Another One Bites the Dust

I am a quitter. I became one when I withdrew from the athletics course at the local private school mid-season. I had my reasons. Some would and did argue that I should have stuck with it, gutted it out, put on my big boy undies and finished the season. After all, that’s part of what sports are about. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for cutting your losses, and the first law of holes. Now I’m thinking about quitting again. Maybe not outright quitting, let’s call it placing something on the shelf, because we can’t justify leaving it out all of the time.

Writing is hard. This might sound strange to some people. Writing is a lot like talking, and few things are easier. Unlike talking, however, writing gives us the chance to slow down and choose the best words, not merely reach for the adequate ones we keep on hand, or tongue, as it were. Writing allows us to organize our thoughts, to be precise in the way we present them. When done carefully, it mitigates the chances that we will be misunderstood. When done hastily, however, it is worse than talking because it has the same jumbled words and free association that talking carries, without the benefit of voice tone and facial expression to help clarify the broadcaster’s intent. Consequently, my rule is “at least try to write well or don’t write at all.” It’s been hard to write well, lately.

Maybe I’m not trained well enough, or maybe I don’t love the craft enough to find a workaround, but I find I can only think of the next few lines in advance. It sounds different in my head than it looks in Times New Roman, so I usually scrap anything more than two lines thinking ahead. After that I’m following the thread to see where it goes, tweaking and fiddling along the way. Sometimes I go off and write the wrong thing. Then I have to backtrack to find where I went wrong and try to fix it. It’s a time consuming process, a thought intensive process, one I need to work at continuously to get somewhere. My current position in life does not allow for many huge blocks of time to be alone with my word processor, and when it does, I find myself fleeing to a mindless game to clear the head instead of trying to fill it with genuine dialogue and apt metaphor.

I like writing. I may even love it. I like the rhythm of the keyboard, and trying to see how long I can go before I have to hear the sound of the backspace, distinct from the other keys and a slightly awkward reach for my right hand ring finger. I like to see a sentence that isn’t quite right, then place a comma or rearrange the words, or pick a better one and fix it. I like to read what I have written and think, “this guy is smart, I could be his friend,” which is not a little narcissistic but I am being honest with you and this is the way I feel. Perhaps what I like most is when I nail it, and I write something that tricks the reader into thinking they are in another universe. That makes me something of a magician, and that is what I want to be when I grow up. But my stream of thought is interrupted a lot and this is nobody’s fault.

My family needs me. They need my time, they need my attention, and they need it in periodic bursts. When the kids are awake they have diapers that need changing, tummies that need feeding, messes that need to be cleaned up, and most of all, they need to know they are loved. Writing doesn’t tell them they are loved. Writing tells them that daddy loves the computer. Same goes with my wife. She works all day and is recovering from surgery. We only have a few short hours to be with one another while the kids are asleep (one of them sleeping in her arms). I need these hours to take advantage of having both hands free and knock out some cleaning, make sure she’s resting, catch up with her with conversation that is not interrupted by the latest toddler/infant crisis. Writing doesn’t clean the dishes or the clothes. Writing doesn’t tell her she is loved. Writing tells her I love the narrative, that I want my “me” time, that there are other things that are more important than she is, which really isn’t true.

These obstacles are one of the reasons why I haven’t made any progress in about a month. I do some planning, get excited to write, then get stymied by my real life which makes me cranky, then I am rude to people and have to apologize later and in the meantime, nothing got written. It’s a net loss for everyone, and this is not what writing is supposed to do. Writing is supposed to bring joy, hope and wonder to the people, not frustration. So that’s why I’m thinking about quitting. Or shelving. For now.

More Legos!

Life flows faster at some times, and this is one of those places where mine has reached narrower banks, creating a back pressure and increasing the flow rate because volume hasn't really reduced at all. You know, Bernoulli and all that. I am sure you know what I am talking about. Anyway, an esteemed colleague of mine asked for some help with a narrative to accompany his custom Lego dinosaur collection. He needed an excuse for dinosaurs and humans to interact without either cloning or magic time portals involved. Since I have nothing else to blog about at this time, I am sharing my idea with all of you.
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Deep in the heart of darkness*, cloaked by layered canopies of trees from above, shielded by acres of tangled undergrowth, sleeplessly guarded by billions of disease carrying insects, a race of titanic reptilian creatures have dwelt and thrived for millennia unbeknownst to all but the most indigenous of tribes. Recent changes in temperature and humidity have driven these gargantuan beasts from their ancient home, triggering a frenzy in the fields of paleontology, herpetology, and wildlife photography as experts leap at the opportunity to observe and study what we formerly believed to be extinct creatures.

At the forefront of the venture is the newly formed International Dinosaur Investigation and Observation Team (name subject to change) led by the bold, square jawed, stubbly chinned Conrad Charles. Together they seek to photograph, classify and catalog living dinosaurs, the most exciting and significant biological event since the discovery of dead dinosaurs.

It isn’t long, however, until Charles and Company discover that they, well, they have company, and not the welcome kind, either. Hoping to line their pockets with sales to traditional Chinese medical practitioners and multibillion dollar playboys, poachers are in a dead heat with the Team to find the dinos! Then again, maybe these giant lizards don’t need I.D.I.O.T. to keep them safe…

*In the bicuspid valve to be exact, between the left atria and left ventricle

The Secret Grove Pt. 5

This should be my last post about Secret Grove, at least for a while. This is where I compare my novel, “First Monday Park,” against the genre to determine how conventional my ideas are and whether it has traditional appeal.

Child Protagonists: Yes. My protagonists are ages 8 through 12, so according to trade wisdom my target audience is 6 to 10. However, the vocabulary is a bit much for 6 and I don’t believe the limit is 10. My hope is that anyone who has been ages 8 through 12 will be able to identify with the characters and enjoy the narrative.

Orphaned or Child of a Single Parent: No. My kids don’t get to blame lack of parents, or even lack of loving parents, for their problems. Critiques of “First Monday” from my English instructors so far have been something along the lines of, “Lovely prose, smart characters, but what is their problem? What will they have to overcome?” They want me to make the parents abusive, or some other obvious, ugly flaw. I would rather highlight more subtle, common problems that we acquire as children and carry into adulthood; self-identity, finding the balance of individuality and acceptance from peers, etc.

Entrance to a Fantastic World: Yes. I’m still trying to decide exactly how fantastic it is and how I am going to fill some potential plot holes in this regard, but they definitely go to another world and it is totes awesome.

Through a portal: Yes. The book spends a pretty long time on our side, actually. It’s one of the weaknesses of the narrative, but I don’ think it drags when you read it. Maybe I’m wrong.

Travel Buddies: Yep. There are no fewer than five. I’m writing in 3^rd person with close psychic distance and rotating character point of view, so every child is a protagonist one chapter and supporting cast in the remaining four. Other writers have strong objections to this idea. They don’t like the idea of switching characters at all, saying that every reader will inevitably pick a favorite and be disappointed that the entire narrative is not related from their point of view. Decide which character is the most interesting, they tell me, and make that one the protagonist.

I think this is bad advice. I’m attempting to have wide appeal, and selecting a protagonist means isolating a gender. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, of course. Girls love Harry Potter and guys root for Katniss Everdeen, but my reasoning goes beyond gender. I cannot pick the most interesting character because they are all interesting. They have their own challenges, and help one another through them using their unique strengths and personalities. My goal with multiple protagonists is to point out that we are all stars in our own narratives, and also co-stars, supporting cast, and “person sitting on bench” in other people’s narratives.

As for the high number of protagonists, well, that’s hard. I want mixed genders and I want friends, not just family. Eliminating one character would throw off the group dynamic, making it unlikely that any of the kids would be friends. Joyce Carol Oats commands young writers to “kill your darlings” when needed, and this may be one of those times, but I’m going to try to get away with it first.

Guides: Yes. Haven’t figured out exactly how many guides, or how long they stick around, but there will be some guiding happening.

The Ultimate Evil: Yes, but I want two villains, one obvious and one subtle. I’d rather not stray into spoiler territory just yet.

Prophecy: No. At this point in literature I think prophecies are a crutch. We need to come up with other ways for children to be impactful and relevant.

Allegory: Gosh, I hope not after last week’s harangue. Still, Lewis was both critical and one of the worst offenders, so I make no promises.

Time Discrepancies: No. Again, I was tough on this trope earlier so it would be inconsistent for me to use it. Note that I have not two but four loving parents, so how am I going to explain five missing children for an extended period? How indeed?

“First Monday Park” has six of ten conventions of the genre. It isn’t the definitive Secret Grove, neither would I venture to say it is the perfect one. However, I think I hit the most important elements and bypass those that are deemed necessary plot hole fillers.

Here I go to work on it some more.

The Secret Grove Pt. 4

Here we go, more Secret Grove stuff. This would have been a college paper, but I graduated and have no other venue. You’re welcome.

Last week we looked at travel buddies, guides, the ultimate evil villain, and prophecies. Today we address allegorical challenges and time discrepancies.

Allegorical Challenges: Allegories are essentially extended metaphors with a philosophical or moral objective. When done right they clarify complicated ideas and moisturize dry reading. The most popular examples are Plato’s cave found in “Republic,” Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene,” and Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

As a general rule, allegory and entertainment are not natural partners. It’s fine for Plato because no one reads “Republic” expecting to be entertained, but to be educated. The cave helps us understand the philosophical concept we want to learn. However, when we look for entertainment and find a sermon in its place, we become irked. Peeved, even, and we think dirty thoughts at the author for tricking us, and taking our story in the wrong direction. Smart novelists try to avoid allegory.

Not writing allegory, however, isn’t always easy. J.R.R. Tolkien said, “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations,” but his seminal work is rife with political and religious symbolism. His friend C.S. Lewis wrote to him concerning “The Lord of the Rings, “The two things that came out clearly were the sense of reality in the background and the mythical value: the essence of myth being that it should have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest incipient allegories to the reader.” Thus, Lewis advocates flirting with allegory without fully crossing into it. There are times, however, when Lewis steps, and even throws himself, across that line. The second of his space trilogy, “Perelandra,” and many novels in “The Chronicles of Narnia” are arguably allegorical. He isn’t alone. So is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” “The Phantom Tollbooth,” “The Neverending Story,” as well as the Christian and anti-Christian series that have been written in response to Lewis’s series. Allegory in entertainment is supposedly distasteful, but Secret Grove is lousy with them.

 There are three reasons that allegory and Secret Grove apparently go together like stink and cheese. First, Secret Gove tends toward Fantasy, and Fantasy handily lends itself to allegory. Since Fantasy authors are given more than typical allowance to invent their settings and the personalities that inhabit them, the temptation to make a fantasy world symbolize the author’s pet issue has proven irresistible many times over. Second, kids have less experienced than adults. It’s hard to recognize the sexual symbolism of vampires before puberty, for example, so the symbolism often flies over their heads. Finally, people love to preach but hate to sit in the pew. Reading through a lecture, no matter how imaginative it may be, implies the reader has some sort of deficiency. Adults don’t like to be told they have a deficiency unless they already know it, but kids are used to having their shortcomings listed in detail all of the time. When they do recognize the symbolism they shrug and accept it because everyone else tells them what to do, so it’s no big deal when their books join in the fun.

There is reason to believe, however, that if kids had the choice they’d rather not be preached at, either. When 5 year old Malachai Nicole got the chance to write his own stories with his adult brother illustrating them into graphic novel form we were given Axe Cop, containing narratives that have shown surprising depth with plot twists, foreshadowing and sympathetic villains alongside bizarre physics and copious poop jokes. However, it takes a child psychologist, not a literary analyst, to find the symbolism in the maelstrom of distilled awesome that is Axe Cop. Go ahead, try it. I dare you.

Time Discrepancies: As explained three weeks ago, the end of any given Secret Grove can be predicted fairly easily. If the protagonist’s surviving parent lives in the alternate fantasy world, they will get to stay, leaving their foster family behind. Nobody cares that the foster parents will probably do some prison time for not being able to explain what happened to the child placed under their care, because they were jerks and they had it coming. If the child has one or more loving parent(s) back home, they will return to this world to discover that “time works differently” for the parallel worlds, and nobody will have even noticed they were gone. Exceptions, are early Secret Groves “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and the film version of “Oz” opted for the cheap, “but it was all just a dream” trick that nobody finds clever. Additionally, J.M. Barrie completely ignores this trope and shows real world consequences for children’s adventures. Director Steven Spielberg upholds Barrie’s vision in his 1991 film “Hook.”

Time dilation is used because it solves “the parent problem.” Under normal circumstances, parents will notice if their kids are gone longer than an hour. Heck, they’ll notice if everything is quiet for 15 minutes. There are plausible excuses for allowing the kids to disappear for an hour or two, but after they miss dinner it gets hairy. If they show up any later than two hours tops, parents will demand to know where they were. The kid essentially has only one option: lie. If they initially tell the truth their parents will not believe them and insist on a more plausible answer than “the fairies kidnapped me, I swear.” If the kid persists in telling the truth they will wind up in counseling, either to mend their lying ways, or to uncover the horrific trauma they must have experienced in order to develop such a complex illusion for themselves. That option shuttles us off into dark grown-up territory that is completely out of character with the rest of our lighthearted children’s narrative. Or we could just say, “time works differently” and it just so happens to work differently in our favor, so nobody has to lie in order to avoid getting punished for having an adventure. The unintended consequence is that, like the “it was a dream” trick, the rest of the narrative is cheapened. Narnia leaves no hint of its existence behind save in the memories and imaginations of the children who have been there, but Neverland? Neverland is real.

Next week: a rundown of which tropes I want to keep, which I want to break, how I want to break them and why.

The Secret Grove Pt. 3

Last week we covered the reasons behind four key Secret Grove conventions; child protagonists, often orphaned or child of a single parent, enter a new, fantastic world through a portal. Today we tackle the following conventions; travel buddies, guides, the ultimate evil villain, and prophecies.

Travel Buddies: Dorothy picked up several friends on her yellow brick adventures that turned out to be an irresponsible practical joke on the part of Glenda “The Good” Witch, but she had Toto from the beginning. In “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles” and “The Tower of Geburah,” it is a family of three with identical gendered birth order that make their journeys. Once again, C.S. Lewis uses a variety of mix and matches with siblings, family members and friends for each of his novels. Also once again, “The Horse and His Boy” is excluded because, despite taking place in the same universe, it does not qualify as a Secret Grove.

The friend/sibling (hereafter referred to as “friebling”) is brought along as reassurance for the protagonist, to raise the stakes, and if the author is feeling preachy, to teach a valuable lesson about friendship. When crossing the otherworldly threshold it is comforting to have someone from the original world to remind you of who you really are and what is important. The friebling is an anchor to reality. That same friebling, however, can be vulnerable in the new world and become a focal point for rescue operations, from imprisonment by the ultimate evil and possibly part of a “Sadistic Choice.” The best example would be Peeta from “The Hunger Games,” who serves all of these roles flawlessly, but with sexual tension and love triangle elements thrown in to satisfy YA audiences.

It appears a balance needs to be struck with the number of kids. Lewis starts with four, but with limited word count it is difficult to make all of the characters sympathetic and compelling. We feel limited connection to Susan in particular, so Lewis pares the number down to three in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” It still feels a little crowded with Edmund in the mix, so he works with pairs for the rest of the series. Many others work with three children, possibly to extend character identity to any possible reader. Birth order is a defining factor for children. Three kids allows a child to relate to the oldest, middle or youngest without superfluous characters running around.

Guides: When dropped into a completely alien socio/political situation that may or may not involve unfamiliar creatures, natural laws and/or technologies, both the protagonist and reader are in desperate need of exposition. Who better to deliver the 411 than the first person the protagonist meets, a person who happens not only to speak the same language as the protagonist, but also has an identical values system and access to the Prophecies? This time saving trope greases the plot and moves the characters along to the exciting stuff. Let’s face it, a logical progression of these events would be tedious. Tedium is bad for any book, but kids are far less forgiving than adults. Why do you think the training montage is a thing?

The Ultimate Evil: Antagonists are amazing. They are the yin to the protagonist’s yang, the shadow cast by a heroes’ light, they are harmonization, counterbalance, salt in the mashed potatoes. Villains define heroes. They give heroes agency, purpose. We wouldn’t cheer for the plucky underdogs half as hard if their opponents were gracious sportsmen. We wouldn’t root for the hapless suitor if his potential father-in-law were patient and reasonable. Think about Luke without Vader, or Enigo without Rugen. Without Jafar, Aladdin is just a homeless creep with an elaborate con to get into Jasmin’s fashionable Hammer pants. In its original 1981 rendition, without the eponymous villain Donkey Kong, the princess does not require rescue, Jumpman has no barrels to jump over, no chance to prove his mettle, no chance to become Mario. These examples show that villains first provide the skeleton of a plot. Second, they contrast with heroes to bring out their best qualities.

You can experiment with villains. Make the villain someone unexpected (Watchmen). Make the hero only slightly morally superior to the villain (Interview with the Vampire). Reverse morality so the villain is the protagonist (The Godfather). Make the villain more sympathetic than the hero (The Phantom of the Opera). Make the hero and villain personal friends (X-Men). Make the hero realize that he is really the villain (I Am Legend). Make the protagonists realize that the villain is not really a villain, and it was all just a huge misunderstanding (The Sandlot). Make the hero and the villain the same person (spoiler!). Or you can just go with the straight, inexplicably malicious, rotted soul, black as carbon villain to contrast your gold hearted hero. You can do just about anything except leave villains out.

Another function villains serve is to raise the stakes. If your protagonist saves a child from being hit by a car they are a helpful bystander. If the driver of that car is drunk they are a hero. If the driver of that car is Adolph Hitler they are a saint. The status of the protagonist changes on merit of the antagonist alone, without having to do anything extra. Therefore, when the villain’s evil plan involves not only murdering a few innocents, not only world domination, but tearing the fabric of space-time itself and destroying all worlds in the multiverse both known and unknown, the heroism of the protagonists is immediately elevated to the highest degree.

Children’s literature offers extra challenges to the villainous character. The bad guy can’t do anything too graphic like eat foie gras made from baby livers or sell puppies into prostitution. Their activities must sound menacing without being too specific, such as destroying souls or making it atmospherically unpleasant for like, a really long time. Forever, even. Anything longer than five minutes is forever in kid time anyway. Thus, a balance must be struck; make the villain too soft and you end up with a petty, ineffectual, comical non-threat like Disney’s Captain Hook. Get too crazy and you emotionally scar your audience for life, like Der Struwwelpeter. Even if you strike that sweet spot of appropriately foreboding yet not quite nightmare fuel, you aren’t out of the woods. You may find your villain has more charisma and commands more interest than your hero. Finally, if your book takes off and your publisher asks you to spin it into a series, you may be tempted to reuse your perfect villain over and over, even against logic and to the detriment of their potency.

The Prophecy: This is not a product of Secret Grove specifically, but a combination of Child Protagonists facing the Ultimate Evil. Even in a fantastic world, there is typically not a lot of reason to trust a child with the fate of your chicken sandwich, much less the world. Unless, that is, there is a prophecy that legitimizes the child as a hero. The Prophecy is yet another device to streamline the narrative so we can get to the good stuff, with the added benefit of doubt and angst three quarters into the book due to the vague nature of prophecy. The author can tack on a lesson on either determinism or the malleable nature of fate should they choose.

I don’t know why I dislike the prophetic plot device other than the fact that it has been done so often.  When prophecies are mentioned, the proceeding conversation about who believes what, the vagueness of the text etc. is boring because it is predictable. I’d like to see a book try to plausibly have child protagonists face the ultimate evil without the support of ancient prophecies. In fact, I’d like to see that so much I just might try it myself.

Next week we’ll discuss allegory, and the consequences or lack thereof resulting from the magical journey.