The Nature of a Writer

As I read Brant's latest post, I couldn't help but think about my own writing. Brant's story has so many layers, it is like a big, tasty parfait. Knowing Brant as well as I do, I think that is a comment on him as well. He is a very complex but interesting person, and it shows clearly in his writing. The nature of the writer lends itself to the color of a story, no matter how hard that writer may try to keep it out. Think of the great satirical stories, like Gulliver's Travels. I highly doubt that could have been written by someone who loved the British. Or even V, which is a thinly veiled (at least to some people) look at Nationalist Socialism and how easily people are brainwashed by it.



I never thought my stories had that much subtext, but I did notice something about my own writing. Almost instictively, I like to attach some sort of moral to my stories. My first work in progress, Battle for Ondar, is a story about familial relationships, and how easily a country can collapse if its politicians don't keep it together. My current work-in-progress, Moonlit, shows how people with an infectious, incurable disease are still people, and what happens when society forgets that. I think these two examples say a lot about me as a writer and a person.



In reality, I like to think of myself as an environmentalist. I love nature, especially water-related nature, and keeping wild things wild. I also have - as my Dad calls it - a bleeding heart. I don't do very well in debates because I can see the other person's point-of-view. I almost always prefer the underdog or the sidekick in movies and television, not the main character. And I stand up for anyone who isn't there in an arguement. I love bad movies, romantic comedies, and sarcastic comedians. I have an impressive collection of shark movies alone, and every Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode I could get my hands on. I also am intensely interested in how people cope with major stress. A great example of this is how peasants in Europe coped during the Great Schism, when people actually thought that no one could get into heaven because there was no clear Pope (Catholics should know what I am referring to).



These things make up my character, and whether I like it or not, are going to show up in my work. I want to flesh out the characters to represent a single thought or ideal, and watch it play out in the plot of the story. So in Moonlit, I put a little of myself in Lyka, the heroine. She is a wildlife biologist who has lived a pretty sheltered life among her books and labwork and animals that don't talk. At the very beginning of the story, her life is thrown into the unknown. How will she deal with that? We don't know how she will deal with that yet, as I have only written about two chapters. I daresay that she will manage much the same way I might if I were thrown into a similar situation. Hopefully, that doesn't spell doom for too many of the book's characters...

The Nature of the Hero

Over the last few months I have come to realize that my story, Gods Among Men, has a subtext I did not originally intend. Implicit in the characters and their interactions is the question of what it means to be a hero or a villain. Given the parts of the story I have focused upon so far, I have written mostly about the characters I think of as heroes in one way or another.

I have always thought that some of my characters where "more pure" in their heroism than others. I am familiar with various mythic traditions and did weave ideas that appealed to me into various characters. Before now, however, I never tried to formally define the various types of heroism and how they applied to specific characters.

The formal concept of the hero can be traced to Greek mythology. The word hero originally meant the person was a demigod; the offspring of a mortal and a deity. At this point the word does not imply any moral virtue, merely parentage.

Looking back, I realize now that this idea influenced the development of my protagonist, Damon Roth, and his relationship to my antagonist, Demiurge.

An important step in Damon's true quest is to become the God Among Men. To achieve this goal, Damon must form a bond with Demiurge, a god-like being. The relationship Damon seeks with Demiurge is not dissimilar to that of a grown child with an aged, ailing, parent. Symbolically, Damon becomes Demiurge's child and in so doing become a demigod and hence a hero; at least by the criteria of classic Greek mythology. By becoming a hero, Damon steps closer to his true goal: redemption for his past sins and the salvation of his soul.

In later mythology, the concept of the hero became associated with other characteristics. Courage, self-sacrifice for the greater good, the willingness the face danger and almost certain death, and various moral qualities. The moral qualities become especially important. A hero in later works is often defined by the lines they will not cross, the acts they will not commit, even when everyone else says the acts are necessary or even required. A hero in later mythology is the person who risks all, including the safety of those closest to them, because their moral center demands it of them.

By this standard for heroism, Damon fails to become a modern hero. Yes, he has courage and will face danger and certain death. But he is also the ultimate pragmatist. If the surest way for him to achieve a goal is a dark deed, then he will cross that line with little hesitation. And, while he will ultimately sacrifice himself, it is not so much for the greater good but to complete his redemption. Mankind as a whole will benefit, but Damon's reason is a selfish one designed to benefit himself. To be a modern hero the end result is not sufficient; the means you use and the reasons behind your actions matter.

Damon wants to be a hero, but never can be. He can become a demigod, he can be a protagonist that provides the story with a direction and a plot, but his own moral failings keep him from being more.

In Gods Among Men the role of classical hero falls upon Morel Rihtwis, a man willing to sacrifice the world rather than let innocents suffer. A man of destiny who wants power solely so he can help others. He actively pursues greatness and seizes his destiny. He regrets the personal sacrifices he must make, but never seriously considers not making those sacrifices.

A more modern version of the hero is embodied by his daughter, Tara. She wants to follow in her father's footsteps, until she sees the cost she must bear to do so. At this point she would turn aside, except she comes to realize how many would suffer if she did so. She accepts her personal sacrifices for the betterment of all. Greatness is thrust upon her, her destiny is set by forces out of her control.

I will revisit this exploration of the concepts surrounding heroes and heroism in later posts. I plan on focusing more upon Morel and Tara and delving deeper into my motivations for how I have developed their characters. After that I will look also at other variants of heroes including Byronic heroes and antiheroes. After that I will turn my attention to the villains and antivillains in Gods Among Men and the mythic roots behind their characters.

Oh boy....

So, I was watching some Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes today and realized something.
I think my first submission of Time makes about as much sense as the movie Space Mutiny; if you don't get this reference, just ask Katherine.
Thanks for all your comments on the first chapter. I think I forgot how hard it is to take criticism about my work. I used to be better at it. Also, I'm used to receiving it in an academic work shop setting and it's kind of a different experience. I decided to start over by getting a feel for the voice of my main character. I feel like she should be older, and per Brant's suggestion, not a massive dose of annoying clumsiness. It might be a while before I re-submit the chapter, I'm trying to be patient with myself. I've gotten farther by writing from the character instead of dictating the story line myself. Thanks again.

Into My Unknown

As I was writing chapter two of my story, Moonlit, I immediately encountered a scene that I literally knew nothing about. Lyka, the heroine of the story (so far) is awakening from a drug-enduced sleep into a room she doesn't recognize. I have written internal dialogue, where she makes herself remember as much as she could before finding herself in that room. I want to go back and try to insert a little reality into this scene. How exactly should I write this?

She is a smart woman - at least I hope she is - so I started with trying to figure out what would be the first thought in her head. Now I have hurt my head before. Anyone who has known me long enough will attest to how accident prone I am. But I have never even been knocked unconscious, let alone drugged unconscious after a painful injury. The closest I have ever come is when I had to be put to sleep for a nerve block in my back. The difference was that I knew I was being drugged; I even watched him put the morphine into the iv (looked like milk, by the way). I made it to the count of five before I remembered nothing else. I woke up later, perfectly conscious, being handed cheeze-its and a soda, feeling no pain in my back.

Would this work in the story, in any way? At the end of the first chapter, she was beginning to be treated for her shoulder wounds, which were bleeding pretty badly, as she watched them load her unconscious brother into another long car. I could have them shoot her up with morphine without her knowing, but I would think that when she wakes, she would be pretty conscious pretty quickly. The bulk of her confusion could come from her not knowing where she was, and not remembering how on earth she got there. Kind of like shock.

The less pressing question is what would catch her attention the most. She is lying flat on her back, her head turned to one side. I originally decided that she would slowly come into focus as she was staring at a portable piece of medicinal electronics by her bed. But, I know so little about that that I decided to reduce that to a sort of 'what is that? Wait, where am I?' kind of thing.

I want to keep this part of the chapter short, because she has way to many questions in her head to focus too much on the where am I question (and she will be returning to that question). Mainly, where is her brother, why is she stuck in the bed, what's with the large mirror, and where is her dog. I have a lot of explaining to do...

Update on new resolutions

Okay, so it's only the second day, but I'm currently happy with my progress, so I thought I'd post an update.

Brant sent me back the first 250 words, complete with changes and suggestions. I kept some and discarded others, but the process of deciding which changes to keep got my creative juices flowing, and so now I have another 250 words, and I'm happier with this beginning today. (It may not last for long, but I'm going to enjoy the sensation while it lasts.) I'm even happier because I managed to write a relatively decent few paragraphs after being completely exhausted at the gym.

It's still too early to say for sure, but I think this really might help. Thanks, Brant. You and Kathryn have been fabulous since day one, but this is going above and beyond the call of duty, and I really appreciate it.

Incidentally, I ran a mile in 10min 20s at the gym today - my best time ever! (Yeah, I'm a wimp-in-rehab.) Another thing to be happy about!

New resolution

When I was first getting serious about writing, I looked at many of the writer's help sites floating around on the internet. During one of these forays, I ran across a quote that I thought was particularly applicable to me. I can't remember the exact wording or who said it, but the gist was that any writer who wants to be successful must first overcome his hatred of his own work.

That message still resonates with me. My problem (as almost everyone here knows) is that I am a perpetual editor, which essentially keeps me trapped in the words I've already written rather than free to explore the plot elements that are still running around in my head. It means I can't move forward, and it makes me obsess over every flaw, which doesn't do much for my confidence in my own abilities. I've gotten to the point now where I have an almost visceral aversive reaction to sitting down and trying to write, and so I avoid it. I still love my story, but I feel as if I'm failing it - I'm not a good enough writer yet to tell it the way it needs to be told.

Intellectually I know that everyone is bad at first, and that practice is the only way to overcome that. You can't get that practice if you're continually stuck in the same place. I try to move on, but I find myself obsessing about the flaws in the earlier points of the story so much that it's impossible - I just can't focus on the current chapter without going back to the first. So the first has been re-written about thirty times, the second chapter a few times, and the third chapter is still in its infancy.

I'm finally at the point that I must do something different, because what I've been doing hasn't been working. Brant volunteered to let me send him a set number of words each day, and he'd provide some quick editing and shoot it back to me. That way I could see if I was on target with what I was writing, and use that feedback to help guide my next day's writing. I sent off my first email today, with my new beginning to the first chapter (this, incidentally, is the sixth different opening I've tried, and I haven't liked any of them). I guess we'll see how this works. Maybe being accountable to someone else will help me - it certainly worked with the gym!

So here's my new resolution(s): I will write 250 words each day. I will not obsess over getting every detail perfect yet. I will allow myself to edit only for general content and clarity's sake. I will not allow myself to obsess over word choice, pacing, timing, missing or incomplete transitions, vague feelings of dislike, or anything else that will hamper my ability to get the story down in its entirety. I will write, and I will do so until the book is complete.

So there they are, my new resolutions. Maybe I'll even keep them this time.

Blogging on Blogging

I have noticed a strange, positive, effect blogging has had upon me. When I began I wondered what I could write about once or twice a week. I decided to focus upon my epic, Gods Among Men, and the issues I deal with in trying to write, edit, and eventually publish it.

I discovered there was only so much I could say about editing before I began repeating myself. And since I haven't tried to publish Gods Among Men yet there is nothing to say on that subject.

This left writing itself for me to blog about. Yes, I did post tidbits about the group meetings and such, but most of my posts became about my story. My ideas, goals, characters, plot, how Gods Among Men fits into literary genres and so forth.

Writing the blog forced me to put concrete words to amorphous ideas. To take ill-formed concepts and express them in a clear, concise fashion. At least, as clear and concise as my talent and verbose tendencies will allow.

As one of many possible examples, consider my protagonist and antagonist. I knew in my head, more or less, what I wanted from them as characters, but I had never clearly expressed those ideas aloud even to myself. In my story I had to write about them in an indirect, literary, fashion. When I wrote about them in the blog, however, I was required to state directly who they are, what they want, how they fit into the plot, and so forth.

As I blogged about these important characters I would write a sentence, reread it, and say, "No that's not right." So I would re-write it and say, "closer, but still not right." And so on until I discovered the phrase that captured, for me, what I was doing and why. In this process the general, often non-specific, thoughts in my head gelled into strong central themes.

These themes were always in my work, but in an ad hoc, sometimes unintentional, fashion. Now I see them with better eyes and can craft the scenes to support and enhance those themes in a more rigorous way. Blogging about my writing made me a better writer.

I plan to continue this trend in future posts. To lay out more details about the characters, culture, and world in my story. It could be considered a huge writing exercise of sorts. The result may well be of interest to me alone, but since I am doing this primarily for my own benefit I can live with that. In any event, for those interested in improving their own writing I can recommend blogging about your writing. It certainly has helped me.