same thing with a cultural relic of a culture I am closer to? Eg: Would you dress up in a headdress but not a pope-hat? If so: you suck, go die. Or realize you're wrong. Either one.<br />
5. IS IT AWESOME: Y/N (this is really the most important one)<br />
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The world I created in Leylined is one of many cultural leftovers. They are clustered in strange ways, and have mixed and moved throughout. Just like me. I have lived many places, and will live in many more. I have learned many languages, and eaten foods from many countries. I am white, I am male, and I am more than that.<br />
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We must recognize when we are stealing from a culture, and when we are celebrating hand in hand. When I make fun of christianity, I must be ready to do the same to Islam, or even Buddhism (tho it's pretty hard to poke fun at buddhism. OHM) When I celebrate the rich culture of native american mythology, I must be ready to admit that christianity had some cool myths too.<br />
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Educate yourself on the context of your use. Don't just put angry turban wearing brown people in your deserts wielding scimitars. Learn why those clothes are worn instead of others. Learn why those people look the way they do -- there are many brown people across the earth, and they all look different, just like us poor ass paleskins. We're all human, and in fifty years I hope our kids are all as hot as <a href="http://mic.com/articles/87359/national-geographic-concludes-what-americans-will-look-like-in-2050-and-it-s-beautiful">this foretelling</a> says they will be.<br />
<br />Will it be wrong to write about brown elves then? And white genies? Will anyone care?<br />
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Know what you're doing. Realize why you're doing it. And if it's for awesome, if it does awesome, if you know why it's awesome, then keep on truckin'. If it's because of stereotypes, if it reinforces cultural emnity (and not for plot reasons), if it leads to lesser understanding for the reader if not more, then drop it. Change it. You choose every word with care. Now choose your settings.<br />
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I don't put every character in a headdress. In fact, I haven't so far. But when I do, it's gonna be great, and they're gonna wear it right.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-35511079313154627772014-06-30T09:51:00.003-07:002014-06-30T09:51:42.054-07:00Camp Nanowrimo! Newbie's Guide/Motivation for all!Camp! Camp starts tomorrow! No, not the kind you end up getting lots of rashes from (I hope). It's the kind where you get together with some people, prance about like you have laser eyes, and make a lot of beautiful stories! Or ugly ones, you know, it's all your choice in the end.<br />
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If you've never heard of<a href="http://nanowrimo.org/"> NaNoWriMo</a>, or the more relaxed <a href="http://campnanowrimo.org/">CampNaNoWriMo</a> well, click on the links for maximum information. As a quick synopsis, you're challenged to write 50,000 words in a month, which averages out to 1,337 per day. LEET per day. That's the number you need. Remember that. Because to succeed makes you ELITE. (shut up if this is wrong I don't want to hear it)<br />
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I would wager that about 99% of people who have read a book have thought "I'd like to write a book!" and then about 90% of them go "meh, too hard" and never try, and another 9% go "okay i'll give it a shot" try and give up, and then you have the 1% left over that is like EFF YEAH IMMA WRITE BOOKS GET OUTTA MY WAY NEXT MAYA ANGELOU COMIN THROUGH.<br />
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YOU are that 1% if you choose to undertake Nano. Camp begins tomorrow. 30 days, you set your own goal, you're put into a nice happy cabin with some nice happy people who will talk at you (hopefully) about your book and be cheerleaders when you need them. You can be a part of a population like those billionaires who screw over our every waking moment god i hate those capitalist schwine why don't we live in utopia space blahWERIHAORHEAWNT SORRY!<br />
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Okay back to the writing. The point is, so many people say they're going to start a novel, write a story, do <i>any </i>creative endeavour, and they never do.<br />
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Right now, if you're one of those people, because we all were at one point, today is the day you can change that. You know the story you want to write -- it's been sitting in there for a long time. Camp is a place of freedom. Whatever you want to write, be it a 500 word long love poem to rocks or a 500,000-word methamphetamine fueled mega epic, you can do it. Starting tomorrow, starting <i>tonight</i>, just open up a word processor, and write. If you need help, well, if you're reading this you're probably on twitter, so just find @fridaynightwrites, me, @thesprintshack, @nanowordsprints (these guys will be running nearly 24/7) for wordsprints and motivation, or pop on the nanowrimo forums (though don't spend TOO long there. You are supposed to be writing :D)<br />
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For example, I'm writing 20,000 words of short stories, which I think is a low target but I missed my 50k goal in March (for that project :P) so I want to make sure I get a success this time, and feel prosperous. Don't feel bad about setting reasonable goals. You don't need to aim for the heavens just to crash and burn. You can take a little hop first. Camp is a good time to hop. November. Well, that's for the heavens. NOVEMBER IS NO JOKE.<br />
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For those of you who have done it before, which I think will be most of the people reading this (SO WHY DID I EVEN BOTHER *sobs*) here is my new suggestion that I have been trying to cultivate myself. Writing everywhere. Now I don't really do that, but it's something I want. So I move around when I am writing. Usually I work at my makeshift standing desk (you may have seen the "Writer Pose" photo) but I gravitate from the backyard to the park to the library; changes of scenery can be helpful. They can also be troublesome, but that's what I'm trying to work on. So if you've won nano before, but you want to add some spice to your writing life, try standing, try walking and narrating to your phone, try writing from a different posture or a pose. Routine can be amazing, and make you incredibly productive, but you don't want your brain to be completely on rails. (No offense, Madi) It's good to be flexible.<br />
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Okay, I love you all. I'm very excited to be writing something other than #Leylined for what feels like millenia, and I'm really excited to see what you all come up with. Make me proud, and see you on the interwebs!theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-82229923603388135392014-05-31T16:51:00.001-07:002014-05-31T16:51:53.921-07:00Godzilla, my GodzillaI wrote a first draft of this Godzilla movie review, and you know, it didn't do it for me. The review, that is. The movie as well -- I'll spoil that one for you. But there's more going on than the simple "Godzilla movies are generally pretty bad, so this one was pretty good."<br />
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If you don't normally read the blog, or follow me on twitter, let me tell you: I literally swear by Godzilla. It's my way of being agnostic. My dad and I bonded over Godzilla, over Halloween TNT day-long "monster" marathons that ended up just being all Godzilla movies. She's the biggest, baddest monster there is, a monumental fusion of natural and man-made power. But to really explain how I feel about this movie, I'm going to give you a short history lesson on Godzilla.<br />
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Godzilla's monster friends are often shown to be aliens, or dinosaurs, or other horrible creations like Godzilla herself. But there's one difference between Godzilla and the rest. She's a product of an <i>accident.</i> There are other monsters with this theme that came out before and around 1954, but none of them match up to the seminal film. The Original Godzilla pulls together the heart of the matter; that there are powerful natural forces in this world, and human mistakes amplify them. And we will pay the prices for those, doubly so. Unsettling nature will not result in good things.<br />
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Over time, Godzilla became less of a natural force made wild by man and more of a natural beast, the king of a race of monsters. If we're carrying the supposed metaphor of natural disaster/bomb made living, then Godzilla is the biggest and the meanest hurricane ever mixed with a meteor that's also a hydrogen bomb. Then, as the sixties transition to the seventies, Godzilla becomes something else. King of the Monsters, surely, but also a dancing, clapping, thumbs-upping friend of Japan. She's there to protect humanity from "bad monsters."<br /><br />
This is essentially the Godzilla we were given in the 2014. A misunderstood but fairly cute creature that happens to be a gigantic reptile that breaths blue fire. She looks cool, she roars in awesome ways and has a predilection for sneaking up on the miniature human naval vessels. Don't get me wrong -- the Godzilla in this movie is <i>big.</i> But there's no character to her. She appears to fight our <i>new</i> mistakes -- some other monsters -- and only causes damage unintentionally or if she's attacked. She makes eye contact with our incredibly bland hero as she nearly dies, and we are supposed to feel an emotion for this creature, this "force of nature." But somehow, despite my endless love for Godzilla, they kinda failed. A few moments were very visually cool, and the final finishing move put on by Godzilla is excellent, but we're kept distant from the fights for so long. It's a different answer to the question of how to make giant monsters scary. In Cloverfield, the monster's always disappearing in and around buildings. In this movie, we see them on TV or maybe vanishing into a giant cloud of debris. The other major issue I had with this movie, besides bad acting by everyone but Cranson, bad writing for everyone but Cranson (especially bad for Watanabe) was the sound. The music was either reused or awful, and they didn't even bother to reuse good Godzilla music, and the sounds of combat were distant and dull, keeping us separated from the action even further.<br />
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There's another elephant in this room, one of American centrism and whitewashing of the cast, but that's so expected from Hollywood I'm not even going to bother. The reduction of Godzilla to an even tamer version than the one I saw in <i>cartoon form</i> in the early 90's burned me well enough. I felt no fear of this Godzilla. I did not feel like a god, or a tornado, or a hurricane or volcano or bomb or <i>whatever</i> was coming my way. It didn't feel like a metaphor for global warming. If this movie's Godzilla was a tornado, it would have politely carved through a town hitting only rapists and corrupt hedge fund managers. Tornadoes aren't our friends. Hurricanes aren't saviours come to rescue us from a nuclear plant meltdown. The point of Godzilla isn't to remind us that there are monsters, some friendly some not, it's to remind us that when we fuck with nature, nature fucks us back, and harder than we ever could.<br />
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That said, I'm glad there's gonna be a sequel. Maybe it'll be better. And to be fair to the people that liked it -- most Godzilla movies are awful, so by that mark, this one is maybe the third or fourth best one made. But this Godzilla -- this individual monster -- I'm putting down near the bottom. My advice? If you've never seen a Godzilla movie, skip this one. Go on Netflix and watch the original 1954 japanese version. If you've seen Godzilla before, just go watch the 1954 anyways and nod to yourself knowing that you know what's best. The lessons in there are just as necessary today.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-54990171394747390172014-05-25T15:38:00.002-07:002014-05-25T15:38:09.084-07:00X-Men: Days of Future PastI saw the new X-men movie last night. And I will give you my two cents up front: It was awesome. The futures were dayed in the past and the days were past in the futures. I think some pasts even futured the days. There was a lot of future past days. If any of those sentences were confusing to you yet you're still reading, you will probably enjoy this movie. Because this movie is confusing. If you are a super comic meganerd and have read all the X-mans, then you will get this movie absolutely fine. If you've seen all the X-mans movies up till this one, most of it will make sense, but you won't get the finer details -- of which there are A LOT.<br />
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This movie is made for comics lovers. I found it totally enjoyable without knowing everything (I have actually not read the comic this is based off of -- I'm just surrounded by people who have) but I was getting a lot of the references second-hand from my friends after the movie ended. Particularly, that Magneto has children, Quicksilver being one of them. His perfect scene happens, and it's perfect. The entire theatre was laughing. Quicksilver, his mission accomplished and his powers too vast for the rest of the plot to deal with, goes home and watches some tv while the movie continues. This scene is pretty much emblematic of the movie itself: It's awesome, you will laugh, but we're here to move the plot forwards. Anything that isn't useful, or is too useful will be tossed aside. Singer's here to bring us some action scenes, to retcon X3, and to make all the references and jokes that you were really looking for.<br />
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This movie is about our core heroes -- Wolverine, Magneto, Professor X and Mystique. If you don't think Mystique belongs there then you are wrong. Everyone else makes an appearance, from a small and large. I haven't read the comic, and I know some people are really nostalgic, so if its not like the comic you could easily be disappointed by how it went and who showed up. Everyone I personally know loved the new Sentinels. They're pretty scary looking. Mostly because they're not as goofy as the originals. (Don't worry tho, you'll get your purple robots)<br />
<br />Let me be clear: This is not the best X-Men movie. That is still X2, followed by X1. This is third, by my book. A little better than First Class, but very much in that vein. Besides an awkward intro scene and some very limited lines for Patrick Stewart, I think the writing of the movie is fairly clean, if punny at times. In the end, if you have super high expectations, you may be disappointed. If you go in fairly neutral, I think you'll be very well pleased. (And the end teaser is very exciting)theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-78322002976926753172014-02-21T07:36:00.000-08:002014-02-21T07:36:11.697-08:00Friday Review: Engines of a Broken WorldHello again! I'm sad to report that this Friday Review may be a little more angry than some of the others -- well, not 2312's, but godzilla only knows how boring that tome was. Oh, wait, I know. It was boring as hell. Anyways, enough about that travesty, let's have a review that upset me for different reasons! Who knows, maybe these reasons will inspire you to read the book.<br />
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DISCLAIMER (necessary for reasons you will see): I am an atheist. I am perfectly willing to accept that there may be a god in the traditional Abrahamic sense. I do not want, or like, the idea of that god's existence. However, everyone should be able to believe as they like, and I'm not going to bash you for your beliefs.<br />
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Moving on.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
ENGINES OF THE BROKEN WORLD</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
By<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jason-Vanhee-Author-Page/157415937644768"> Jason Vanhee</a></div>
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Merciful Truth and her brother, Gospel, have just lost their mother. And it's snowing too hard outside for them to bury her. So, under the reproachful eyes of the mechano-cat Minister, they put her under the table, with a sheet over her head. The Minister, full of Christian proverbs, is not happy, and says they need to bury her outside. But, save for two other women in their little remnants of a village, there is no one to help them, and they'll die of frostbite if they do. The next day, they try to bury her, but the ground is too hard and they can only put her in the basement, which the Minister also doesn't like. The Minister is God's representative in this world, a source of good and right, who nobody pays much attention to anymore.<br />
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This is when things get, in the words of a goodreads reviewer "Weird." What they mean is, it gets Sci-Fi. Spoilers ahead -- if you don't want to read them, skip to where it says >>>>, but let me be straight with you that like the 6th HP book, this whole story could've been about, well, let's just say it would've worked better as a short. Merciful's dead mother starts talking. Singing, at first, with foretelling lyrics instead of the usual for "Hush little baby" and then talking, through (if you're used to SF) the spirit and voice of her mother, but from a parallel universe, where she was a doctor and a scientist, things that are long gone from Merciful's world. Their worlds are dying, the spirit tells her.<br />
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Merciful doesn't talk to her long, and upstairs Gospel reveals that their world is shrinking; a fog is closing in that makes everything into nothing. They have only hours to live. The parallel ghost haunting their mother's body tells them that they must destroy "a machine" to save both their worlds. This is about 30% into the book, and it is already immediately obvious, probably even to you, what the machine is. It takes until about 80% for them to finally "realize" that it's the Minister. Though apparently the Minister is keeping them from realizing it, but in really non-subtle ways.<br />
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At about that same 80% mark, their last neighbor dies, and is possessed by a murder from the same parallel universe as the first ghost. Both ghosts tell the kids that the Minister must die, or be tortured, because God is shutting down both their worlds. He's pissed at how shitty humans are, and is winding back the clock. He sent down his Ministers to save humanity, so that they could live with him in heaven, and all the meanwhile shuts down the worlds. Just the two, apparently.<br />
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In the end, it comes down to a choice -- Does Merciful believe the semi-evil ghosts and kill the Minister, or does she believe the Minister's stories about God and his love and his anger towards the world?<br />
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She does both. She kills the Minister, which changes nothing. The fog approaches. She is the last living human being anywhere, potentially forever until God restarts everything with less free will. So what she does is pray. The last word, "potentially ever said, ever" is "Amen." So be it. Giving in, giving up, letting go. And that's it. It's over. The decision as to what happens, what god does, whether her prayer changes anything, is left to us. But we're so depressed after reading this damn thing that there's only one option I can possibly see. And that is death.<br />
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>>>>I know I just gave you a recap of the entire book. In fact, I just told you the whole book. There's not much else besides what I just said. Now, let me tell you why it upset me, and also amused me. This is the most nihilistic proselytization I have ever read. In this book, God is definitely real. God is upset with humanity, which He created, and God is shutting the whole thing down, without sending any sort of notices or anything. In one world, he sends the Ministers, to save everyone, and in the other, which seems a lot like ours, everyone just rots away and dies. And yet, very little in the book paints God as bad. Some of the characters do, but they're dismissed. The final scene is a suggestion that when everything else is shredded away, when we've lost everything, including God, all we have left is prayer. Not even hope.<br />
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In terms of prose, this book is fine. The excerpt, which I suggest reading on Amazon, makes you want to read the book so hard. It's good, it's compelling, the world is suggestive and depressing and strange. But no one goes anywhere. The secrets revealed are not found, but told, by the only characters left to tell them. This book is a race against Deus ex Machina, and no one can do anything about it. The world that seemed so large and mysterious in the first chapters is drawn inwards, closer and closer, until there's nothing left but Merciful. The ending is unpredictable only because we are so rarely used to seeing books where the characters have absolutely zero power to change anything. And that's for a reason. Because that is depressing as hell. We already live in a world where we as individuals have little power to sway the world at large. Why would I want to read fiction of that? Especially fiction that proscribes that that is in fact, good. Whatever lesson about being better people, respecting others and helping is lost in a nihilistic grey fog.<br />
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I guess maybe I should like this book. It doesn't paint Christianity in a particularly good light. It doesn't really put the idea of God in a good light, though from my interpretation it suggests that we have to trust him. Frankly, everything and everyone looks like shit in these books, except the two kids, whom God is also intent on killing. Merciful's final prayer, desperate in its hope that she, as the last living human being, might be able to save anyone, anything, to change God's mind in any way, is a statement that if God is real, and God wants us all dead, there's jack-ass crap we can do about it, except beg and plead at his feet to make it merciful, like the abusive father with a gun in one hand, pointed at our head, the whiskey bottle in the other, our last words pleading, no, no, please don't do this. But he can't hear you, he doesn't care, he's too lost in himself. And we all know what's about to happen. All we can do is say "Amen." So be it.<br />
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ONE WORD REVIEW: B/W/D<br />
OPPRESSIVE Don't.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-47630171625036855232014-02-16T03:32:00.001-08:002014-02-16T15:30:38.134-08:00SHORT STORY SHUFFLE TIMMEEEEE! Alas, alack! Has it really been two weeks? Two weeks since we shuffled up the hat and handed out all those ridiculous prompts? For those not in the know, two weeks ago everyone submitted a character, a setting and an object, and I shuffled them all up and handed them back out. We all wrote 1-5k stories on those premises, and the results are due today! (though some sent them to me early. Damn do gooders)<br />
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I've seen a few, but the rest I've yet to read, but already I can tell this was a great exercise. It's awesome to see all your different writing styles and how you all dealt with being handed random prompts. I enjoyed trying to sound like a 13 y/o, and trying out a new style of writing a story (for me). Please find below links to all the stories on folk's blogs, or in the comments if they didn't have a blog. I hope you enjoy this little adventure and join in when we run this next time :D<br />
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Without further ado:<br />
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Mine! (muahaha most important): <a href="http://www.theaugustauthor.com/2014/02/short-story-shuffle.html">Texts from Last Dimension</a><br />
Marie! <a href="http://mariehogebrandt.se/writers-block/hat-shuffle-story/">The Attic</a><br />
SE! <a href="http://selehenbauer.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/that-time-with-the-drone-and-the-fence/">That Time with the Drone and the Fence</a><br />
Cel! <a href="http://twynedearth.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/the-short-story-shuffle/">Flugelhorn of the Void</a><br />
Melanie!<a href="http://t.co/srtLYydWH3"> The Cave of Wonders</a><br />
Tia! <a href="http://itt.ymakadomain.com/?p=289">The Knife</a><br />
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More to come as they get sent to me :D<br />
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From Lisa (@lkajue) a story since the comments are being buttheads and her blog is dead.<br />
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It was <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1817187934" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">midnight</span></span>. Rain crashed against the windows of the house on the hill. It looked new, but it had been standing on that hill for at least a hundred years. At the bottom of the hill were three teenagers - fourteen year old Amy, fourteen year old Lizzy and fifteen year old Robin. They should have been at Lizzy's house, curled up and watching movies, but instead they had sneaked out of her window and travelled to the hill.<br />
Amy smiled to herself. It had been her idea to visit the haunted house on the hill and she definitely wasn't going to regret it.<br />
They climbed up the hill. It was steep, and Amy started to wonder if they were ever going to get to the top.<br />
Finally, they got to the top, and they opened the doors to adventure.<br />
Inside, the house was cold, empty and sent an unpleasent chill racing all over Amy's body. She bit her lip and swallowed.<br />
"Are we going to go in or not?" Robin said. "Or are you too scared to now?" The teasing tone of her voice made Amy want to slap her right around her face, even though she was one of her best friends, and had been for a very long time.<br />
"Yeah, we are." Amy said. Her heart was drumming against her rib cage, but she was determined to go in and prove that she wasn't a scaredy cat.<br />
"Well, come on, then!"<br />
Amy led the way into the house. When all three of them were inside, the door slammed shut behind them, making them jump. Amy's heart continued to thump against her ribs and looked down the long corridor that sent more unpleasent shivers down her spine. There was a door just in front of them, so she went to open it. It was jammed shut. She turned back around and realised that Lizzy and Robin were at the bottom of the stairs.<br />
"We're going to go upstairs." Lizzy said. "Do you want to come with us?"<br />
"No. I'm going to stay down here and explore."<br />
"Okay."<br />
Lizzy and Robin went upstairs and Annie walked to the end of the corridor. She started to wish that she had gone upstairs with Lizzy and Robin because not only was the place absolutely freezing cold, but it was also really, really creepy. All she could hear was her heartbeat and her feet as they seemed to crash against the floor with every step she took. She couldn't breathe properly. Finally she got to the end of the corridor and managed to pull open the heavy door that was in front of her.<br />
It was an empty room. The only things in there was a bright red sofa, which looked so old and so decript that Amy was incredibly surprised that someone hadn't come to take it away, and a figurine of the frilled dinosaur from Jurassic Park. She went over and picked it up, thinking that it might belong to someone when there was a terrible scream.<br />
Annie ran upstairs. In a small, dirty room was Robin, who was pale and shaking tied to a chair and Lizzy, who was being held by a strange looking man and had a knife pressed to her throat.<br />
Amy stormed into the middle of the room and shrieked, "Who are you? What are you doing? What do you want?"<br />
"Never mind that!" the man spat. "What are you doing here?! Have you told anyone about me?!"<br />
"No - no, I don't even know who you are! Why would I tell anyone about you?!"<br />
"Good! Now come over here!"<br />
Amy stared at him, wondering what on earth he wanted, and then she slowly made her way over to him. She shivered like she had never shivered before and wished that she hadn't suggested this stupid adventure.<br />
She thought the man might just be wanting to talk to her, maybe he would tell her who he was and then let the three of them go, but it turned out that that was definitely not what he wanted. He launched himself at her, but he didn't get very far. His form began to change and in a moment, he was a ghost.<br />
"Oh my God, he's a ghost!" Amy exclaimed.<br />
"Why the hell is there a ghost here!" Robin exclaimed, trying to get out of her bonds - and failing.<br />
"Never mind that!" the ghost yelled. He launched at them again, but Amy managed to get out of his way. She fell onto the floor and felt a shooting pain in her leg. She clenched the figurine in her hand and them she threw it at the ghost. It flew through him and he laughed.<br />
"Did you really think that was going to work?" he laughed.<br />
He moved forwards and Amy tried to move back, but she seemed to be stuck to the same spot on the floor.<br />
Just then, the sun rose and poured into the window. A moment later, the ghost disappeared.<br />
"What - what just happened?" Lizzie asked.<br />
"I don't know." Amy said. "We - we need to get out of here."<br />
Lizzie and Amy managed to untie Robin and they went back to the house. All the way there, all Amy could think about was that the ghost hadn't killed her or her friends.<br />
The next day, Amy did some research on the ghost that had almost killed her and her friends. She found out that the ghost was a man called Roy Bell, who had first raped his victims and then killed them by hitting them over the head with a very large mallet. Then he would go and hide them in the woods near his house, marking their graves with a cross made out of teeth that he had pulled from his victims, though he never used teeth from the person that he was burying because he knew that that would make it easier for the police to identify who was hidden away.<br />
He had died before he could be arrested after he had been poisoned by a relative of one of his victims. It turned out that the house that he had been haunting was the house where he stayed after he had killed someone. When she read that, it occurred to Amy that if they had walked past the house, they might have stumbled on a grave.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-83566464979257411892014-02-07T02:25:00.000-08:002014-02-07T02:25:08.780-08:00Friday Review: Ancillary JusticeHey folks! I finished another book that didn't make my soul weep, so here's a friday review! For your reading pleasure, I give you a hopefully well-reasoned review of a book that's been seeing a lot of reviews recently:<br />
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<b>ANCILLARY JUSTICE</b></div>
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<b>by <a href="http://www.annleckie.com/">Anne Leckie</a></b></div>
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Now, I'm not usually that much of a fan of first person novels. Personal preference. They all sound about the same to me unless the character has a really distinct voice. I picked this book up and (having just read a 1st person novel) couldn't bear it again, especially since the introduction starts you off with pretty much no information whatsoever. However, I came back to it, and I'm glad I did. The MC is both a starship, <i>Justice of Toren</i> and not a ship, as the book takes place across two different time periods which eventually converge. The book's title is made obvious when you learn that starships contain "Ancillaries" -- corpse soldiers slaved to a ship's AI and given superhuman implants. The two timelines contain the ship as is, full of ancillaries, and the future where all that is left is one, and no ship to be found.</div>
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This is a book about identity, and the entirety of the book is centred around that premise. What it means to be an individual, what it means to have identity, the little bits and pieces that make us unique, discrete units, distinguishable from other humans or even animals. The Radchaai, the semi-Roman empire whom the <i>Justice of Toren </i>(human name "Breq") serves, is ruled by the Lord of the Radch, a multiple individual with thousands of instances across the empire. The Radch have only one gender (she) and Radchaai often have difficulty determining the proper gender pronouns for non-Radch humans. I found this interesting and fairly novel, mostly in the fact that since this was a 1st person novel, I had no real way to imagine which gender people she was talking to were. There are hints, with non-Radch humans telling the MC she got it wrong, but at times this was a bit anachronistic, since the MC had been a human in non-Radch space for a long time, I would have figured that she'd learn, but I liked the idea from both a moral and literary standpoint. It was interesting to see my brain do flips when certain characters were revealed to be "male." </div>
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There's a lot of fine worldbuilding in Ancillary Justice, all much deeper than what we've gleaned from the end of the book. The characters are vivid, full of life, and the author's depiction of life within an aggressive expansionist empire nearing the end of its expansion is extremely interesting. I always appreciate when the "bad guys" are given a closer look. This book was kind of like reading from an immortal Stormtrooper's perspective. </div>
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If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned any plot, that's because there wasn't really much of one up until about halfway through the novel, when we discover why the future, singular version of the MC (Breq) is on a desolate icy planet. The pace picks up significantly, although at one point an entire novel's worth of action linking the two timelines is given about four sentences, but I understand that books can't all be a million pages long. </div>
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Given Breq/<i>Justice of Toren's</i> pretty much impossible goals, the ending of the book was about what I expected. Half-success, setup for a sequel. I had actually been hoping that this book was a standalone novel, but I'm okay with it being part of a series, although I actually mostly enjoyed the ships multi perspective 1st person, possible because it can look through all its ancillaries' eyes, and that's something that will be lost in following books. </div>
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If you're looking for a super action packed thrillride this book is not that. If you are looking for an interesting dialogue on individuality, morality and free will that happens to include pretty awesome spaceships and a very interesting universe, then this book is for you. Ancillary Justice knows what it's trying to say, how it's saying it, and it doesn't deal with all the extra fluff. Everything in this book is for a point, an idea, and one that I think is fully expressed at its end. And that, combined with an interesting look at character development from the inside and out, makes this book worth a read.</div>
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ONE WORD REVIEW: B/W/D?</div>
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NEW <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ancillary-Justice-Ann-Leckie/dp/031624662X">BUY</a></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-69250183516887394072014-02-02T11:20:00.002-08:002014-02-03T01:57:03.197-08:00THE HAT BEEN SHUFFLED YOI have shuffled the hat, the shuffling has been done!<br />
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The results are as follows. It's possible but unlikely that you got one of your own prompts. No one should have two of their own; if that happened and I didn't notice somehow we'll do a swap. Now, all of these should feature prominently in your story, hopefully as plot related objects, main settings and main characters, but if you really get stuck then you should just get creative. The point is to have some fun and use some random shit. We've given you some tidbits to start, and I know you all will come up with some absolutely hilarious stories.<br />
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You have TWO WEEKS to write a 1k-5k short story using your prompts. I suggest you post them on your own blogs, and I will link them all in a post on here. If you don't have one, we'll post it up here. I look forward to seeing what you all create! (and I feel bad for some of you with your prompts XD cough cough cait reynolds)<br />
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<b>MADISON DUSOME:</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER</b>: A grizzled, no nonsense explorer<br />
<b>SETTING</b>: A cruise ship in quarantine because everyone is infected (with flu?)<br />
<b>OBJECT</b>: A sleeping bag<br />
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<b>MELANIE FRANCISCO:</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A book-hating librarian<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>A cave of wonders with no apparent exit<br />
<b>OBJECT:</b> The wrong suitcase<br />
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<b>LISA: </b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A chirpy teenager<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>A haunted but renovated townhouse<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A dilophosaurus (that frilled dinosaur from Jurassic Park)<br />
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<b>THE PROVOCATIVE ONE:</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A pirate's parrot (make sure this is the MC, somehow!)<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>The craziest possible place you can fit a roller derby<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A ball of yarn<br />
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<b>S. E. Lehenbauer:</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>Man who has no memory of his life before age 10 who also fears soup<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>Closed church from the 1600's<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>An EMP generator<br />
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<b>CAIT REYNOLDS: </b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A dead gorilla (make this the MC if you can!)<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>The bottom of the ocean<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A ball<br />
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<b>TWYNED EARTH: </b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A five-year old who thinks they are a ninja<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>A spaceship<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A flugelhorn!<br />
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<b>DANIELLE COURCELLES: </b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A janitor who was something else<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>An engineering office<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>Three golden bananas<br />
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<b>MELINDREA:</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>Lesbian roller derby girl<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>An attic<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A low-quality statue/figurine<br />
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<b>TIAKALL</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A male rock star who used to be a nurse<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>A beach<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A knife<br />
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<b>AND LAST I TAKE THE DREGS</b><br />
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<b>CHARACTER: </b>A 13 year-old girl<br />
<b>SETTING: </b>A french chateau<br />
<b>OBJECT: </b>A pen casetheaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-78720477708441316022014-01-29T12:20:00.002-08:002014-01-29T12:20:44.787-08:00A little game.Hello everyone!<br />
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I'd like to play a little game. A writing game, for fun and greater expertise. One that we can all enjoy and have some fun with. One that will hopefully teach us all something good about making engaging plots and working with other characters and settings that we normally might not touch.<br />
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Here's the setup:<br />
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In the comments, you will sign up by saying you're signing up in whatever way seems appropriate. "Hell yeah! I'm in! Go fuck yourself!" All of these are good. You will then provide three things:<br />
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<ol>
<li>A Character: This can be vague like, "A fireman" or specific "Lucy Jones, a weary stock trader just a few weeks from retirement.</li>
<li>A Setting: Time and/or place, an alien planet, an asteroid, 18th century Paris, a paleolithic cave in north Africa, 40 Million AD, etc.</li>
<li>An Object: Could be an apple, could be a priceless vase, could be a starship. Whatever you desire, and the author chooses its importance to the story.</li>
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After I've collected a few of these (hopefully there's more than one of you!) I will randomize them, juggle my digital sack, and redistribute the characters and settings and objects back to you. We will then write stories! All genres accepted, whatever you want. I suggest something inbetween 1-5k, depending on how crazy people get. We'll take two weeks (starting this Sunday) to write our stories, no real worries about the editing, and then come back on Feb 15th to share and go crazy-go-nuts! :D</div>
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I hope you guys are excited about this, because I think it will be a fun, fun time. To start things off, here are my 3:</div>
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<li>A janitor who used to be something else.</li>
<li>The bottom of the ocean. (ours or some other)</li>
<li>Three golden bananas.</li>
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Lets play! </div>
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theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-79671342185045868182014-01-13T11:01:00.000-08:002014-01-13T11:01:21.322-08:00#PitchParty WINNEERRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS#Nanopals, it's time. Time for the decision of the century. I'm sure you've all been holding your breath and are now dead because it's been like a week, people, come on. Don't be silly. I was unable to get my judges to respond in time, so in the end it has come down to the IMPERIAL STICK. There also seems to be some technical issues, because I cannot find the #PitchParty tweets from Jan. 4th on any timeline. They're gone! So I'm randomly picking one of the tweeters for victory.<br />
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The entries were all excellent, and made me look like a burrito full of horseshit. I'm so thrilled that everyone came in and commented -- did you know there were 52 fricken comments on this? That's a lot of feedback! This was once again an awesome exercise and I wish all of you people were near me physically. Second life is too creepy to hang out in, so that's off the table.<br />
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I had my personal favourites but consensus is consensus, and brief polls and the comments will confirm that @tiakall is the assured victor of the 100-word pitch contest. Her pitch, here again:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.031999588012695px; text-align: justify;">Reina, a girl searching for her missing parents, starts in a place most wouldn't expect: a magical realm. Transported by accident, she stumbles up against a vicious demon of destruction who may have the clue she needs. Reina teams up with a flamboyant fairy and embarks on a journey to find out if, in order to save her family, she must destroy the demon... or save him.</span><br />
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This is some dense writing. You know a lot about why, where, and how shit's gonna go down, without actually knowing any details. Plus, who doesn't like fairies? And <i>saving </i>demons? Who's heard of such a thing?? Seriously though, I'm a huge sucker for evil creatures being made semi-good. There's a quest to save her family, a loveable sidekick, magical crazy-times, and all in a hundred words. Congrats Tia!<br />
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And I have rolled a die to decide the winner of the tweet contest, as any good D&Der does. That winner is... @blacklily_f! Congrats Melanie!<br />
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For your prizes, tell me what song you like and I'll sing it in Gollum's voice, or whatever character voice you and I can agree on. Feel free to email nanopals@gmail.com or just comment down here. Twitter works too, who cares!<br />
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Congrats to our winners and I'm only now left wondering who is going to pick up the torch for the next round... You've gotta be quick!theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-18585219893309596862014-01-10T09:19:00.002-08:002014-01-10T09:19:36.074-08:00Why Beta-Read?Hello everyone! I'm here with a note about why you should be a beta reader. If you've already read the blog, you probably already are, but if you aren't, here's a few great reasons why reading someone else's unpolished manuscript is an awesome opportunity.<div>
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1) Free book! You're reading all the time, and you have to pay for the things, which is great for the author but if you make as little money as I do and read as fast as I do, it starts cutting into the things I need like food and heat. These books may not be as polished and have fancy covers like the money variety, but you can't beat the price, and </div>
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2) You get to discover something new! In the course of beta-reading I've touched on novels I probably would have passed when it came to money. I've read a Sex-in-the-City with gorgons and greek gods, a new england family drama centered around an ancient curse, and the tale of an elven priestess who discovers she actually cares about love and kingdom after all. Discovering new things opens your mind and helps</div>
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3) Improve your writing! See other people's styles in their raw form, encounter new literary tactics, clever twists and tricks and everything else under the sun! You can see what didn't work for the author, what didn't work you, and offer them tips to improve. Teaching is the best way to learn, they say, and you get both when you beta-read. While being much more entertained than in a classroom (at least for me).</div>
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4) Help someone else. By Beta-reading, you greatly improve the chances that your MS will be beta-read, and the more beta-readers you have, the better your book will be (there's probably an upper limit but let's ignore that) Reaching out to strangers and helping them realize the same dream you have, of getting published and making a bestselling novel, improves everyone's lives, especially yours.</div>
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So get out there and read, why don't you! Stop by the beta-buddy page and become one today :D Reach out on Twitter, I'm always happy to give a shoutout. http://nanopals.blogspot.com/p/beta-buddies.html</div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-61979221229268765102014-01-05T03:50:00.001-08:002014-01-05T03:50:40.934-08:00#PitchParty<p dir=ltr>Yo yo yo it's still six a.m. here but a post must needs be born! Actually not sure if I'm using that construction properly, I've never quite understood it except as a regional creation. </p>
<p dir=ltr>But you didn't come here for that. You came for the party and the pitches. Well, since I'm rewriting this at work, you don't get mine till later this afternoon. But post your one hundred word pitch here in the comments in the comments and prepare for judgement to be rendered!</p>
<p dir=ltr>The winner will be chosen by myself with input from two of my close friends, and receive a video of me singing their favorite song in a silly voice of their choice from my repertoire (ps pick Dudley Do-Right)</p>
<p dir=ltr>I look forward to reading all your pitches, and if you didn't catch them yesterday, check out the tweet length pitches on Twitter with the #PitchParty hashtag. </p>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-72035241380500035632013-12-15T06:18:00.002-08:002013-12-15T06:18:29.686-08:00Pitch Party 2014 updtate: MO' PRIZEUPDATE TIME!<div>
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Guys, it's time for a prize reveal. If you weren't aware, we're planning the dual events of PitchParty2014 for Jan 4th and 5th. On the 4th, we reveal our tweet-length pitches for the work we're looking to sell. On the 5th, a 100 word pitch (pasted and/or linked on here). After each, we talk and judge and people vote and ultimately I and my secretive panel of judges (yes they aren't all stuffed animals) and on the 6th, I will announce a winner!</div>
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Now, for a prize. There will be postcards sent out to all the runner-ups (or everyone, depending on how many of us there are) but the winner will get a special prize made all the more valuable by the fact that I will be embarrassing myself for your pleasure.</div>
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If you are crowned the ultimate PitchParty Winner, you will get to choose two things that will become one thing. First, you will choose any song (the more crazy singing, the worse this will be) and then you will choose one of these voices:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Smeagle/Gollum</li>
<li>Zap Brannigan</li>
<li>Meatwad</li>
<li>Darth Vader</li>
<li>Some sort of horrid monster</li>
<li>Dr. Zoidberg</li>
<li>Sean Connery</li>
<li>Krusty the Klown</li>
<li>A variety of accents -- pretty much just choose.</li>
<li>Or just make up/tell me to make one up. If I can't do it we'll work it out. :D</li>
</ul>
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Then, as you may have been able to guess, I will sing your song in that voice. In video format, so you'll get a little extra absurdity in your package. There's a few more voices that I couldn't remember what characters they're from that I do but just ask, given enough practise, I can get almost anyone. </div>
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You still have two weeks to get those pitches together! How can you describe your novel in 140 characters? 100 words? You'll be surprised which one is harder :D Feel free to send your early versions to me for tips and early reads! See you soon!</div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-51572626140022707352013-12-05T11:58:00.001-08:002013-12-05T11:58:26.076-08:00Pitch Party 2014!It's that time of the year again! Pitches upon pitches! #Nanowrimo is over, and many of us have manuscripts worthy of attention. But we don't always know how best to sell those stories. I don't mean in the store, I mean to an agent, an editor, someone on the street. I'm not talking 1920's newpaper hawker, but there is something to shouting out your own work. And as with anything, practise is useful and important. Nobody does everything right the first time, unless the thing they're trying to do is nothing. We can all do that pretty well. <div>
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Pitching takes practise, and why not pratise in an atmosphere of even criticism and support? The first #PitchParty (found <a href="http://jillmarcotte.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/pitch-party-overview/">here</a>) was a blast, and we had a ton of fun. The winner got a postcard, a tirdition that I will be continuing since artists are all broke. There will be two rounds to the #PitchParty -- a Tweet round and a longer, 100 word blog pitch. Both of those things will be posted on this blog, and a totally impartial team of judges (hey psst I need two judges, email me evrardau @ gmail dot com!). These should be manuscripts you have either finished or have in editing, or at least real close to finished! :D</div>
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The Twitter #PitchParty will take place Saturday, Jan 4th, at a time to be determined soon, probably something like 8PM EST. During that hour, everyone who wants to will pitch one tweet-length pitch for their novel, including the hashtag. We'll discuss and laugh and have a good time and the next day (Jan 5th) everyone will post their 100 word pitch in the comments on the #nanopals blog. </div>
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I WILL NOT BE DENIED THIS!</div>
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Er, hem. You will not be denied this! This is a great opportunity to have some fun and get some solid feedback on your pitch before you go ahead and make a hundred Gs selling it super well. BECAUSE YOU CAME TO THE PITCH PARTY. </div>
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So, brief recap -- You've got a MONTH to prepare a tweet-length pitch AND a 100 word pitch. Tweets on Jan 4th, 100 word on Jan 5th, right here. We'll do a few prep sessions and spread the word beforehand, so use that #PitchParty hashtag! One real entry in each per person -- but feel free to send me your extras just to see if they're cool too :)</div>
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I'll see you soon!</div>
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<br />@nanopals</div>
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theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-89934933495041134732013-12-04T12:31:00.001-08:002013-12-04T12:31:45.102-08:00Procrastipost!Yeah hey look I'm not supposed to be here, okay. My MS is right there on the other side of the screen, and she's lookin' at me right ugly. The editing, the editing! The words control my life. But you know, sometimes you gotta be free, you gotta find a little YOU time. Which I'm going to spend on you. With a handy-dandy list of the editing I <i>should</i> be doing right now!<br />
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What am I doing right now? AHM EXORCISING MAH DEMONZ.<br />
No, I'm not getting my vodka blessed then playing quarters with my old college roommate (a monster), nor am I going on a spirit journey. That's later. Instead, I am engaging in the incredible act of hunting down the demons in my MS, the dark spirits that cloud my text and obscure the beauty and power of the prose beneath! What the hell am I talking about?<br />
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THESE WORDS:<br />
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<ul>
<li>SAW</li>
<li>FELT</li>
<li>HEARD</li>
<li>KNEW</li>
<li>AND</li>
<li>SEEM/SEEMED</li>
<li>THAT</li>
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I see you, spawn of Ghidora! Begone from my texts, begone from this earthly realm and never return! Well, not all of you. Sometimes I need you. But like, only on holidays. If we could just have a few little demon meetups once or twice a novel, that would be swell. </div>
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In not-crazy person words: This selection of lexical items is a good tracker for words that can and should be ridden from your novel! All of these add clunk to sentences and break up pace. Stop seeing things! Stop hearing things, stop feeling things, just, you know, <i>things.</i> Imagine you are watching a movie and instead of the camera you had the cameraman, and you were just looking at his viewfinder the whole time, shaking and wobbling as he tries to keep up with the action until you realize you're on a goddamn set and Tom Cruise is just on a friggen treadmill. You've got some guy who is seeing everything for you. He maybe sends a telegram and lets you know what's going on in the action scene every few weeks -- who cares, you've stopped reading them.</div>
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Okay, so the crazy came back. All this has been said before by smarter people (read: <a href="http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/ten_quick_fixes.htm">here</a>) but I'm giving you what I'm personally looking for right now. Ctrl-F->DELETE. Every sentence looks better, my Godzilla. Even if you don't have too many of these instances, and you already know this stuff, go through, because they are sneaky little buggers, and they get in all over the place.</div>
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Okay, I'm running back to my MS to murder these beasts. Too many run-on sentences given life by the necromantic powers of AND! Go back to your prison, you moster!</div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-14270400749271231922013-11-04T13:53:00.000-08:002013-11-04T13:53:03.076-08:00Day 4: Mind over Body (we all wish we could do it)Mind over body. That's what I'm telling myself today, after having terrible bowel issues that I have been successfully avoiding for some months due to controlled diet. Somewhere in the past couple of days, I failed that diet, and I have been punished by the bacterial culture living in my gut. They decreed that those bacteria that process lactose were evil and sacreligious and exiled them from my stomach some years ago, after previously locking them in a fart-gulag.<br />
The body is a horrible place, and everything about being made of meat is awful. That is why I like to write about things that aren't human! Robots and other superiour beings that don't have to look at the delicious melting cheeses that they once loved so very dearly and now can only gaze wistfully upon lest they eat even one tempting morsel and send themselves into a shit spiral that will last for days.<br />
It's important to find the passion for your work, wherever it may come from. Most days, it's love of crazy wonderful things, or a desire for childhood fantasies to be real, or just wanting to be heard. Today, it's the rage and anguish I feel as a Frenchman towards lactose intolerance.<br />C'est la vie, c'est vrai, mais j'suis un ecrivant de science-fiction. Cette vie n'est pas la seule vie disponsible.<br />
Nous faisons nos mondes propres.<br />
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Let's write some novels.<br />
<br />theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-72676692583783286952013-11-03T05:56:00.002-08:002013-11-03T05:56:44.575-08:00Day 3: It's like it never even endedBy this third day of #nanowrimo you've all either begun to remember what the last nano was like and are freaking out that you'll lose steam two weeks from now and nothing will ever be finished and oh god why or you're freaking out that you're behind on your count and oh god it'll never be finished why me...<br />
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Yeah, we've all been there before. But this is only day 3! The official count for today is only about 4000 words! YOU CAN GET THAT DONE TODAY IN TWO HOURS I BELIEVE IN YOU. Okay, probably not. In a perfect world, that's how I'd get it done. 1000 words every 30 minutes. The golden pace. But no, I'm never there. And you never are either! But that's okay. Because every moment we spend freaking out about our wordcount is time we should be using to fill our books with words.<br />
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Here is your mantra for the month, in fact, forever:<br />
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NO WORRIES ONLY WORDS. No worries only words. No worries only words! NO WORRIES ONLY WORDS!!! CHILDREN OF THE CORN AHHH<br />
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We've got 27 more days of nanowrimo, but you've got an eternity to worry about whether anything you do is good. For these next 27 days, just forget about that crap. Everything you do is good. And it'll be better when you edit it in December.<br />
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I'm trying to keep my face around the Forums for those in need, but if you see a thread that could use some Caps Lock Crusader action or see someone crying out for a #betabuddy, let me know!<br />
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Keep writing everyone, and I'll see you online :D Join me for a #wordsprint sometime!theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-8819065756479940622013-11-02T06:58:00.002-07:002013-11-02T06:58:39.387-07:00Day 2: The envengening of fwordsAre you making up words? Chances are if you're writing fantasy or science fiction, you're making up far more than one. But almost any book can involve new language. Teen slang is an ever-changing miasma of made-up words. If your book has teenagers, you should probably have some kind of slang. Otherwise, they aren't really talking like teenagers.<br />
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But how make false words are too many? If I write out "The Glorxian sacrophods invexed the Halati metalikuds" you have some idea that <proper noun> <things> verbed some other <proper noun> <things>. But even if you have a degree in linguistics and figure out that the author was trying to suggest with the cross-linguistic "metalikud" that the Halati have a group that is above consolodation that doesn't really help you understand anything at all. But that's not because the words are made up, it's because you have no context for them. This is the first time you've seen these words, and they don't come with any context whatsoever, so you have no idea what they mean. If you provide the proper context, and make the language rich enough, (cough cough Elvish) everyone will want to learn that shizz. You know they made a whole language for the Avatar people? Cool, but no one actually cared about the language, because the world of that movie wasn't really compelling enough to make me want to pretend to be one.<br />
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Ooh, but what if someone's trying to take my <i>unobtanium</i>?<i> </i>Godzilla. If all your made up words are like <i>unobtanium</i>, then please, take all the made up words out. But for the rest of you, who have imaginations and intelligence, don't throw your made up words away. Sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes they enter the real language. I don't believe for a second that Shakespeare made up all the words English profs say "he" did -- I think that about 99% of them were common street language, which was never written down. And if you include a slang word that you and your friends use but nobody else, and it catches on? Think about grok, or frak. I at least hear those words pretty much daily. Frak is fun to say, and we all know what it means because it shows up exactly where fuck is supposed to be. But frak sounds funnier and doesn't come with any connotations other than BSG.<br />
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The key to getting your fwords into people's brains is to not make your book a language textbook, with long descriptions and definitions, but to leave those words like little crumbs of cake, a tantalising tidbit that you nab quickly and easily. Set a new word up with proper context, put in the proper grammatical slot and <i>bam</i> your readers will slurp up that word. Hell, if you make the language beautiful or compelling enough, people will learn the whole damn thing! Klingon appeals to those of us who love to yell consonants, Elvish to those who like to whistle and sing. My advice to making up words if you don't have any sort of academic linguistic knowledge is to just go with what sounds natural, and give us enough context to understand what it means. Don't give me a quiz on whether a <i>lanitar </i>has a long shaft or short shaft or whether the mechanism to create the spinning blade motion uses chains or gears or both. Just let me know that the mechanism whirrs as it slices through a thousand orks. (or orcs, whichever you want!!! Start a controversy over the spelling of your made up thing!!)<br />
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If you put in fwords sparsely towards the start, keep their usage consistent and supported, by the end of your book we'll be able to read "The Glorxian sacrophods invexed the Halati metalikuds" and go "OH SHIT!" instead of "Uh, what?" And that's what you're really going for.<br />
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2 days in, 28 more to go! Get those words, get those novels written!theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-75993257329035105232013-11-01T14:40:00.000-07:002013-11-01T14:42:46.692-07:00Need Words? No Credit? NO PROBLEM!Hello, and I am here to sell you the deal of a lifetime. That's right, fame and fortune can be yours, all yours. No strings attached, nothing scammy, nothing under the table. Except the dog, but that's where he's supposed to be. Can't have dogs sitting at the table, can we? Then there's no difference between them and us. Anyways -- I've got a deal for your. I know you've got a dream. You wanna write a novel.<br />
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OH I've heard that one before. Who doesn't say that? Everyone wants to write a novel. of course they do! But how many do? How many set up and say that and then finish? Not enough, i'll tell you that! Same as the gym, a few weeks after New Years and they're all empty. But what if I told you that I could guarantee you'd finish those fifty-thousand words?<br />
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Well, I can't. But you can. That's why I'm here. I'm here to make a deal with you, for that promise to fame and glory. I promise to badger you, to cheer you, to rabble-rouse and even jeer you, whatever it takes to help you make it down that line. I promise to sprint with you every day I am able, and to be unfailingly positive and faithful. Because it's hard to do that for yourself. But I know you can write these words. I know you have the power within yourselves to reveal the stories that live inside your minds. I believe you have the will and the fortitude to write just over a thousand words a day. For some of us, that's an hour's work, even less. For others, it's a whole day. We don't all have time to write slow. We don't all have time to write the best lines that there are. But that's not what #nanowrimo is about, and it's not what first drafts are about. They're about uncovering the bones, about laying the foundation. It's about transferring that story from your brain to a stable and permanent medium, before you refine it into art.<br />
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None of the words you write have to be perfect. None of the words you write have to be good. But you want them to be, and I believe you can do it. You just have to believe tha you know when something is wrong, and when you need to continue on. If your brain gives you another scene to write, write it. Maybe it will fit, maybe it wont, but you will learn something, and you will have those bloody words.<br />
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It's November first, and we've just begun. The road ahead is long, but also tragically short. Don't make every minute count. Don't make every word count. Just make words. I'll be here whenever you need aid, whenever you need to know that someone believes in you. And when we're all done, when that novel's written and ready to be edited into beautiful, magical art, then you'll find that the road to all that fame and glory just got a lot shorter.<br />
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Let's write a novel.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-55755869850879937832013-07-26T14:10:00.002-07:002013-07-26T14:10:45.206-07:00Friday Review Returns!Too many books started and unfinished recently, as I apparently have become a gigantic snob. Or, I always was, but I just wasn't buying as many books. Sufficed to say, it's been a little bit since I've finished reading anything that wasn't a beta novel. But I did finish something just this morning, so I present to you the #FridayReview of Peter V. Brett's debut (now past) novel:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">THE WARDED MAN</span></div>
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The Warded Man falls into an interesting genre I rarely see well done; fantasy post-apocalypse, with a scientific world like ours preceding the world of magic. The book started out strong, but I found myself growing less enthralled as it bore on. The Warded Man is an origin story. Multiple origin stories, technically, but it's really only one. Arlen, our titular hero, is a young boy who lives in a world where demons rise out of the ground each night in near endless numbers, hungry for living flesh, only to be repulsed by magic wards rediscovered from ages past. There are two other characters, Leesha and Rojer, but they are obviously secondary to Arlen, being given some twenty percent of the book altogether. </div>
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This is a world where demons are mostly considered invincible. The demons come in delightful elemental varieties: fire, wood, wind, rock, sand, but all share a sort of classic semi-reptilian devil theme. For good or ill, the flame demons often reminded of the Night on Bald Mountain scene from Fantasia, albeit these are far more dangerous. Rural populations hide inside warded homes, while a few Free Cities stand encased in great warded walls, but even within those, people still hide inside at night. Only one Free City, Krasia, home to Arab-themed warriors, fights at all, and I believe the number in the book lists their male population (the only important one, apparently, since the men do all the fighting) as only eight thousand. This is a world where humanity has very much lost the war against demonkind, and very much forgotten who they were. Since the world of my current WIP is somewhat similar in its genre, including magic tattoos, I was obviously interested to see how well this lost knowledge and rediscovery was handled. Apocalypses are popular settings, even LOTR can be considered to be post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse is so long gone that the world is quite stable, with only ruins to remind them of the dangers of the past (until, of course, that apocalypse comes again.) The Warded Man's world is something like this, the time being some 300 years after the demons returned, ending millenia of peaceful scientific progress. At least in this book, it's not clear how far that science got. The only mention of any sort of electrical work is a description of an ancient building with "wires for hanging pictures" which may just mean that, but my imagination went there. There's no guns or anything else like that; the only weapons seem to be spears, and rarely tipped with metal. The only wards known are defensive, and weapon and armor warding appear to be mostly forgotten.</div>
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I wouldn't spend so much time on this, but it's Arlen's whole story. He is the only brave one, besides, to a lesser extent, Rojer, and to an even lesser extent, Leesha. He is born with a natural talent for Warding, and a natural bravery. His life is simple in the small farming town where he lives as an inexplicable only child -- considering how much making babies is spoken of in the rest of the book, it's astonishing he doesn't have siblings. Arlen fantasizes about fighting back against the demons, but takes the advice from his elders, especially his father, that fighting is something left to a last resort. Inevitably, situations resolve that result in demons attacking his family, and Arlens mother is mauled, in part because Arlen's father refused to leave the warded house to help them. She dies from her wounds after we are treated to a scene of hillbilly incest (not explicit) and Arlen runs away, surviving a few nights by scratching ward circles in the dirt -- dangerous because wind or a footprint or a falling twig or rain could easily obscure the wards and allow the demons inside. Arlen ends up maiming a demon and making an enemy, and proving that they can be hurt, and that individuals do stay, and die. He ends up finding a Messenger, who are exactly what you think they are, glorified magic mailmen/tax collectors. They carry portable circles and have warded shields and are basically the only people who travel between the Free Cities, besides a few heavily guarded caravans trading essential goods. Arlen pretty much consistently proves himself the bravest, smartest and most talented Warder anyone's seen, and quickly makes a name for himself. The book's chapters often take place years apart, and this, along with a few other issues, are what began to wear on my experience.</div>
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All three characters begin the book as children. Arlen 10, Leesha 13, and Rojer 4. But because they start at different times, the story ends with Arlen being the oldest, and Rojer some eleven years younger than Leesha, rather than nine. Impressively, each manages to have their own consistent story before they're all inevitably connected together, with various levels of chronological skipping. Rojer goes from four to fourteen almost immediately, and it goes pretty normally from then, until he jumps to sixteen, while Leesha has a few chapters at thirteen, a couple at twenty, and then a final handful at twenty seven. Arlen jumps too many times for me to recall, before SPOILER he discovers an ancient warded spear, and an ancient city with lots of mystical power runes, and makes the incredibly obvious realization that if you can literally paint wards on <i>anything</i>, you can paint, and thus tattoo, wards on yourself. He does this after some betrayal at the hands of the ultrareligious warlike Krasians (can Arabs -- I'm sorry "desert people" in the Warded Man, AND A thousand Names -- be anything BUT religious zealot barbarians who abuse their women and hate foreigners in fantasy novels? This is fantasy, you know.)</div>
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Individually, I liked each of the characters, though Arlen started to wear on my nerves the more "tortured hero" he got. And he gets a lot. By the end of the book he's dripping tortured hero so hard I can read the Pantone color #. Rojer begins, continues, and obviously ends up as the Jongleur sidekick -- read bard. Leesha becomes a strong confident woman, trained as a master Herb Gatherer -- read, chemist/doctor, but then... Godzilla.</div>
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Let me go off for a second here. This book is a book with a lot of sex. Talking about sex, talking about babies, about how people in small towns constantly cheat, about how everyone is always sleeping with everybody else, about how you pretty much can't trust any man to not force his way into your pants. Leesha is almost raped numerous times, until SPOIILER she <i>actually is</i>. Off-screen. Her and Rojer are attacked by bandits and her virgin flower is stolen. It happens so suddenly, so randomly, that I actually stopped reading, earmarked my page, and put the book down on the table. The scene seems to hold no purpose other than to accentuate the point that men are rapists, and to give the characters a reason to need to be rescued by Arlen, discover he's the now-mystical Warded Man and murders demons with his bare hands, </div>
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Let me put this out loud. The way the characters meet, and the "love chapter" I mean, love story develops is:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Leesha gets raped.</li>
<li>Leesha is rescued by Arlen.</li>
<li>Arlen, assisted by Rojer, essentially murder the bandits who raped her by leaving them to demons.</li>
<li>Leesha discovers this and is upset since she as an Herb Gatherer has sworn off killing anyone for anything.</li>
<li>Arlen is guilttripped by her logic and basically tries to kill himself by going nutso Rambo in the rain, which is dangerous because mud obscures wards and thus makes him vulnerable.</li>
<li>Rojer rescues Arlen, who comes back and acts a big sullen baby.</li>
<li>Leesha decides that this is the man she is destined to love and has sex with him.</li>
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Time between "lost virginity to rape" and "have sex with man I just met": one day.</div>
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Authors. Please, please, please. If you are going to include a rape scene in your book, please <i>talk to a rape victim.</i> Yes, people are different. People respond in all sorts of different ways. But one of the things rape victims almost universally do not do is <i>immediately go have sex with near strangers</i>. We all know Arlen is a hero who would never hurt anyone. We all know that Leesha is a woman who can make her own decisions, even if that decision is to revert to her childhood ignorant dream of just having babies and being a mom, literally throwing aside all of the character growth she's had through the whole book. The point is, they are still strangers basically at this point, and if that's her response, it's because she's gone crazy, and if Arlen is a really good person who does good things, he would realize that she <i>just got raped</i> and she is probably emotionally unstable, and maybe not making the best decisions.</div>
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Maybe I'm overly sensitive to this based on personal history, but I don't think that changing this story to have a longer build time from <i>got raped </i>to <i>fucking a crazy tattooed magic dude</i> would necessarily be a bad thing. Additionally, if you're going to have a rape scene, give the goddamn woman some agency. Having her entire struggle occur off-screen so that all we see is the resulting disempowerment makes that character seem weak, even though we know she's not. Leesha fights off rapists multiple other times in the book, yet she is denied a voice when it comes to the struggle that she loses. Poetically just, perhaps, but wrong for the character. Leesha becomes about as flat of a character as a pancake after she meets Arlen, lusting for his babies and promising she'll find out what the horrible truth is behind why fighting demons and absorbing their magic with his magic tattoos is turning him into an ubermensch. What a horrible flaw. It's really something I would worry about when I'm trying to rid the world of every last demon. </div>
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Okay, I guess that's all the spoilers. The book ends with Arlen teaching people they can fight back, and a menacing chapter that leads directly to the sequel, with the Krasians on the march. Wheee. It's a classic hero's journey, through a fairly interesting world, but I felt like either too much of the iceberg was being hidden from me, or that the world is built on flimsy structures. For instance, if all you have to do to basically be invincible and able to kill demons with your hands is <i>paint wards on your body</i>, don't you think that's something like... no one would have forgotten? Or someone would have tried again? Because you can use pretty much any paint substance? </div>
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It makes me worry that I'm projecting too much self-awareness into books, but this seems like... incredibly simple. Then again, I am some sort of super-educated magic man, and the people in this book are pretty much all medieval hicks.</div>
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Okay, all this said though, I do find myself thinking about the characters and the world when I'm not reading the book. The world gets into your head, and the characters are very likeable, and the prose is good. Brett writes with confidence, and he has a clear view of his world. While perhaps the destinations of each character's journey were never in question, I enjoyed the paths they walked -- truncated though they were. This book has all the essential parts of a story, without the fluff. But that in itself is something of a negative. Some fluff is good. Living with our characters can be enjoyable. You're not always wasting your reader's time if you're allowing your characters to live a little. This book could have been quite a bit longer and I would have been happy. Depending on the price of <i>the Desert Spear, </i>I might pick it up, and see if the sequel is worth a read. But if it's more man-happy tortured hero worldsaving... I might be too tired for it. It's too cool.</div>
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ONE WORD REVIEW: B/W/D</div>
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ASPIRING LIBRARY.</div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-30011646472968329252013-06-14T20:21:00.001-07:002013-06-14T20:21:22.429-07:00#FridayReview #12 "Abbadon's Gate"I love science fiction, and space operas are generally my favourite kind. I'm not entirely sure how operatic the so-called James S. A. Corey <i>Expanse</i> novels are, but they certainly are space. I enjoyed the first book in the series, and the second, and so I was really excited to read the third. So without further ado, I present the review for:<br />
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<a href="http://www.orbitbooks.net/excerpt/abaddons-gate/">ABBADON'S GATE</a></h2>
This is the third book in the series, starting with <i>Leviathan Wakes</i> and continuing with <i>Caliban's War. </i>The first one was an action packed/mystery filled broventure through space that I thouroughly enjoyed, but found almost completely lacking of female points of view. Somewhere between Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War, someone talked to the two guys that make up Corey and they apparently learned what women are and how they exist. The results are impressive, though if you were looking for the fixes, they're really noticeable. I don't know if they planned the novels to become progressively more "feminist" (read: egalitarian) and sort of flip flop some tried-and-true patriarchal sci-fi tropes, but they end up doing that, and it works pretty well in Caliban's War.<br />
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Let's drop some background: In <i>The Expanse</i> series, the solar system is pretty well populated, almost like the setting of the dreadful 2312, but a little grittier and significantly more real. There are three major factions: The UN, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance. You can guess who they represent. There is one main character who the story ostensibly rotates around, the man James Holden who has been the centre of a lot of political turmoil all because of the crazy billions-year old alien protomolecule superdevice discovered living inside of Phoebe. I don't want to reveal too much, but the results of the other two book are that Earth and Mars are no longer allied, the OPA is independent, and there is a giant Ring floating just outside Neptune's orbit. This book is about the Ring.<br />
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I'll be frank. Corey knows that it's obvious that the Ring is a hyperspace gate or whatever, and doesn't play with us at all: the prologue tells you that's whats up. These guys do <i>great</i> prologues. Leviathan Wakes was a good book, and the best part of it was the prologue. The characters are brought together quickly -- the new are introduced, and Holden is honestly the least interesting, which is a good and a bad thing. There's Bull, the grizzled Earther vet who's joined up with the OPA, Anna, a priest originally from Russia, then Europa, who just happens to be gay. (which is pretty normal by the Earth family standards of <i>the Expanse.</i> They tackle the overpopulation issue in an interesting way that I like!) Last, there's Clarissa, who wants to destroy everything that Holden is, for what happened in <i>Caliban's War</i>.<br />
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Mixing all these guys up is real fun. It doesn't take long for everyone to get through the Ring, in very dramatic fashion, and then things<br />
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slow<br />
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the fuck<br />
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down.<br />
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If you've ever read <i>Rama II </i>or <i>Rama III</i>. You'll know there's something as <i>too </i>slow. The action in the book literally slows down -- you'll know what I'm talking about when you read it. The humans discover there's an alien superstructure, but most of them can't get to it. Mostly because most of them are killed pretty quickly after arriving. Shit hits the fan really hard, really fast, and the pace somehow stays alive, but at the same time, I felt like nothing was being accomplished. Characters died, action happened, but once again the aliens are kept on the outer edge, a whisper or a vision, a brief interaction. Technically, the alien structure is attacking them the whole time, I guess, but it definitely doesn't feel that way.<br />
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The whole battle against the aliens is actually a battle between humanity, to try to get everyone to agree. Much like Crossroads of Eternity was about the characters choosing where to go, <i>Abbadon's Gate</i> is about deciding what to do once you get there, and find out it's crazy and friggen weird.<br />
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If you've ever read <i>Mistborn, </i>and gotten past the first book, you'll know what I'm about to talk about. Transitioning an action-based, adventure style mystery solving whip of a book into a introspective political drama is difficult. Rewarding if done well, but difficult. This book is an introspective political drama in space, with gunfights. There is plenty of action, and the writing is as always, great, but I felt like Cory had written himself(ves?) into a corner with this book, because while I get that the whole point is that its humanity that's the real enemy, the world they've put their characters in is one where they have no option but to turn on themselves, because the alien artifact is essentially unnaproachable, unreachable, and completely unresponsive except through some little side-interaction through Holden, who doesn't really do much of anything with the alien structure, except learn what he needs to do to turn it off, which is to make everyone agree. The actual puzzle-solving is done by the alien-ressurrected ghost of the second POV character from <i>Leviathan Wakes,</i> one sad, lonely, drunkenly stereotypical hard-but-tired Detective Miller.<br />
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I don't know why they chose to keep the interaction with the aliens to the minimum that they did -- the story is good, and I enjoyed the book, but the ending felt weak without some real climax with the alien power. Maybe that's waiting for another book, but this book needed one.<br />
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The book leaves off promising that there will be more of Holden&friends to come. Honestly, they've got quite the setting for an expanded universe -- I can't deny that I've thought of writing my own little fictions in their world -- it's a good one! While this book has its flaws, it also has incredible strength in the power of its character's messages. There's a real philosophical heart to this book, and it's one we should all get along with. If you're looking for a solid sci-fi book that respects women, this is your ticket. Though I suggest reading all the other ones first :D<br />
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ONE WORD REVIEW: ENGAGING B/W/D: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0316129070&ei=XN27UabFJaebyQHZo4HoAg&usg=AFQjCNEAuceL312t37_9SUVgpxkIIdA3ng&sig2=Pv6vv4yUCWuVrYeMURcMUw&bvm=bv.47883778,d.aWc">BUY</a><br />
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.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-56174223114375056432013-05-31T06:03:00.000-07:002013-05-31T06:11:58.721-07:00#FridayReview #11: The Throne of the Crescent MoonAs always, my turbulent existence has lead to another break, but I'm here again with another edition of the #FridayReview! This time its a book I picked up after hearing the author talk at Immortal ConFusion. Saladin Ahmed is a pretty cool guy, with a really cool name that I am totally jealous of. Just like the names of all his characters in his Hugo-nominated novel<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.saladinahmed.com/wordpress/the-books">THE THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON</a></span></div>
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This book is a delightful Sword and Sworcery in full Arab theme, my personal favourite theme. It has always perplexed me why Middle Ages Europe, largely the most stylistically dreadful period/place in human culture, has been the basis for so many fantasy novels. The obvious reason for this is influence of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, with their decidedly British flair for tiny hovels in hills surrounded by decaying ancient ruins. No doubt, ancient ruins are awesome, especially if they are as majestic as those in LOTR. However, in a day and age where we can see and study the influences of almost every culture in existence, I feel it behooves us to write outside our cultural sphere. Which is why I was so happy to read the fantastic Middle Eastern/North African styled world of the Crescent Moon -- an obvious reference if there ever has been one. And awesome one.</div>
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During one of the panels of the Con, Religion in Storytelling, I think, Mr. Ahmed and others talked about how in traditional Arab tales, and Arabic speech, praises to god are common, and not only common, but many are flavorful and long. In this book, as well as that one, God has many titles: "<i>God is the Mercy that Kills Cruelty,</i>" and spells are prayers shouted in his name: <i>"Beneficent God is the Last Breath in our Lungs!"</i> It's pretty wicked. As a total heretic, I found all of the religion in this book really easy to get along with. It was also good to get a story where the Arab traditions and culture is viewed from the <i>inside</i> rather than a European-style adventurer showing up in an Arab themed locale.</div>
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But enough of the politicks and whatnot! You want to know how the book actually was. The answer is pretty radical. The magic has appropriate flair and majesty, and seems appropriately difficult to come by and use. There are restrictions and expenses for most powers, such as, well, all the main characters, and one of the sides. Adoulla Makhslood's magically pure-white kaftan will only remain so if he remains unmarried. Raseed bas Raseed's superhuman strength and speed and skill with his forked blade are only as great as his piety -- which is pretty great. Zamia Banu Laith Badawi is blessed with the ability to turn into a magical lion, but she pays for this gift by losing everyone she loves. And Dawoud, a side character who gives us a few POV chapters loses time off his life for every use of his life-saving magics. Really powerful magic seems to require really dark things -- which is what the entire plot revolves around.</div>
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Adoulla is a ghul hunter, which is like being an undead hunter, except ghuls come in a far greater variety than zombies and vampires. While he is reaching the end of his career, he's the only one around, and so he just keeps on working, with his heavenly charged assistant, Raseed bas Raseed. Another day on the ghul-hunting racket brings him into a far larger plot to stop an evil sorcerer from corrupting the throne of the Crescent Moon with dark magics from the Traitorous Angel (the Devil) and eating all the souls of everyone around, or turning their intestines into cobras (real from-book examples).</div>
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The story takes place almost entirely in the confines of the majestic city of Dhamsawaat, which is rich enough to host a book twice this one's length. (I will admit, it was a little short for me - at 260 something pages, it doesn't last long enough for me) Dhamsawaat may as well be a main character all its own, and indeed the whole story is almost just an excuse to go sight-seeing. If the city wasn't so interesting, it would be a problem, as it is, it's still a small flaw. The pacing is pretty good, and it doesn't really slow down, though by my usual taste in longer books, to me it barely got started up. Much of the book is devoted to the Falcon Prince, a princely thief who sort of steals the show whenever he shows up -- another small flaw -- and his rebellion against the obviously corrupt Kalif. Really, the only time we get to see any action on the side of the antagonist, the sorcerer Orshado, before the climax is through POV shots from a guard he's torturing, and occasional attacks by his minions, including the ghost-manjackal Mouw Awwa, whose dialogues are always great. That's the book's biggest flaw, by far. I really wanted more active adventure/invetigation against the evil superboss Orshado, and less passively collecting and deciphering clues. But that may be a personal preference for action. I will say that preference aside, I would have liked more interaction with Orshado, even though his final appearance is pretty epic.<br />
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Overall, the Throne of the Crescent Moon is a pretty grand adventure, with some flaws. It definitely deserves the Hugo and Nebula nominations it received, though I might not have voted for it to win. Although given the <a href="http://nanopals.blogspot.com/2013/04/fridayreview-8-2312.html">competition</a>, I definitely might have.<br />
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ONE WORD REVIEW: MAJESTIC B/W/D: <a href="http://www.saladinahmed.com/wordpress/the-books">BUY</a></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-38332702190403671292013-05-10T08:07:00.002-07:002013-05-10T08:08:04.020-07:00Guest post: Storytelling in Stories<br />
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We have a surprise, this friday, for today I present a guest post by a fellow member of the #nanopals, Madison Dusome (@_vajk on twitter, madicienne.com blog) There'll be another one of these next week, hopefully with some posts of my own XD I just bought the Hugo-nominated <i>Throne of the Crescent Moon</i> by Saladhin Ahmed, so look forward to that review next week! For now, enjoy Madison's excellent advice on storytelling.</div>
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-ASE</div>
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<b>Storytelling in Stories</b></div>
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Recently, a lot of writers I’ve met online are in the process of editing their novels – no easy task!<br />
I’m in that boat, too, and I frequently find that my scenes fall flat. Maybe it’s a matter of opinion<br />
(I’ve heard we are our own harshest critics), but I prefer to believe I’ve got things to work on. I<br />
diagnose these scenes by reading them aloud; I rewrite them and I analyse them using complex<br />
mathematics* and imaginary numbers – but something’s still not right. Most writing guides<br />
would have us check each scene for our protagonist’s goal, for conflict and for action of some<br />
kind – but those checklist items are easy to find when you’re looking for them, and it’s hard to<br />
determine if what you’ve found is actually effective.<br />
<br />
Enter the Storytelling Check, in which you will use storytelling techniques to find any<br />
weaknesses in your ho-hum scenes. For those of you who are worried: fear not, I am far from<br />
technically educated in writing, and this check won’t involve fancy literary words or meaningless<br />
writerly fluff (I hope). For those of you who are skeptical: hear me out (even if I am essentially<br />
advising you that to tell your story well, you need to tell your story well).<br />
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<b>Step 1: </b>What was the last interesting thing that happened in your life? Think about the last story<br />
you told your family at dinner, or the latest gossip you shared with friends. It doesn’t have to be<br />
bookworthy – if you told it, it was at least worth your time and breath.<br />
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<b>Step 2</b>: Imagine the same listener and choose a scene that’s been giving you trouble (better yet,<br />
if your listener is available, have them listen for real). Imagine yourself in your protagonist’s<br />
shoes and tell your listener all about the scene – as sensationally as you can – as though it<br />
happened to you. Try to convince them; try to share with them your terror, bravery, doubt or<br />
passion. Try to do this from memory rather than by reading.<br />
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<b>Step 3:</b> Analyse. Did that work, or was your story a dud? Was your friend on tenterhooks, or<br />
bored?<br />
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Okay, so there aren’t a lot of steps – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Chances are, you’ll realise<br />
before even beginning that the scene isn’t tell-worthy; sometimes it may seem that there’s no<br />
story to tell, or no point to build to at all! Fear not! If your scene falls flat...<br />
<br />
First, remember that every story needs background and/or setup. For example, a recent event<br />
in my life was a battle of wits versus a thief who was trying to make off with my cellphone. I<br />
told the story to my mom over the (same) phone, but I first had to tell her that I’d recently bought<br />
a new cell; otherwise the story would have made no sense (not even a desperate thief would have<br />
wanted my old phone). If you think your scene is setup, you’ve got some options:<br />
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<b>1. Shorten it: </b>get the necessary data out of the way as succinctly as possible. Depending<br />
on how short you go, you might even be able to piggyback this data onto another (more<br />
exciting) scene instead of giving it the stage all on its own.<br />
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<b>2. Lengthen it: </b>make it into a scene worth telling by adding some story. A conversation, for<br />
example, could happen over a cup of tea or between breaths in a daring swordfight. One<br />
of those is going to be a lot more interesting to read! Make it unique and fascinating.<br />
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If the scene isn’t setup but still feels awkward upon telling it to a friend, try again. Can you<br />
raise the stakes? Can you make it scarier, funnier, more heroic? Your friends might also be<br />
able to help with this: upon the third retelling of my near-thief story, my listener asked, “How<br />
big was this guy?” It was a detail I hadn’t considered important, but I added it to later versions.<br />
Tell your fish story again and again until that fish is soooo big you can’t even get it into the boat.<br />
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If you’ve checked for setup and you’ve scoured for story in vain, it may be time to consider<br />
elimination. If you’ve told your scene a hundred times and it still feels pointless (this may be<br />
obvious by your desire to add, “And then I found five dollars..?”), maybe you don’t need the<br />
scene at all? Collect any tidbits you want to use elsewhere and scrap the rest. Your listeners<br />
(and readers!) will thank you.<br />
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Want to practise? Retell one of your favourite (or least favourite) scenes in the comments!<br />
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*Okay, okay, I used the wordcount feature of my word processor.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-22357560793492104782013-05-03T11:27:00.000-07:002013-05-03T11:27:03.468-07:00#FridayReview #10I have to admit, I was thrown pretty low by my read through of 2312. So rather than reading fiction, I turned my attention to some self-help books. But not the weightloss or feel-good kinds, but editing! So this week, I present:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690">Self Editing For Fiction Writers</a></span></div>
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By <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Renni-Browne/e/B000AP9X26/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1">Renni Browne</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dave-King/e/B0036QO0AG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_2">Dave King</a></div>
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This book opens with a somewhat pessimistic critique of the current publishing world, but it's not one that's unfounded. In truth, many books<i> </i>do seem to be rushed through with little editing; I often spot many errors and frankly, (and hopefully not to belabor a point) books by some authors seem to just get allowed through will little editing at all. (see <a href="http://nanopals.blogspot.com/2013/04/fridayreview-8-2312.html">2312</a>) As someone starting out in the publishing biz, I can't wait to have a professional editor look over my book and advise me on how best to achieve what I want. But in the current atmosphere, it's unlikely that a professional editor will ever get to my novel unless it's already in near-perfect shape. Unless, of course, you pay for it yourself.</div>
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But the introduction is whatever; lets get to the meat. This book has 12 chapters of varying length; in total the book is 262 pages long. The authors have a fairly lighthearted style that I appreciated, and they tell it fairly straight. Each chapter is filled with examples from workshops or previous clients' work, the majority of which is published. It's mostly just "fiction" rather than genre fiction, but they offer a sci-fi story up in there, and the advice is good for everyone. It covers all the basics of editing, starting with that most basic of basic but most important of all: Show and Tell. </div>
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Unless you're <i>really</i> just starting out, this chapter doesn't tell you anything you don't already know, but it does provide some good examples and explains exactly <i>how</i> showing is better than telling, and in what ways. There's times for showing and there's times for telling, and finding that balance is difficult. I found the book's advice to be refreshing and useful. At the end of each chapter, there are exercises (the "answers" are in the back -- the authors themselves admit that there is no real right or wrong, and some people may edit the selections better than they did.) where you occasionally edit the classics like <i>Moby Dick</i> or <i>The Great Gatsby.</i> These were actually pretty fun, and I found their answers insightful when compared to my own.</div>
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Of the chapters, I found "Dialogue Mechanics" and "Once is Usually Enough" to be the most pertinent to myself. They were all good, but these two showed a number of examples that instantly brought to mind sentences from my own books. In dialogue especially, I hate <i>writing</i> "said" over and over again, but as the authors point out, we don't actually even really read it. It's more punctuation than anything; you're just ascribing the identity of the speaker, nothing more. The words usually speak for themselves. But I just hate writing it all the goddamn time, so I often use beats to cover it instead, having the character do something rather than just say something. And while I don't think that my writing is quite to the level of their examples, it did make me go through and think about how I was pacing my dialogue.</div>
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Pace is something stressed over and over again, and really it's the heart of a novel, and for good reason. It's important as all get-out! Too fast and you tired your readers out; too slow and you bore them into dropping it. Balance is important, something else stressed throughout the book.</div>
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Of all the things this book taught, I think being<i> </i>aware is the most important one. Self-awareness is important throughout life in general, but it's hard to learn. You have to be able to watch what you're doing with an analytical eye, and that can be tough when we're so emotionally attached to our work. You don't want to stop feeling those feelings, either; you just want to be able to read what elements are evoking them, and work with those parts of your novel best.</div>
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I'd like this book to be a thousand pages long; the 262 aren't really enough to cover everything that needs to be discussed about editing, and really you could go on forever. But for a good primer to editing, this book really works. </div>
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ONE WORD REVIEW: ENLIGHTENING B/W?D: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSelf-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself%2Fdp%2F0060545690&ei=YwGEUai8E-aeywGvv4HADA&usg=AFQjCNEkCgT5NFQwNg33JLy1oWuaUD2_fg&sig2=Tb-54hUcRmuUKK7CE738OA&bvm=bv.45960087,d.aWc">BUY</a></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6819185636067689953.post-36844298307329612502013-04-30T09:41:00.002-07:002013-04-30T09:41:55.893-07:00Rewards and NPCsHi gang! A proper post today, a rarity in these dark and troubling times. Why are they dark and troubling? Well, to be honest, it seems our awards systems are broken, and while a full post on the state of SF when it comes to shortlists like Clarke and Hugo will have to wait for another time, reading <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/">Strange Horizons'</a> <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2013/04/the_2013_arthur-comments.shtml?buffer_share=6f2ba&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer%253A%252Bstrangehorizons%252Bon%252Btwitter">review</a> of the Clarke shortlist brought out a very disappointing fact to me.<br />
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Many writers still don't seem to realize how important side characters are. The NPCs of the story: the shopkeeper, the army general, the kid from down the street. The love interest! The mentor! The "Non-Protagonist Characters."<br />
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I'm especially going to talk about the love interest today, because it's still sadly clear that many male authors don't know how or why women fall in love with men. I certainly don't understand how anyone could love <i>me</i> but that doesn't stop me from understanding the concept. The Clarke list, of which I have only read <i>Dark Eden</i> seems to be full of them. The relationship in <i>Dark Eden</i> is at least somewhat plausible, but it doesn't really fit here because the love interest is also a protagonist, though a clearly secondary one. But many of the other relationships in the Clarke books, and in many other SF (especially the sort of "adventure" SF or post-apoc) novels seem to be based on the idea that the protagonist has "won" the love of that character.<br />
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Video games are not books, and you do not write a video game like a book. But at the same time, you do. A video game, for our sakes in this conversation specifically an RPG (though that is a loose, loose label now) is written for an audience of one, and is written so that the player feels engaged and that their actions have a driving affect in the world of the game. You want to reward them when they do good things so that they will want to do more good things or cool things. The player should feel so invested in the story and in completing all the things you have offered as rewards that they will go through tremendous hurdles to accomplish their goals. After all, that's the game. (The gameplay has to be fun, too, but a bad story can ruin even a fun game.)<br />
<br />
When you're writing a book, you are writing to an audience of one, but there's no interactivity. The protagonist of the story is no longer directly controlled by the audience; their actions are set regardless of whether the reader turns the pages or not. But whether or not you have gameplay and interactivity, you still have rewards. The reader is supposed to feel invested in the character and begin to empathize with them as you follow them along their journey. In this way, they aren't playing, but they are expending effort, and you need to reward them.<br />
<br />
Here's where we come back to NPCs. They're almost always the reward. Sure, the hero finds the sword or their parent's lost amulet or that old letter or whatever, but the most satisfying rewards are those that involve human relationships. What better than true love and happiness as a reward?<br />
<br />
Many books like to provide a love interest as either a goal ("Your princess is in another castle"), a sidekick or (I believe more rarely) as antagonists. Any way you have them, their eventual <i>true</i> love, the culmination of their relationship, is often as or more important than the resolution of the plot.<br />
<br />
(I think Neil Gaiman likes to end romances in his books because it's like killing the protagonist, but without the killing the protagonist part. You get the same emotional punch, but you can write a sequel. *cough cough* Graveyard Book *cough cough*)<br />
<br />
It's all well and good to have love be a reward for the protagonist for his/her trials and tribulations, but that love interest <i>needs to be actually interested and interesting. </i>What I see far too often is an attractive but tough woman "who wants it her way" who ends up submitting herself to the male protagonist because he's just so heroically great. It's a clear indication of a boy trying to write a woman, but still not actually self-aware of what misogyny really is, and how much of it is in their own perspectives. Worse are the women who are just there to be a sex reward, who don't save themselves or make their own decisions or actually really exist. They are cardboard cutouts of women with (if the author is at least descriptive) plush breasts and fleshlights installed.<br />
<br />
Other NPCs are often cartoon cutouts that follow the PC around that the writer thinks the story needs: the comic relief, the hard-ass boss, even the antagonist is often just a cartoon. It's so critical to remember that every character is their own person. If you are writing a book and trying to make it real, <i>fill it with real people</i>. Real people can smell fake people a mile away. That's why it's actually difficult to pass a Turing test. People are filled with emotional complexities and contradictions, and those can all work to your advantage, but only if you know the people you are writing. When you focus solely on your PC and surround them with foil-thin foils that turn into presents once the PC gets far enough into the story, you lose out.<br />
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A good relationship can make or ruin a story. Take the movie <i>Lockout</i>, which I like to call "<i>Escape from Space.</i>" It is an old story, so much so that they made this movie previously, with <i>Escape from New York, </i>and <i>Escape from LA</i> and <i>Save the President's daughter, Studly</i> "America"<i> McMan. </i>You knew pretty much every single plot point that was going to occur in this movie right from the beginning. The science was risible, and the action only decent. But what saved this movie was character acting and the relationship between the manly hero and the president's daughter. The characters all had their own motivations and were allowed to act on them, even the deranged psychopath. The romance between the hero and the Pres' daughter doesn't climax onscreen, but it is implied afterwords in an actual, healthy manner. If this movie had had good science and an original plot, it would have been incredible. As it was, it was enjoyable.<br />
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It takes more than a plot and a protagonist to make a story. It takes a world. It takes <i>people.</i>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com4