Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing, as defined by Dictionary.com, means “to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure.”

Foreshadowing allows for the writer to turn rather innocuous or unimportant details into something that carries significance at the end of the work because of the way they move the story along and/or affect the characters. Two things are key: Atmosphere and symbolism. Atmosphere allows the reader to get a feel of the mood, what emotions they should feel for the character and what sort of importance this place or overall mood has on the character itself.

Foreshadowing often works hand-in-hand with the symbolic meanings of things, people or events according to that characters universe; or with the characters own desires and fears, as a way for the writer to “tell the future” of that event or character without spoiling the journey.

But in order to foreshadow future events, you must first have a plan. A set up. Like building a house, you must have a foundation before you can begin on anything else. With foreshadowing, your foundation is what you want to foreshadow. Do you want to foreshadow a death? A character having to face a fear? A character having to do something in order to reach his goal? Or maybe you want to foreshadow a big revelation that throws everything off track?

A good film that shows a form of simple foreshadowing and a character overcoming his obstacle to continue his journey, is Disney’s The Haunted Mansion. In it, the main character’s son is afraid of spiders and won’t squish one on his bedroom window with a rolled up magazine. Later on in the film, the main character and his daughter are trapped in the mausoleum where they had to search for a key to solve the mystery of the mansion. When the door closes, trapping them inside with zombies that have come alive, wanting the key back, the son must open the door. Only problem is, big spiders crawl out of the door and he doesn’t want to get near them. In order to save his father and sister from the zombies, he has to face his fear of spiders and open the door.

Whatever it is, you must scatter clues early in the manuscript in order for any future events concerning those clues to have any sort of impact. In her blog post about foreshadowing, blogger Debz Hobbs-Wyatt says: “…Don’t draw the reader’s attention to something, some aspect of a character’s personality, like a phobia of spiders, if you don’t draw on it later.”

It might take a few drafts, but, if done subtly, foreshadowing also allows you to reveal things about a character, using bits and pieces of backstory to foreshadow reactions and fears that may lead to certain decisions and actions later in the novel.

Foreshadowing can incite many emotions but there are three chief emotion “types” of foreshadowing:

1. Doubt/ Dread: The foreshadowing that incites doubt or dread, like any scene in the novel, should fit with the character and situation. This type should be foreboding, incite worry for the character.

An example of that type of foreshadowing is shown in Suzanne Collins’s YA dystopian fantasy, The Hunger Games, when Katniss tells her little sister, Primrose, that she won’t be picked for the Reaping and sent to die in the Hunger Games, where children are forced to kill each other for the entertainment of the public. The reader feels Katniss’s dread about Prim being chosen for the Games—but this foreshadows Prim’s name being chosen and Katniss’s choice to go in her place.

2. Excitement/Anticipation: This type is the kind of foreshadowing that makes people curious as to how things connect, how this symbol, event, or character, associates with the rest of the story. Most often, this foreshadowing is used to indirectly suggest an outcome for a character or event.

An example of this type of foreshadowing occurs early in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy, The Wheel of Time, in book one The Eye of the World. In it, Moiraine, an Aes Sedai—a magician who can wield the One Power—tells Egwene, an innkeeper's daughter from the village of Emond`s Field who can wield the One Power, that she “…may go far. Perhaps even the Amyrlin Seat one day, if you study hard and work hard.” The Amyrlin Seat, while also being a chair where the head of the Aes Sedai sits, is also the title given to them, likened to a king or queen. Much later in the series, just as Moiraine said, Egwene does become leader of the Aes Sedai order.

3. Surprise/Shock: This type of foreshadowing often comes with a huge revelation or an event that the character didn’t expect. With a reader, the foreshadowing specifically for that moment will often come during the second time reading the novel as they see what led up to the climax, what clues they were given by the writer to try and piece together the character’s journey.

An example of this is in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third novel in the Harry Potter series. For this example, I’ll only be using the events from the film adaptation as it’s been a while since I’ve read the novel and do not currently have it on hand. In both the novel and the film, Hermione seems to be taking two classes at the same time and managing to be present for each. Ron and Harry can’t figure out how she can be in two places at one time. It’s revealed near the end of the film, that Hermione has been using a Time Turner—a device that allows the user to go back in time—in order to take two classes in the same time slot. Using the Time Turner, Harry and Hermione travel back to save a supposedly “dangerous” Hippogriff, named Buckbeak, from being slaughtered. Using Buckbeak’s ability to fly, the pair are also able to retrieve Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, from Azkaban.

Earlier in the film, the event that foreshadows the use of the Time Turner itself, is when Harry, Hermione and Ron visit Hagrid and, somehow, end up being hit with thrown snail shells. When the Time Turner is used, Harry uses these shells (in much the same manner as before) to get the attention of his “alternate timeline” self, thus changing the outcome of many events.

Have you noticed examples of foreshadowing in the books you’ve been reading? If so, what are some of the types you've seen?

- HC

Don’t Talk About the Weather

Over the last few years, writers have been hearing a lot of fuss about certain types of openings in books, and one of the most hated openings for agents and publishers - and veteran writers - is the dreaded weather opening.

You’ve seen them. Those books that start with something like, “The sun rose high over the crystalline water…” Or “Thunder rumbled over the little hamlet…” But why are these sorts of starts considered no-no’s?

Starts like these are often used by beginning writers who see this as an easy way to bring the reader into the world of the story. But where novices seem to think they’re interesting, more often than not they’re boring and slow. These starts are rarely half as interesting as the writers would think.

But, we have all read more than a few openings based on weather in many a bestselling novel, and writers have found success with such beginnings. Is there a trick to constructing an effective opening to a novel based on the weather going on outside your house right now? What if you just have to start with this kind of opening? How do you get the attention of an agent or a publisher instead of landing in the slush pile?

Based on several novels I’ve read on writing by bestselling novelists, including The Breakout Novelist by literary agent Donald Maass, there are three tricks to creating an effective weather opening.

1)      Make the weather active.

2)      Incorporate tension into the prose

3)      Tie the weather into the conflict of the plot if possible.

Now keep in mind I’m not an expert, and the examples are off the top of my head, so they won’t be stellar or publish-ready. But they should be good enough to illustrate my point. So let’s take a look at these aspects one at a time.

Make the weather active.

What do I mean by active? By this I mean, write the description of the weather so that it appears to be doing something. Active as appose to passive.

I’m told this is very hard to do, and I think for most, it is. But for me, this is the easiest of the three. Look at the example below to see what I mean.

I sat on my bed, watching the rain pour down from the sky, leaving watery trails on my windowpane. The sky looked down, a gun-metal gray that did nothing for my already sour mood. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

Now if you really pay attention to that paragraph, it isn’t entirely bad. In fact, after the first two lines, it could work for a compelling opening. It raises lots of questions and produces tension. What crimes? What evidence? What piece of critical evidence will the rain wash away? The wording suggests something ominous and perhaps even horrible happened before the character came across the page. Questions abound. Which is what you want in the opening of a novel. It’s the first two lines that are the problem. Why? Because nothing is happening. The words just lie on the page, evoking no emotion, no curiosity, no desire to read on. And we all know, first impressions are everything. You only have ten seconds to hook a reader. It’s within that first ten seconds of opening a novel that readers often decide whether to pick up a book by a new author or move onto something else. So how do we change the first two lines to make them stronger? First, make them more active. Use more compelling word choices. Let’s see that again.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, relentless as the thoughts that threatened to drown me in my own fear. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed. I pushed them off and they scattered, as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside.  The sky glared, a cold, steely grey slab. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

See the difference? The weather in the second example not only does something, but it seems to take on a personality, and one that fits to set a tone for a story. Do you want to read more? Good. That’s the point.

But we’re not done yet. The start of the paragraph is better, but it could be better still. So let’s add the second layer, the tension. The changes to the start of the paragraph already created some tension, but it’s too low key. And it’s a bit derivative. We need more. Try this.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, relentless as my own whirling thoughts. The memories of what he’d done held my mind in a stranglehold of panic, icy as the coming winter. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed. I pushed them off and they scattered, as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside. The sky glared, a cold, steely grey slab. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

That’s better, isn’t it? See how the weather takes on a menacing tone that seems to match the unnamed character our heroine is worried about? The suggestion of an unpleasant character rests in the wording, and rather than merely laying on the page in static repose, the weather only serves to amplify the sense of alarm. But can we make it better still by adding the third layer?

This, tying weather description into the plot of your story, is perhaps the hardest part. For this to work, not only do you need the active tone and tension, but the weather has to somehow either produce or increase the conflict in the story. This, without feeling like it’s contrived. Let’s see what we can do to fill our paragraph with weather induced conflict.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, its deluge cutting off my only escape. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed, the images holding my mind in a stranglehold of panic icy as the coming winter. I pushed them off the bed, and they scattered as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside.  By now the banks would be flooded. I wouldn’t get far. The sky glared, a cold, steely gray slab. Power lines stretched across the horizon, near the too small house, lightning strikes causing flashes of electricity to play across them in deadly arcs. If I fled, a single strike would stop my heart. The realization struck like a blow to the chest. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away the only evidence of his crimes.

Whoa. Now it’s getting interesting. That paragraph breathes conflict. I’m not saying agents would jump at the chance to read a book that started with this, but I trust you see my point. In general, readers don’t care about weather. They want something to happen, something exciting, intriguing, interesting. And publishers and agents get so many manuscripts a day, so you need to really wow them to get them to read past the first line. The standard rule is that weather is none of those things. It doesn’t wow. But there are ways to use even weather as an effective hook. If you can make your weather riveting, do it. If not, best pass up the sunny opening in your head for something more gripping.

Raven

Bits O' Wisdom: Bye Bye Query

While our previous posts on query letters have covered most of the dos and don'ts, I thought I'd give a quick refresher on the top 7 sins that will get your query tossed out so fast it will make your head spin.

1. Voice
Just because you're writing a children's book, doesn't mean you should sound like one in your query. Or like a teen if you are a YA author. Inauthentic voice will make any agent cringe.

2. Open with a Question
What would you do if....?? The dots aren't for you to finish the question. They're there because the agent/editor is no longer reading.

3. TMI
If there are too many plotlines, characters, etc...the agent might feel like your story is too all over the place. You'll get the boot.

4. Cliches
Avoid them. Especially cliched plotlines. Cynical girl meets the 'right' boy and changes her mind. Or stuff like: "On that day, his/her life will be forever changed." *gags*

5. Word Vomit (not the good kind)
Going on and on won't help you. Don't mistake your query for a long winded synopsis. It's not. Stick to the basics. Hook, MC, What's at stake.

6. Bragging
Don't describe your writing. Let your voice shine through and your writing speak for itself.

7. Vampires
Unless you TRULY have a UNIQUE take on them, most agents/editors nowadays won't even read once they see that word.

Have you committed one of these sins? I've been guilty myself, I'll admit it. What others would you add to this list?

Rebooting Clichés

After finishing Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES, a YA dystopian novel, it made me think of how the author had managed to make her characters suffer, provide a good pace and write excellent, grabbing hooks while also keeping the story fresh. Original. Now, maybe it’s not as original as I thought--maybe it’s like an awful lot of dystopian fiction out there? Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve read YA or scanned the bookstore shelves for something to read—but it was enough to keep my interest, enough to want to finish the rest of the series.

 I’ve often wondered why I’ve passed through the library or bookstore, looking for something and eventually leaving almost disappointed. I think I’ve finally figured out why: the originality of ideas are slim.

A strange question that’s bugged me all week, while trying to brainstorm an idea for a possible NanoWriMo project, is: How do writers twist things to make possible clichés or overdone ideas fresh again?

Now, I know everything’s already been done. It can’t be helped that something you came up with follows a pattern—whether due to the genre, characters or situation, but something you can help is the uniqueness of the idea. Putting your own spin on it, twisting the cliché into something that readers haven’t heard before or into something relatively new.

Only question is: “How?”

One way is to play around with the cliché. Figure out what makes it cliché and overdone and try to do the opposite or change elements of that idea to create something that is fresh such as the damsel-in-distress becoming the heroine. Another way is—depending on the requirements of your story—is there a way to blend genres or to mix two different pieces of an idea together to put a new spin on the plot itself? A good example of this is the series of Shrek films done by Dreamworks, using clichés to create comedy. You can also use clichés and change them to fit a more serious or dramatic subject matter or genre such as the TV show Heroes—taking the cliché of the superhero and making the characters almost super normal, with no idea how deeply they are connected, or in some cases, that they exist.

However, clichés also appear when creating inhuman characters or entire races of creatures, not just in plotting. When designing new creatures or new races for your world, consider blending animal and human traits in unexpected ways. However, if this creature is to become a major character or have prominent parts in the story, your readers have to be able to relate to him or her—so it’s important to humanize the character.

An excellent example of humanizing an alien or a human with otherworldly abilities is Spiderman. Alternately, the creators could have had Spiderman look like a spider, however, they chose to keep him a human, but gave him spider abilities such as climbing walls and shooting webs from his wrists.

This method of creating a new species and, if needed, adding humanizing traits, allows for a fresh spin on the typical use of creatures that may have either just been used as pets, methods of transportation, or as weapons. Plus it works well with the world-building of your story—with this new creature the myths and origins can be created by the writer, and thus enriches the novel’s culture with something possibly unheard of.

While trying to avoid clichés, questions you can ask while creating your novel, are the typical: who, what, where, when and, most importantly, how? Who is your character? What or who are they searching for in your novel? Where is your novel set? What time period is it set? How do the events relate to each other and the characters themselves?

Also, ask yourself the big question: “What if?” What if the bomb went off? What if one of them dies? What if one of the characters had a terminal illness? What if he or she had this habit? The possibilities are endless. One way to make otherwise cliché things new again is to add something unusual or unheard of to it, to put the theme in a new light or maybe tell the story in a new POV (point of view).

Another important question to ask yourself is: “Why?” Why did you choose to tell the story this way? Why use this POV and what purpose will this character serve? Why blend these two genres or elements, what purposes will they serve in the scope of your novel? Asking why as you build your novel, with the intentions of twisting and changing clichés, will help determine if the idea works, whether or not the changed cliché helps or hinders your intents and direction for the story.

But what if you can’t find a way to mix the plot or change a cliché? Story generators and sites such as Seventh Sanctum and Chaotic Shiny can help with jogging the creativity. Another resource to look in when considering clichés, and changing them into something readers haven’t seen, is mythology and fairytales. Perhaps take a fairytale or a myth and add a modern twist to it or (if writing primarily fantasy) use the myth/tale in such a way that may pay homage to the possible inspiration of your novel. An example of this would be likening the tale of Little Red Riding Hood to a serial killer, the specifics of his victimology and the types of trophies he may collect (such as red clothing).

These are among the various methods you can try out and consider while creating your novel. Asking these questions and using the resources available, will help you battle clichés, change them and, ultimately, enrich the novel—making things new and unique or giving your story a fresh view—for your readers.

Thanks for reading!

- HC

Magic: Making Readers Believe

Wow, it’s been forever since I blogged. Had a busy month, so much that I missed my scheduled date to blog a few Mondays ago. Things have finally started to calm down for the first time today.

So today’s topic is on creating believable magical systems in a fantasy novel. For those of you who don’t know, the term “magical system” refers to the way in which magic operates in a particular story. It’s the rules and limitations that govern the magic in that particular story’s universe. In fantasy, it’s the writer’s job to bring the reader into their world and make them believe what they’re reading so completely that they forget they’re reading a story. We as writers must suspend a reader’s disbelief so that, for the time they hold our books open, when we say that magic exists, not for a moment do they think, “But magic’s just make-believe!”

For those of you who read a lot of fantasy, you know that the types of magic that can exist in the worlds writers create are as diverse as the races that grace the pages of such books. There’s magic like that in Harry Potter, which allows practitioners to accomplish a wide range of tasks, everything from producing light or paralyzing someone, usually by using a wand as a casting device, with the spells triggered by a specific word. In many fantasies, magic is based on the elements, allowing users to control elements like fire or water. There’s also ones like that in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy, in which those who have the ability to do magic can burn different metals in order to allow them to do certain things, such as enhance strength or senses, ward off sleep, or heal wounds.  There’s also magic like that in the Wheel of Time, in which channeling a force called the One Power, a force derived from the five elements of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit allows those who can channel the Power to perform different tasks depending on the particular element from which they draw. For fans of these novels, each magical systems is so well developed and so believable that people the world over talk about them as though they are real, and the laws that govern those differing systems have seeped into the consciousness of the world at large. Every avid Wheel of Time reader knows the five elements or “threads” of the One Power, that only women can channel the Power safely, and that if men do it, they go mad. And because of Harry Potter, every child the world over knows that “lumos” is the spell that produces light at the end of one’s wand, and “Alohamora” unlocks a door. Was it just luck that readers came to believe in these magicks so completely? Well, perhaps it was partially that. But it was also the result of knowing how to create a believable system under which the magic operates on the part of the writer. But what’s the formula for creating such a thing?

From what I’ve read and through experience, creating an effective magical system has five components. Source, Limitations, Credibility, Purpose, and Price.

Let’s start with Source, since it’s the easiest to explain. It’s just what it sounds like, the source from which the magic of your world comes. This can be a person, a place, an object, or other element. Magic should never just come from nowhere, without ever being explained. In every great fantasy, magic comes from a source that is eventually revealed to the reader. When it is revealed later in the story, readers still have a sense, early on, that there is a source for the magic even if they don’t know what the source is. In Wheel of Time, the provider for the One Power is literally called “the Source,” and it’s described in detail in the series. In Harry Potter, magic was carried through a wand, but the sources for the magic itself were various elements that existed at the core of the wand. Dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, phoenix feathers; elements like these embedded in a wand gave the wand it’s magic. Establishing a source for the magic in your world ensures that the magic doesn’t feel random or thrown in without being planned out and thought through.   

Our next component when creating a well thought out magical system is limitation. It’s important to implement limitations on the use of your magic in order to create a “real world” feel. Much like a source, everything we do has a limit. Airplanes only fly so high, humans are only so strong, elastic bands only stretch so far. In terms of magic, limitations run from what tasks a person can perform with which enchanted object or element they use, how much power they can draw on or when, and who can use what power and in what way. Without limitations, things would be too easy for your characters, and it would be impossible to create conflict. Limits are put on us in real life because without them we would not be human and life would be very boring. Along with any other element in a fantasy, magic needs to work the same way. A character who can defeat anyone or overcome anything without struggle or limits has no opposition, and without opposition, there is no conflict. Without conflict, the story has no driving force.

It’s also important to give readers a sense of the limitations that exist within your magical system as early in the story as possible. Rules like, who can use magic and why, how it’s used and when. This helps to establish a real world feel and allows your reader to feel grounded within the story, rather like allowing an alien visitor to quickly see how the world works so that they don’t feel lost. Early establishment of magical rules also lets publishers and readers sense the possibility of a strong conflict in the story, despite the existence of something that, without clear rules, has the potential to wipe out all limitations.

For limitations, I’ll use the Wheel of Time series, since it has the most definitive set of rules of any magical world I’ve read. Set in an alternate-Earth type world, the primary force of magic in the series is the One Power, which I described earlier. Early on, the author, Robert Jordan, established three core rules about the Power.

1)  Based on the five elements of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Spirit, the One Power comes from the Source, which is divided into two halves, the male half (Sadin) , and the female half (Sadir) Only males draw from Sadin, only females from Sadir.

2)  Only women can Channel the Power safely. If men do it, they go mad.

3)  Women who can channel are born with the ability, and are comparatively rare. Usually they have to be taught to channel or they die, but an extremely small amount are born with the instinctive knowledge of how to do it, and these, called Wielders, can channel without risking death.  

These three facts were laid out early in the first book. With them, Jordan establishes three things. By telling us who in his world can channel the Power, Jordan shows us that the ability to channel is not a common, everyday thing, and there are limits, such as that only women can do it safely. If everyone in a story can use magic, magic is no longer special, and becomes too ordinary. It gets boring. Telling us how it’s used and where it comes from (from the Source, drawn on like water from a skin) he establishes origin, making us feel grounded in the story with the knowledge that the magic doesn’t simply exist because he says so. By telling us that women have to be taught or most often die, he’s offered the possibility of conflict. Early in the story, he also established what each element of the One Power does. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Sprit. This gives us a sense of cohesion, that the magic has a defined, solid, and consistent formula by which it operates. Later in the story, he allows us to see the complex underpinnings of his system when he reveals that those who channel can perform added tasks if they draw on more than one element at once and weave the magicks together, such as using Water and Spirit to heal. Throughout the series, the magic always works the same way, remaining consistent. Which brings me to my third essential component in developing an effective magical system. Credibility.

Credibility is simply the ability, on the part of the writer, to establish the rules of his/her world and then back them up with action and information that fits those rules. Once rules within a world have been established, you can break them, but there has to be a reason why.

Lets use Harry Potter for this part. Rowling established early in the first Harry Potter book that spells are cast with the use of a wand. She also revealed that Muggles are people who can’t use magic. The moment we saw the spell used, we knew that the word ‘lumos’ lights up the end of one’s wand, a lot like a light bulb. If a character suddenly said lumos to make something float (the word for that is ‘wingardium leviosa’) Rowling would have lost credibility. Similarly, if a Muggle said lumos, with or without a wand, and light suddenly appeared in the darkness, she’d have lost credibility, since we already know that only witches and wizards can use magic.

In the fifth book, Rowling appeared to break the rule at first. A well known Muggle from Harry’s neighborhood suddenly came to rescue Harry and started talking about wands and Muggles and other magical stuff that only a wizard or witch would know about. But then we quickly learned that the woman was in fact secretly a witch, employed to watch over Harry while he wasn’t in the wizarding world. Rowling backed up the credibility of her world and its rules by having the woman use a wand just like any witch, having her know things witches know, and having her familiar with certain people Harry knew to be other witches or wizards. Had the woman failed to use magic the way every other witch does, and didn’t know certain things about that world, readers would have stopped trusting Rowling as their guide through the Harry Potter-verse. They would have been pulled out of the story, no longer able to freely suspend their disbelief enough to take the impossible, that magic exists, as fact, for the time they are reading the stories.

So, onto the forth step. Purpose. When inventing a type of magic for a novel in which fantasy is your primary genre, it’s necessary to create a system as unique as it is interesting. But magic also has to have a purpose within the story. In other wards, you shouldn’t invent magic just because you like the idea, or because it’s fun. The magic has to, if not provide the key conflict within the story, then be elemental to the main conflict in some way. In other wards, if you take the magic out, the plot doesn’t make sense and the story can’t be told. Things must happen in the story that couldn’t occur without the magic present.  

For example, the main villain in Harry Potter was Voldemort, who was an extremely powerful dark wizard. Throughout the series, Harry had to become quite good at magic in order to defeat him. Without magic, there would have been no Voldemort, without Voldemort, there would be no villain, no main villain, no main conflict. Magic was also a part of every facet of the series, in that the main focus of the books was Harry and the other main characters learning how to use magic. Without it, the story would have fallen apart.

In Wheel of Time, the entire series, and every event that occurred in it, brought the main character, Rand Al’Thor, closer to the Final Battle, a confrontation with the Dark One. The Dark One is trapped in a prison in a place called Shayul Guol. The series isn’t finished, and the Final Battle hasn’t happened yet, so we don’t yet know what it is Rand will have to do in order to defeat him. But, it is clear Rand will have to use all his abilities and strength with the One Power in order to destroy the Dark One when he finally escapes his prison, all while avoiding the Madness that worsens every time Rand uses the Power. Though the Dark One can’t actually walk the living world or attack Rand directly, he does find other ways to hurt him, such as through dreams, usually making the use of the Power more and more dangerous. Rand’s only advantage against, not only the Dark One, but also other minions who serve him, is the One Power. So, like with Harry Potter, without magic, the story would make no sense. In both stories, magic is not the main conflict, but it’s the primary weapon with which fights are won and battle is waged. The magic isn’t there to pretty up the story, it has a purpose, one which another form of weaponry could not accomplish without completely changing the plot.

This leaves us with the final component necessary for an effective magical system: a price, or put another way, a drawback. This probably sounds like it falls under the category of limitations, but this is a little more definitive. What I’m speaking of here is the price those who use the magic pay for doing so, the drawback that comes with using it. Why is this important to have in a magical system? Well, in this sense, the price works the same as other limitations. Without a drawback, your characters would be using magic all the time and things would become too easy.

For the example here, we’ll go back to Wheel of Time. When using the One Power, the price men paid was the Madness, which caused not only the implied insanity, but also a wasting decease that eventually caused slow and painful death. In addition, this particular type of insanity caused the man to kill everyone around him. So it was pretty easy to understand why men didn’t want to discover they could channel, which, if they could, happened usually without them even meaning to do it. In the case of both men and women, each time they channeled, they felt an irresistible urge to draw more of the Power. The more one channeled, the more one wanted to channel.  For men, this meant the Madness came faster, death sooner. For women, if they drew too much, they ran the risk of “stilling” themselves, which basically meant they permanently cut themselves off from the Source, never able to channel again. Once that happened, the woman would long to feel the One Power coursing through her all the time, a longing comparable to the grief felt after a loved one’s death. So women had to learn to ignore the temptation to channel without need, and to fight the urge to draw too much. Plenty of conflict there. There were other prices imposed on the use of magic in this series, depending on the situation, but the aforementioned were the constant ones that permeated all facets of channeling. By attaching these prices on the uses of the magic, Jordan accomplished several things. He established magic as something that couldn’t be used as an easy way to solve conflict, he avoided characters becoming too powerful to create problems for, and he established a real world feel to his magical system that made it easy for readers to feel they were a part of the story.

Save God alone, everything in this world comes from something, all things have limits, everything is there for a reason, and nothing that produces easy solutions ever comes without a price in real life, so why should readers expect less of your worlds?

These days it’s becoming increasingly rare to read a fantasy without a form of magic that doesn’t feel overdone, or which doesn’t make things appear too easy. What about you? If you could choose to create any type of magic, what would you like to see? And what do you see writers doing that ruins an otherwise great magical concept in a story? Tell us!

Until next time everyone, write on!

Bits O'Wisdom: Social Networking--FACEBOOK

Let's pick up where we left off with the dos and don'ts of social networking. Last time I talked about how Twitter is can be one of an author's best marketing tools if used correctly. This time I want to talk about Facebook. The social network that is not just a noun...but a verb. It's so normal nowadays to say, "Oh, I was facebooking last night." or "Facebook me!"

I have to admit--I was against it at first. Oh, nothing and noone could convince me of how great the site was or how much fun it could be. I thought it was dumb. (shields head from lightening bolts) Then, like most of us, I opened an account and decided to give it a whirl. Lo and behold just a few months later...I was hooked. Pretty soon I was working the site like a pro. Poking people. Chatting. Posting slightly questionable status updates....

**What was that? What about MySpace? Let's face it. MySpace is no longer a useful site for authors to promote themselves. Except in very rare (and I do mean rare) circumstances. If you feel strongly otherwise, leave a comment. Especially if you have a success story to share! :)**

Unlike Twitter, Facebook really is more of a personal social network. You can list not just your friends but your family and co-workers. You can post pictures up, create events, etc. Even find people you haven't spoken to in years. So yes I do get all the 'personal' goodies that don't need to be shared with every one of your fans...and probably shouldn't be. Here's a couple of big things that are great about it, though.

Ready?

1.) Pages
Oh yeah.You know what I'm talking about. How many times have you searched your favorite music artist, actor, actress...Author? Mm hmm. You can make pages for all sorts of things and people. Including authors. Published and unpublished. These things are like a mini website that can be shared with your friends and even advertised. You can put your author bio up along with any links you might have. You can start discussions. Facebook has now updated the way its pages work by allowing the owner to navigate the site (i.e. comment on other pages' posts and links) as the page itself and not their own personal profile. It's the perfect way to keep personal and professional seperate.

2.) Groups
Ok, this one is a little trickier. The good thing about groups on Facebook is that you can add whomever you want without their permission. That, unfortunately, is also one of its biggest faults. I'm not saying they shouldn't be used. They are great because you can chat privately with group members only (author interview anyone?) and make it private if you wish. Group owners do need to practice some common sense and courtesy, however.
Let's say Dee Writer wants to make a group for herself. She sets it all up and adds all her friends to the group. Yes. All 897 of them. She starts posting stuff about her books, her blog, etc...
Problem. More than half those 'friends' of hers are either A. Not going to have a clue they've been added to the group or B. Be very aware of it and very annoyed because they don't understand WHY. Maybe they're even wondering WHO she is. (especially if Dee Writer is her pen name) So they leave.
I can't tell you how many times I've been added to a group I had no wish to be a part of. I'll sign into my account and every now and again I'll realize that I am now a member of Do It Yourself Home Repair. Um..no thanks.

There is also the snazzy way you can share almost anything from the web on Facebook. And vice versa.

As far as Dos and Don'ts go...

Don't over advertise your book or your blog. There are so many other things you can post about in between. Trivia, quotes, updates on your writing activity, fun questions...Use your imagination. Be personable and not just some stuffy author who wants readers to buy his/her novels. Contents are also something to think about.

Again: There is a difference between personable and personal. While it's nice for readers to know that you're human after all...be smart about how you go about it.

What things have you noticed about authors with pages or groups on Facebook? What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong?

~Ree

Using Descriptive Settings

Descriptive setting has none of the excitement of an action scene, none of the glamour of dialogue. But too little description and the reader can get lost, unable to figure out what’s happening. Too much of it and the reader is yawning. Who hasn’t skimmed over paragraphs of description of countryside and weather to get to the good stuff? I do it all the time.

So it’s no surprise, descriptive setting is my least favorite type of writing. It’s usually way down on the list of priorities. Plus, avoiding passive writing and lazy ‘was/were’ sentences is always a challenge for me. Much easier to write ‘the forest was full of tall evergreen trees’ then to craft it into an entertaining sentence like ‘evergreen trees rose tall and straight along the road creating a dense screen’. Leaving out the descriptive setting, however, is a missed opportunity. There are three potential ways for this type of writing to increase the wow of your story.

1. Grounding

An artist friend of mine is always telling the children she teaches not to leave their subjects hanging in the air. Without a horizon line, the people or scenery they draw are literally floating in air. Drawing in the line between earth and sky, puts that tree or person firmly on the ground and not in the sky. That’s the main goal of descriptive writing. It lets the reader know where the characters are.

If you don’t detail the setting, you leave a reader confused and unable to relate to what is happening in the story. I recently read a passage, the opening chapter of a WIP, which gave no description. I ended up picturing the MC actively outside and moving when she was still at her home. That kind of mistake made me no longer trust that writer. That’s not what you want. Yet you don’t want to go into so much detail that you bore the reader either. Do we really need five sentences to tell us how the sky looks? That’s a big no!

Just keep in mind that the amount of description a reader wants is a matter of personal taste and also depends on genre you’re writing. Romance puts different emphasis on what to describe than does mystery or fantasy. Know what’s expected for your particular genre by reading lots of examples of that genre.

2. Character Development

Descriptive setting can show you about your characters. For instance, what music is playing in the background can say heaps. There are different personalities associated with country music compared to hip hop or classical. It’s a great way to show what your character values. Whether your character has a messy or neat room tells about them. It say how much priority they put to cleaning and whether they might be a laid-back, let things go type of person or a type A personality. The type of house or furniture they own can tell whether they are modern or old-fashioned. Books on the bookshelves make them thoughtful. Liquor bottles everywhere, well, you know what that says about a character.

And I repeat it’s a great way to show. You’re not saying ‘Carol is a lazy slob’, or ‘John is a typical teenager’. When John can’t find his keys because his room is so messy or dust is an inch thick on Carol’s counter, you’re showing it. It’s a great trick to use in opening chapters to increase the character development indirectly.

3. Mood

How can you set the mood of your character without telling? Descriptive setting. This is an underused strategy for writing. Use the description of what’s occurring in the background to reflect your character’s mood. Hard to explain so I’ll give a few examples from my own writing.

I wanted to show that my character felt a bit conflicted and thoughtful, he’s trying to come to a big decision. I could have said, ‘Henry rubbed his chin in thought’ or ‘Henry felt doubtful’. Instead, I showed it by the setting. “He stopped and stared off over the moor as a lone bird, cast in black by the sun, winged its way home.” The image of the bird, cast in black, gives a feeling of isolation and loneliness. It reflects the character’s mood.

Here’s another example from my opening chapter. I wanted to show the MC is depressed and brooding. “She ignored her possessions to watch the flickering light cast dancing shadows on the walls.” In the middle of the night, she’s staring at candle light flickering on the walls, what could be more brooding.

If you want to foreshadow a bit of danger coming up, make the background reflect it. Trees can ‘loom’ adding a feeling of danger. Branches can ‘grab’. There are plenty of ways to make the setting work for you. I wish I used these tricks more often because the effectiveness is undeniable.

Summer is vacation time. Use that time to improve your writing without putting a word to paper. Now some of you know from facebook I just returned from a long vacation. I used the time driving through several states I’d never been to before to visualize settings. What better way to come up with unique settings than from actual experience of being there? I even made it a game to come up with non-passive sentences for each area. “The wind chasing knee-high grass up the slope in rippling wave after wave of unbroken green.” is eastern South Dakota. “Dense evergreen trees darkening the hills to a uniform black and only broken by high cliffs of stark gray granite” would do for the Black Hills.

Have you used setting to highlight the mood of your work? Got a great descriptive sentence? Post an example to inspire the rest of us. And use that time outdoors for more than getting a tan.