The Middle Squared

Filed Under Revising | Leave a Comment

That guy on the left? That represents me. That pencil in his hands? That represents revising.

This giant monster of a task that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

When will it end? I can’t say. Not a specific date anyway. I was hoping for the end of July, but looks like that’s only going to get me to the 3/4 point. Maybe August will fare better.

The good news? I can put The Narrator away for a while to let it marinate.

The bad news? I still have to incorporate the critiques from my writing group.

The worse news? It’ll be that much longer until I can begin querying agents or publishers.

All I know is, I can’t wait to be in the Middle of a new project.

When You Wish You’d Thought of It First

Filed Under Creativity | 3 Comments


I don’t think Aang approves of the new movie

Sometimes you read a story and think “Darn. I wish I’d thought of that first.”

I’m sure you can name your wish list. Mine includes, but is not limited to, Fruits Basket, Harry Potter, and pretty much any Tamora Pierce book.

Fortunately for us late bloomers, ideas aren’t copy-righted. Good thing too, or J. K. Rowling might have been in serious trouble using a large three-headed dog and a boy destined to rid the world of evil. I could write a novel about a zodiac-cursed family, and the worst thing anyone could say is that Fruits Basket is better. (The fact that it probably would be is another point entirely.)

So you like an idea. Use it!

Write about girls disguising themselves as boys to become knights, write about wizarding schools, write about vampires if you must (all I ask is that you do it well).

Don’t be discouraged just because someone else “got there first.” Maybe someday you’ll discover young writers complaining that you got there first!

The Art of Language

Filed Under Tools of the Trade, Worldbuilding | Leave a Comment

A fun/frustrating hallmark of fantasy is the chance to invent a new language. Of course, there’s a complete range of invention.

There are the J. K. Rowlings of the world who only need to invent the occasional interesting word, like quidditch or muggle. Then there are the J. R. R. Tolkiens who invent entire languages, like Elven. (He was a linguist, but still.)

The rest of us probably fall somewhere in between. We invent translations of words for our foreign characters, or words to describe new items or concepts.

Personally, I’m a fan of Tamora Pierce’s work. Her words roll off the tongue, and make sense in story context. A favorite of mine is “azigazi,” a Trader word meaning something like mirage.

Also, you know how some people teach their dogs commands in German so other people can’t control them? In her latest book, Bloodhound, this same concept appears in training the Provost’s Guard dogs, although they obviously don’t use German. I’m totally training my next dog in Kyprish!

Do you invent language in your stories? Share your favorite word!

Mini Update 3

Filed Under Updates | Leave a Comment

Trying to get back into the writing groove. It’s been a bit hard since vacation.

BUT I’m 2/3 through my Narrator revision! Huzzah for small favors.

Smile for the Camera

Filed Under Poetry | 4 Comments

Here is some more poetry from my third year for your enjoyment.

And people wonder why I don’t like having my picture taken…



Smile for the Camera

click – snap – whir
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
stand aghast at the beautiful vistas,
the inspiring mountains, the sparkling rivers,
so amazing that their jaws drop like hawks,
to take in the borderless skies and
the trees slowly exchanging oxygen

crunch – laugh – shout
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
shade their eyes against the glare and
suddenly four animals appear, hugging
and giggling, smiling beyond the summit,
too close to the cameras, squash ‘em with your
thumb or learn to look past them

Mom – Dad – Mrs. Potter
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
can’t recognize what they can’t see,
take indiscriminate pictures of my family,
his family, our family, their family over there,
but check the memories – behind grand monument,
happy children, stressed mother, arrogant father,
you’ll find me

C’est – ma – vie
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
all feature a young woman in my likeness,
even younger if it’s an old camera,
even older if it’s a new camera phone,
I am in over hundreds of photos around the world,
the nameless extra, a ghost on film

slither – slide – paper
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
piece together their life-long efforts, their
masterpiece of film to pin down the ghost, the girl
whose face is turned every shot despite the angle,
despite the friends she stands almost aloof from,
here’s a leg, an arm, the curve of the face

carving – painting – photo
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
merely the newest way to make a shadow:
once the face is captured, ever all is easy,
take the rest of the body, take the soul,
if the film is destroyed, the soul remains locked
away in cloth binders and old shoeboxes

eyes – soul – month
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
fake beam at the world, but draw screams from bugs that block the wondrous view – without your
face they can’t control you, but when everyone has
a thousand pictures of you, your soul is divided into
thousands of pieces so small they shine like teeth
so smile

I Need a Bigger Hutch

Filed Under Tales from the Author's Desk | 1 Comment


Fruits Basket’s Momiji in Rabbit form

Plot bunnies are sweet, but they are the epitome of distraction. They’re way too tempting for their own good, trying to lure a writer off her current path.

When I can, I jot the bunny down in a notebook, on my Mac stickies, heck, even a scrap of paper will do (though I usually lose those).

Sometimes I check on my bunnies a little later and realize some of them weren’t as great as I thought they were. Those get set free.

But I hate the bunnies that get away. Maybe I got an idea while dreaming but forgot it by the time I woke up. Or, more likely, got it while I was driving and couldn’t write it down without risking a crash.

How do you deal with plot bunnies?

Surviving Fantasy

Filed Under Tales from the Author's Desk | 4 Comments

If my life was a fantasy story, I would be one of those extras who dies in Chapter 1.

Why? Because I wouldn’t survive living in classical fantasy.

My reflexes are terrible. I’d get struck by Avada Kedavra or an enemy’s blade like that.

I’m out of shape, and that doesn’t lend itself well to outrunning enemies. Actually, I have exercise-induced asthma, so I’ve got two strikes against me on that one.

I don’t like hurting people during weapons training. I don’t hit very hard, I apologize when I do what I’m supposed to, it just doesn’t work so well. I guess I could still be an archer, but if someone pulls a knife on me I’m doomed.

Also, in case you missed it because you didn’t read my name, I’m a girl. Girls are expected to stay at home, cook and clean (or embroider if they’re noble), marry well, have lots of kids, and obey all men.

Yeah, screw that. If I don’t die of boredom, I’d get burned as a demon or something for standing up for myself.

So what about you? Would you survive in fantasy?

Emma Music

Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment

I never thought I’d like a version of Emma more than the Gwyneth Paltrow movie.

I was totally wrong.

The new BBC mini-series version is fantastic. And if you buy the DVD, deleted scenes are built into the movie.

Below is the lovely main titles that I wish I owned so I could put it on my ipod and listen to it over and over. Enjoy.

On Communication, pt 2

Filed Under Guest Post | Leave a Comment

2. The Character-to-Character Factor

Virtually any story can be summed up in sequence – A happens, causing B, causing C, causing D… all the way down to the concluding letter, wherever you put it. What causes the reactions? The characters.

Though the Narrator is the cornerstone of the piece, the characters are what create the plot and, by extension, are the reason people want to read on. In many cases, the Narrator can be a character itself (Jennifer’s completed work “The Narrator,” for instance). The characters can make or break the story. When it comes to the cast, it can be easy to overwhelm your audience with person upon person, building a crowd that is impossible to remember in detail. On the other side of the coin, having no characters or just one can lead to a monotonous experience that is gladly forgotten. As a rule of thumb, I’d try to avoid making a cast of characters that could play a full game of soccer against one another (unless that’s the point of your story). But it is entirely possible to do more – Stephen King regularly has appendices for the characters in his books.

Just as with narration, focusing on a development of voice can create a plethora of opportunities for your story. But there is a necessary distinction to be made between the two: most narration comes from someone whom knows what has happened and what will have happened by the time the story is complete; most characterization comes from someone whom, unless special circumstances apply, know nothing about what will happen.

This is the conundrum I, and I’m sure many others, have faced with characters. How do we write up a character that comes off realistically?

From my experience, there is only one way to make it work – trial and error. Start by considering what you, the writer, know. Everything. You’re the only person that will know everything. So see what happens if you remove one detail from scene, then a different detail. Keep going, and eventually you’ll have put together a set of details that you can mix and match. These are potential starting points for your characters. Once this is done, or if you have a character firmly in mind, you can start adding personal information as needed to define the character. But how much should you flesh out?

Sure, it’s great to fully define a character so we know what we’re dealing with, but remember that there is a story going on. If the character doesn’t change or changes very little, the idea doesn’t really expand all that far. On the other side, it can depreciate the changes occurring in the play if a character is as mutable as the wind. It’s a function of the story, in the end – you can’t know for certain until you experiment.

Voice is a tricky element. Characters, like you and I, filter information through their own perspective; this is where a ear for conversation becomes the most important tool you possess. Each character doesn’t need to have a truly unique voice – people sound exactly the same in a subway car, right? – but it needs to set them apart enough that we can see the differences between them. A nine year-old girl and a Harvard professor do not speak the same. The next time you’re listening to someone, consider their vocabulary, idioms, expressions… You’ll notice patterns. Almost everyone has a natural cadence, and you can find your characters’ voice by looking to this. Again, for example:

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“I don’t know what yer talkin’ abut!”

What sets characterization apart from third-person narration is the presence of a conditional vocabulary. In the first example, the difference between the two altered the qualification we attributed to each. Here, both expressions can be used because we, as people, use different modes of communication; the latter may be the main character at home, and the former the same character in a more formal work environment. Characters react differently in context, which affects characters within the story more than narrators without.

Conclusion

The point of this essay boils down to three points:

a. A story is an effort by the writer to communicate to an audience;
b. The story is an effort by the narrator to communicate to the audience; and
c. The story is the result of the characters communicating to the characters.

It’s all a matter of communication. Experiment, experiment, experiment, and you’ll hear the voice you’re looking for. But be careful:

“Character and thought are merely overshadowed by a diction that is overbrilliant.”

– Aristotle

On Communication

Filed Under Guest Post | Leave a Comment

Because I’m dumb and messed up, Mitch’s guest post wasn’t actually posted. So here it is this week in two parts. Enjoy!

_________

By virtue of reading this blog, you are engaging in an act of communication. You may never respond to this post, or you may never respond to this author specifically. In some ways, the anonymity of the Internet ensures that unless you purposefully interact with the medium so as to express specific information you will never share a thing. But you are reading this, and it completes a chain of communication. I have sorted through my memory to recall information, have encoded this information through language into a structured set of coda, and utilized this particular medium to express this information as what you are now reading. You have completed a chain whether you reciprocate the act or not, and for that I thank you.

This is the basic skeleton for modern communication theories – most specifically, a form of David Berlo’s Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model of Communication. Remember, though, that as a skeleton, it is waiting to be fleshed out. What goes into the empty slots is entirely up to the discretion of the Sender.

Rather, the person who’s got something to say.

As a writer myself, I find it helpful to consider that every act, verbal and nonverbal, eloquent and blunt, written or spoken, constitutes a communicative act. Any and all interaction is an expression of ideas to which both parties contribute and expand. And unlike many other forms of communication, writing offers unparalleled control. Until the moment you share your work, you are in command of every last element of the piece. You don’t have to think of the font on the spot, and generally you don’t have to make yourself louder to have your word choice heard across a room. The piece has your indelible stamp on it.

But that independence requires that you take your work seriously. You’re at the helm of the entire operation, and thus it’s your responsibility to make everything fit together. Just like a carpenter has to brace his walls, you have to go the extra mile and consider as much as you can to ensure your finished product doesn’t fall in on itself.

It goes without saying that to accomplish this feat, you will have to contemplate the world your piece inhabits, measure plot, and check all the mechanical, nitty-gritty components that make the story a story. What I do want to emphasize is that in order to make the narrative’s house a home, so to speak, I have found that I have to really focus on communicating my pieces. Though I could go on for ages, here are two factors I’ve found have helped my focus – and can hopefully help yours:

1. The Narrator-to-Audience Factor

This is the cornerstone of any work of fiction, and its importance cannot be overstated. This is the focus of the story, the person/people/entity through whom we receive information and pick up cues as to whether or not to sympathize with the main character. It can be anything – a passage in a book, a floating spirit, even the protagonist itself – but it determines what is told when, and why. No matter what, even if there is no “true” protagonist, there is someone or something that clues us in on a set of information (the story) we otherwise do not have access to.

More importantly, though, the story can only be as clearly defined as its source. If we are thrust into a lover’s spat, for instance, a third-person omniscient narrator can give us valuable cues and get us quickly up to speed on the background, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the argument and the tension of the environment. But if that same omniscient narrator doesn’t give us information, we are left puzzled – two people are shouting, and we don’t know why.

In the same example, we could have the first-person narration of a best friend – someone who isn’t omniscient, but provides us with a context and establishes emotional stakes so we know right away the importance of the event. But if that first-person narration comes from, say, a passerby overhearing shouts from the street, we are once again left to decipher the information without a sense of direction.

In both cases, it isn’t the lack of information itself that leads to disengagement. After all, almost all murder mysteries hinge on the withholding of details until the big reveal. What is missing is a distinct voice from the narrator. This voice, no matter the form, qualifies the narrator in such a way as to lead us to accept or deny what they say, depending upon your story’s needs. For instance, compare the two passages below:

“Firebeard the Pirate captured a Spanish galleon. He then sent the captain to the brig.”

“Firebeard, the Pirate King, rammed into the foreign vessel with a mighty crush… Seizing the quivering captain, he guffawed. “Toss ‘im in the brig!”

With the same core action present in both, the second passage is more defined. This is accomplished by applying sensory details (the onomatopoetic “crush,” the visual “quivering,” etc.) that could only be known if the narrator had actually seen the action unfold. Thus, we find the narration more reliable, and affix more meaning to it. This is vital to a work of fiction because fiction still requires a modicum of plausibility to keep readers interested. It strives to achieve not a reality that isn’t true, but one that could be true.

Note, though, that we are still unclear as to the narrator’s identity. Consider every paragraph, every sentence, and even every word as a tool to further define both the storyteller and the story.

to be continued on Wednesday…

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  • Welcome

    new haircut

    Hi, I'm Jenn, new grad student and old YA fantasy writer. I've long dreamed of being a novelist, and I bet you have too. I hope you find my blog helpful, inspiring, and maybe just a little bit fun. (But not too much fun. Writing is serious business, you know.)

    You can follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or email me at:
    jennifer.a.johnson7 at gmail dot com

  • Official Progress


    4/21 segments

    A narrator hijacks a cliche fantasy story, much to the chagrin of its characters.

    Status: Second revision



    1,639/70,000 words
    A young noblewoman with strange powers must choose: her king or her soul.

    Status: First draft



    1,087/70,000 words
    When a girl's heart is stolen, she's plunged into a world of magic and shadows - but can she get her heart back before she loses it completely?

    Status: First draft





  • All writing, unless otherwise specified, is the property of
    Jennifer Johnson © 2010