Fantasist's Scroll

I have a lot I could write about.
If only I felt comfortable writing about it. Too much drama in my personal life and too many scary situations in my business life to really feel comfortable talking about here. (You can read more about that at The Diary of a Network Geek, if not now, soon.) So, why am I posting? I just can’t help myself.

I got an e-mail from The Writer’s Almanac this morning, as I do every morning, and it had two interesting birthdays in it. First, there was this about Hans Christian Anderson:

It’s the birthday of Hans Christian Anderson, (books by this author) born in Odense, Denmark (1805). Although he was most famous for his fairy tales, he never thought of himself as a children’s writer. He wrote novels, plays, poetry, and travel essays, many of which were at least as successful as the fairy tales. Although Europeans and Americans loved his work, he was scorned in his own country during his lifetime; Søren Kierkegaard once published a scathing essay about him. He never married, and when he became ill late in life, he went to live with a family on the coast near Copenhagen. He had breakfast in his room one morning, and was found in bed a little while later, dead, holding a love letter someone had written to him 45 years earlier.

That was interesting in and of itself, to me, because I never think of the writers of fairy tales as being “normal” people who might have had lives that included pain. In particular, when I think of Hans Christian Anderson, I think of the movie that starred Danny Kaye. How could you associate that with unrequited love?
But, what was really interesting was the birthday note that follow later in the e-mail:

It’s the birthday of the Italian writer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, born in Venice (1725). He spent the final years of his life as a librarian in a cold and drafty castle in Bohemia, and he set out to write his memoirs because, he said, it was “the sole remedy I believed I possessed to avoid going mad or dying of sorrow.” He left 4,000 pages of manuscript behind, some of which was later published under the title The Story of My Life.

What an interesting contrast. Two lovers. Two very different lives. Two very different kinds of love. I never would have thought of these two very different men ending up the way they did. Perhaps it is my own life that makes these stories resonate so with my own life right now. I do not know.
To be honest, I feel lonely. I’m thankful that I have my dog back, because she eases some of that pain. But, it’s different. So different. Am I lonely enough to write 4,000 pages about unrequited love and loneliness? No, probably not. But, it is a feeling I understand these days.

(Yeah, okay, so I’m being a little lazy and I put this on my other blog, The Diary of a Network Geek, first. So sue me!)

Does your writing have a sound track?
When you write, can you hear music in your head that matches the scene you’re writing? Frankly, I’d be suprised if you don’t. Maybe when you hit a stumbling block or a “tough scene”, the music fades away, but when things are rolling along, if you pay attention, I’ll bet there’s music up there. In a way, it’s almost inevitable, given how pervasive movies are in our culture. I know, for me, when I’m writing an action scene, I always hear music that matches the scene. And, what’s more, that musical score is influenced by movies that I’ve seen recently. For the longest time after seeing the Professional for the first time, every fight scene I saw in my mind’s eye was set to ethereal opera. And, then, after seeing some other movie, it was smooth jazz that provided the counter-point for all the action.
And, sometimes, when I need to capture a certain feel in my writing, I’ll put on a particular kind of music. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes slow, but almost always it’s different from how I’m feeling when I try to write and can’t quite get it. In my case, I know that music really effects my work because of my love for movies. Often, I’m trying to capture something with words that I can see in my head as clearly as if I’d seen it on a movie screen. One of the highest compliments I ever recieved was in writing class when the teacher told me that I had a very cinematic style of writing. (Though, in retrospect, I’m not sure he meant it as a compliment.)

So, here are three creativity exercises to try:
First, randomly pick a piece of music, play it and try to write what you feel when you listen to the music.
Second, pull out a story or scene that has given you trouble in the past. Now, put on some music, or different music than what you normally play while writing, and try to rework the piece with the different music setting the tone.
Third, as you write, or plan, your story, plan what music should be playing if someone were to make the story into a movie. Write, or rewrite, with that in mind.

But, most of all, keep writing!

I know a few things about human nature.
It may only be a few things, but they can be important, especially in fiction writing. When I was in high school an English teacher told me that the most dangerous people are those who feel they have nothing to lose. Think about that for a minute. It really makes sense. If a person feels like they have nothing left to lose by taking an extreme measure, of whatever kind, then what would stop them from doing it? What’s left to lose? Nothing, so there’s everything to gain.
And, anyone backed into a corner is libel to fight. That’s a two edged sword, though. First of all, it seems obvious that a person will fight if they’re forced into it. Nothing all that remarkable there, right? Well, take that with the other statement and you’ll see that a combination of these two things can make for a deadly opponent. Secondly, can you imagine a person who would NOT fight when backed into a corner? Why would they not fight? What could make them so deviate from the “normal” response?

In both cases, you have potential for great characters. Imagine a tragic hero who loses everything and feels that they must strike back. Surely they will make a formidable foe who will not rest until justice is served. Or, suppose that it’s a villain. Truly, an understandable, possibly likeable, antagonist who will devil the hero endlessly. Great plots there.
But, the more interesting is the “hero” with a learned helplessness syndrome. How can they win with so much going against them? What makes them panic and how do they go about avoiding it or dealing with it? Lots of room for character development there.

So, enough about human nature, go forth and write!

Well, not quite that bad…
Still, having read a plethora of fiction set in a variety of time periods, I can tell you, one of the biggest mistakes modern writers make is using modern language in historical settings. Or, worse, completely misusing historical language. This seems to be an especially large problem for new or amatuer writers of fantasy or historicals set in the pre-1900’s. Luckily, C. J. Cherryh has an answer for those poor unfortunate souls: Pre- and Post-1900’s Language. It’s far from complete, which she admits herself, but it’s certainly better than nothing and it is a great place to start.
Also, anyone looking at creating their own world, with its own linguistic twists on English, would do well to look through this file. It’s a great look at ways that English usage has changed, especially in terms of slang and common usage.

Today is Frank Herbert’s Birthday.

Of course, we haven’t had him with us since 1986, the year I graduated from high-school, but his work lives on. Mr. Herbert is primarily known for his seminal work, Dune, and the Dune books that followed. Though, interestingly enough, he never intended to write sequels.
Often refered to as the science-fiction Lord of the Rings, Dune and the books that followed detail an amazingly rich science-ficiton culture. The novels are some of the first to have detailed political and sociological sub-plots, not to mention ecological sub-plots! The way Mr. Herbert used religion in his work is quite interesting as well. In a genre that often avoids discussing religion, he explored the topic in detail and with a depth that was personally inspiring.

There hasn’t been anyone else quite like Frank Herbert and I am in awe of the ways in which he influenced the genre.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Ah, if only Lovecraft could live on in that eternal life beyond death. But, alas, he cannot and we have only his tremendous body of work to keep us company. Never the less, knowing that it is his birthday, I feel compeled to mention it.

Also, the Vancouver Gaming Guild is celebrating H. P. Lovecraft’s birthday with a convention! So, if you’re in the area, why not check it out?

A different kind of fun…

Once I remember reading that William Gibson said that he didn’t need to make up science-fiction, he just had to describe down-town Tokyo, or something to that effect. Well, imagine my excitement then, when I found this Tokyo MoBlog! (A moblog, by the way, is a MObile weBLOG, get it?) So, here’s a whole bunch of inspiration for science-ficiton: random pictures of Tokyo.

All joking aside, some of these are really lovely pictures of a city that I may never visit. Tokyo, and Japan, is as close to an alien society as a Westerner like me can get in our lifetime. It’s as alien to me as anything in Star Wars, but it’s right here on Earth.

Anyway, have fun with the pictures….

Today is William Gibson’s Birthday!

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock, or are freshly hatched from the Great Egg, William Gibson is one of the fathers of the cyberpunk movement. He’s generally credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and popularizing a somewhat more realistic, if sometimes bleak, view of the future.
He also ran away to Canada in 1968 to avoid the draft. Which is the only bad thing I can say about him. I otherwise admire his work and thought processes. Certainly his literature is beyond compare.
If you’re interested in science-fiction at all and haven’t read any of his work, you have no idea what science-fiction really is. And not the movies, either, you have to actually read his work.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Bill.