Archive for » March, 2008 «
It seems that fantasy, and all other genres, really, are plagued with clichés and when people see them, they make crosses from their pointer fingers and call upon a priest to perform a ritualistic exorcism. The thing is, though, no matter how much those people bitch and moan about the existence of a cliché in a fantasy or a horror novel, they’re still reading them. Yeah, they like the writing but “another farm boy turns out to be king and saves the kingdom?”
God forbid, right? Well, what makes something cliché? It’s the appearance of a theme or multiple themes throughout many stories within a genre. Horror has their mass murderers escaped from a mental hospital. Fantasy has their benevolent king usurped by an evil overlord and the fate of the kingdom lies in the hands of one person. Well, are those necessarily bad? I don’t think so. I don’t mind reading about crazy people escaped from Bellevue or quest stories, so long as I don’t feel like I’m reading the same story by seemingly different authors.
What I know of fantasy is that a lot of what you’re writing can be made up, including the names of places, things and people. Changing letters and letter order in common names to make them look more “fantasy-like” is a common practice, along with just flat out making names up. I am one of the latter people. I have a tendency to play Boggle in my mind and just start throwing together letters until they make a relatively coherent name that doesn’t tie your tongue in a knot to pronounce.
Originally posted on Finding Boddie in January, just after I got the announcement.
Well, not really. I got serious about submissions when I was 17 and then it grossly tapered off not long after that. I submitted half-assedly while I was in school, sending a piece or two into the designated literary magazines for the colleges I attended (yes, I attended multiple colleges, no, I only have one degree and no, I’m not a delinquent, I changed schools of my own accord, for the most part) but it wasn’t until this past November that I got really serious about submissions again and started sending stuff out. So, really, in total, I spent about a year submitting, if you add together time and effort. So I do things at my leisure. Nothing wrong with that.
Well, back in November I sent out my first humor piece I had ever written and one went to the Rosalie Fleming Memorial Humor Prize in the Soul-Making Contest. I had submitted another piece after that as well (sent it out just before the deadline, too) and had half-heartedly forgotten about it until last week.
A blog chain is a pretty cool thing that allows other people to wander into your blog, comment on your post and then wander back out to write something relatively relating to what you posted, hence the “chain” effect. Also, as I’ve already said, it’s done in your blog, hence “blog.” Put the two together and we have a “blog chain.” One person starts by writing a post. The next person writes a post based on that and so on and so forth until the chain ends. It’s also a shameless means of self-promotion and an ego-boost to see your blog stats jump for a couple weeks.
DTKelly wrote about how, in reality, your dog owns you, not the other way around. Of course, as any dog owner knows, that couldn’t be more true. What parent would allow their kid to gnaw the hell out of their comforter while simultaneously disemboweling it or constantly pee on the floor (he is house trained, I swear, he’s just a bastard) without shipping them off to a boarding school? Or a psychologist? While he doesn’t get away with it, I’m not going to string him up from the rafters either but don’t get me wrong, sometimes the urge creeps it’s way up. I fight it back and I just end up with a popped capillary.
So here I am thinking that I’m having issues with the voice even after I got all that good advice from my AW peeps that I sit down to start to write the hack that I have from a different point of view (POV). I look at the typed words, look at the blank piece of paper and my pen, and I pick up the 6 pages to read it again. You know what? Wasn’t that bad. I don’t need a different POV. Maybe I’m leaving something out. How about I just start rewriting what I have? Maybe I just need to expand. So I start rewriting long-hand.
If I hadn’t said it before (damn memory), all of my work starts off in long-hand and then gets transferred to a Word document. Why? Because I find it easier for the ideas to flow if I write manually. My brain equates a Word document to death and it freezes and refuses to work (my brain). Really, even if something’s in the document, in order to edit I need to print it out. What can I say? My gray matter hasn’t evolutionized to acclimate to Word. Sue me.
This was originally part of my Rowr For Powerful Words meme that I mention on my Awards page from Finding Boddie but, since it’s writing-centric, it’s come here. I’ve decided not to post the entire meme since it’s not relevant anymore but my points are still valid.
- Persistence–First and foremost a writer needs to be persistent when it comes to writing. Now there’s no need to go all OCD and schedule your writing time to the minute but getting yourself on a regular writing schedule never hurt. But persistence doesn’t just apply to writing. It applies to all aspects of it. Be persistent with submissions. Know this–you will be rejected more times than you’re accepted. It’s inevitable. There will be better writers than you; there will be worse writers than you but they’re all vying for the same slots you are and they’re doing it in droves. Should you get rejected, don’t allow your testicles to slink back up into your body. Pull yourself out of that fetal position of self-pity and keep submitting. It peeves me to no end when people damn the man after one bad critique or one single rejection. Boo freakin‘ hoo. I’ll build you a raft out of my stack of rejections so you can float down your own river of tears. Basically, keep on keepin‘ on. It’s the only way you’ll make it if you really want to be a writer. We’re masochistic like that.
This is the pirate wench I speak of. Well, she’s not really a pirate, nor a wench but she’s driving me up a freakin‘ wall, that’s for sure. This is Layla, the main character (MC) from my Coney Island story. See? I wasn’t lying in my aside when I said I couldn’t draw to save my life. Well, it’s not atrocious but it’s certainly not a masterpiece. And yes, I speak of her as if she were a real person. If you’re a writer, you understand me completely. If you’re not then you probably see me as slightly (or wholly) psychotic. Oh well. When you write, your characters become real, take on lives (voices, actions, whatever) of their own and do things that go against every miraculous idea you have floating around in your head for what you want them to do. Big, giant bitches.
This is the prototype of Layla. It’s certainly not an exact transfer of what I have in my head for her. In fact, this is more of a caricature but it’s a ‘you get my drift’ piece. Actually, if you want a closer concoction to her, just combine Marisa Tomei, Jami Gertz and Maggie Wheeler (no, she doesn’t sound like she has corks stuffed up her nose) and you’ve pretty much got this chick bagged. Anyway, she’s been giving me some issues, hence the stalled word count for my work in progress (WIP). You see, I can’t stand her fucking voice. I’ve always been taught that if you use a specific dialect, a person from a specific region, a real city, you want to be as authentic to that person and/or place as you can possibly get because it’ll make your story seem more real. Well, I’ve certainly got the dago girl from Brooklyn down but so help me god I want to slap her. Note to self: Brooklyn voice ok in My Cousin Vinny. Brooklyn voice DOES NOT transfer to the written word.
