Fire in the Night - When Life Sucks, Write It

There is an old saying, “There is no substitute for experience.” After last night, I can tell you, this is true.

As a writer, it’s our job to make our readers feel every experience our characters go through on a visceral level. We must place our characters in jeopardy (for without that, there is no conflict), put them in the worst possible situations and watch them get themselves out of said situations, all the while summoning forth every emotion we can from the character’s gut, even, and perhaps especially, the most intense and frightening.

Grief. Rage. Hatred. Fear. Many writers have written their characters into scenes most of us only see in movies and television. Floods. Tornadoes. Car crashes. Hijackings. House fires. But how many of us get to experience those things before we write them?

It’s one thing to write about a car crash or a house fire based on how other writers write it, or through a second hand account. It feels a whole lot different to write about something like that after you’ve gone through it.

Ok, let me back up and tell you the story.

On Friday night, the hubby and I were at home, enjoying his first week off in six months. We’d invited my BFF to come down from Brantford for the weekend. It was one of those perfect weekends where you think nothing could go wrong. Hubby had made us his famous sausages (famous in our house anyway), and we’d spend a few hours watching one of our favourite TV programs before my friend and myself decided to leave hubby to his internet surfing and turn in for the night. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours when I heard people screaming outside on the street.  

Someone was screaming bloody murder, right outside my house. In retrospect I should have jumped up and gone to check things out right away. But I had just been ripped from sleep, and I was still in that confused state you’re in when you come out of a dream. That, and the neighbour who was yelling and his girlfriend fight all the time, often having public shouting matches in the street every so often. I thought this was just another fight.

Then my hubby went to the door, and I heard him talking to a panicked sounding neighbour. Little did I know, he had already called 911, and while I had slept on, outside, a nightmare unfolded. But something in the neighbour’s voice began to seep into me now. I scrambled out into the living room. And that’s when I heard it.

Outside, from what sounded like the backyard.

Crackling.

Still confused, I tried to see what was going on. Then the neighbour said, “The house next door is on fire.”

I tried to ask if we should leave the house, but the neighbour had left, my hubby was on the phone, calling 911 for the second time. Amazingly, my friend was still half asleep.

Then, someone came up the steps and I heard a man’s voice, fearfully say, “That house is going to blow.”

It was as if those words snapped me out of a daze. I can’t describe the fear those words imprinted on me in a way that does it justice.

The three of us bolted from the house. I remember someone helping me down the stairs, and then we were running. I remember sparks flying, and a large chunk of burning ash flying passed my head. My friend froze for one horrible moment as the house next to us burned from the inside out, an orange blaze trapped inside a flimsy shell.

I remember ordering my friend to run. My hubby grabbing me and pulling us along. I have terrible knees, and they were screaming in pain, but the glow of orange light chased me from behind and I kept going.

“That House is going to blow.” Those words. Yeah, I ran faster than I have run in years.

Once we were across the street, I looked at the blaze and saw that in fact two houses were going. I thought ours would soon catch flame.

I remember that horrific moment when I realized our cat was inside and there was no way to get her out. She hides, and when she does, finding her is impossible. I think that’s when I started to scream for someone to get her out. I started to cry. I remember my friend holding me while my hubby tried to see if our house was going to go.

I noticed that the street was filled with people and at some point, fire trucks had pulled up our street, at least 4 of them, along with at least one police car. And smoke. There was so much smoke.

I remember us having to walk through it, down the street to get away from the blaze. The smoke was like a thick fog. I couldn’t breathe. None of us could. I couldn’t see. I could hear my friend behind me, and feel my hubby pulling me through the wall of white.

When I could see again I was down the street and a neighbour was helping us up her steps, her on one side, hubby on the other. She gave us water, a bathroom, and for my friend and I who have trouble standing for extended periods of time, places to sit.

We were safe.  For us it was over.

Our house remained untouched. It would be the next day before I would realize how close it was to going up. The metal fence that runs between our house and the next had melted, burning half way to the side of our house. Our entirely wood house.

Our next door neighbour’s house and the one beside it are unliveable. The fire gutted the homes. At least temporarily, four families have no place to live.

With the seriousness of the fire and how hot and dry things were, all it would have taken was one spark, one falling piece of orange debris, and our house wouldn’t be here. My hubby, my friend, my cat, or I, might not be here. Had the wind carried the flames and smoke in our direction, our house would be gone instead of the one on the other side. We are all alive and unharmed, because a neighbour had the sense to get us out in time.

Because the wind chose to blow north instead of south.

Now, at the time, I was barely thinking from one moment to the next, and much of the details I only recall now, as I write this. But now, I find myself trying to notice which details would stand out on a page and how various characters in my novels might react, what they might notice. I’ve written more than one fire scene, but how differently will I write it when another one is called for, now that I have witnessed one firsthand?

I might be tempted to go for the obvious. The memory of how the smoke choked me. The distinctly fearful voice of the neighbour telling us to get out. The almost eerily calm way my hubby called 911 even though this was the second time he called, the house next to us was ablaze, and they still hadn’t come. The way my friend froze, staring at the flames in horror. The absolute horror that my cat might die and our house be devoured in flames.

Many writers seem to have similar ways of describing things and when they replicate a scene such as this from somewhere, they tend to duplicate the same sensory details as everyone else. But after you go through it firsthand, what might you see that wouldn’t be in the text if it was second hand or based on something you saw on tv or read in the paper?

To me, as a writer who puts this in prose fit for a book, the neighbour’s voice wasn’t just fearful, or filled with the concern for others that mirrors the good Samaritan tone you always hear about. It carried the edge of a steel blade as it’s pulled free with a concerned hand. (Yes, you can tell I wrote medieval epics. LOL).

To me, the smoke didn’t just choke or block my view with a wall of white. It seared my throat and closed my airways until I wondered if I could breathe long enough to get through it. My throat hurt for a good day afterward.


When the neighbour said the next house was going to blow, I didn’t just picture us all dying as our house was consumed in flames. I pictured orange death roaring toward me for one final moment before I saw my hubby’s and my friend’s faces reduced to fiery light, and then my own life gone in a single blast of agony. 

I wasn’t just gripped with fear of losing our home or our cat once we got outside. My mind raced with thoughts of what we would do if we lost either, knowing we had nowhere to go.

And hours later, when I could think straight again, I worried that my friend’s parents would refuse to let her near our house once they heard about this. I was even afraid this might be the last time I visited with her.

And the whole time, I remember thinking not only how lucky we were to have come out of this unscathed, but how fortunate we were that my hubby happened to be on holidays, that he’s almost storybook hero cool in a crisis, and that a hundred other things that could have gone wrong, didn’t. I doubt my friend and I could have gotten out without him. I kept thinking, if I didn’t believe that a benevolent god watches over us before, I do now. 

And as a writer, when the need for such a scene arises, as painful or frightening as it may be, I will try to put myself in the head of those who lost their homes, imagining how they feel so that I can better describe how my characters feel. Not with the same clichéd descriptions everyone else uses, but with the much more powerful, rare, real life descriptions that come only from seeing or feeling it first hand. 

My point. Most of us are never faced with the kinds of ordeals we as writers must thrust upon our poor characters, and I would never hope or wish for this to happen to myself or anyone again. But these things do happen in real life. And when they do, there is no better way to make a book come alive, a scene feel more real for our readers, than to mine the worst, and best, events of our lives for our stories, putting the diamonds we find amidst the rubble onto the page and letting the readers see it as though they are there with us every step of the way. 

R.C.

Throwback Thursday!!

**Here's another post from the early days. Enjoy!**

VANITY PRESSES: BEWARE THE LURE

I still receive a lot of questions on exactly what vanity presses are, how to avoid them, and why you should. Vanity presses are something every writer should be aware of, so here, I'll cover what they are, how to spot them, how they work, and why you should avoid them.

First and foremost, Vanity Presses are SCAM ARTISTS. Nothing hurts me more than seeing innocent aspiring authors taken for their money and work by people who know how to prey on the desperate and the uninformed. If you never read anything from me, PLEASE READ THIS POST. And if you know anyone who has asked you about Vanity Presses, or who has been approached by one, before they answer a single email from these so called publishers, tell them to STOP. Tell them to stop right there, and SEND THEM HERE.

So here's how it works. You've completed your novel, and after months or years of hard work, you're looking for the perfect publisher. Or perhaps you've sent your manuscript out and the rejections have started coming in. Then, one day you receive an email from a publishing company saying they would like to publish you. Your heart soars. All your hard work is about to pay off, and all dreams are about to come true. All you have to do is answer that email, give them the list of things they ask for, and it's done. Best of all, they're not asking for much. A bio, a photo, a list of family members who want to buy your novel, and x amount of dollars. Easy, right?....(Continue reading HERE)

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

Good Romance is Love Made Dangerous

A few weeks ago, fellow FTLOW author Helena Cross posted a blog on Character Sacrifice. In it she mentioned an essential part of good novel writing, “Raising the Stakes.” In reply to that post, a reader asked, “Is it necessary to raise the stakes in a romance?” 

As you guys know, I love doing requests or taking on topics people bring up. And it so happened that I was in the process of reading a ton of stuff on writing romance, some of it on this very topic. Since the answers were fresh in my mind, I jumped on the chance to offer my newly discovered insight.

So, the question. Is it necessary to raise the stakes in romance?

The simple answer is yes. But lets be clear here. When it comes to romance, the stakes are not necessarily the same kind that you would find in other genres, although they can be at times. And how high they are, as well as what kind you employ, also depends largely on the type of romance you’re writing.  

Lets start with what a romance is. A romance must have, and is, by its nature, two people falling in love. If done right, the stakes are already high. Stakes are merely what the character has to lose by obtaining or not obtaining the novel goal. What is already at stake here? A person’s heart. Really, anything they might give up in falling in love. Or lose by not obtaining the other’s love. Love, for most of us, poses a huge risk. We have plenty to put on the line. A good romance also has something else, what is known as “The Force.” 

Huh? What the hell does Star Wars have to do with this? No, not that kind of force. In romance, the Force is just another word for Conflict. It’s what stands in the way of the couple getting together, what keeps them apart.

Conflict is anything that prevents the protagonist from obtaining what they want. It’s a challenge, something standing in the way of the character reaching their goals. In any good novel, there is conflict. If you have no conflict, there is no story. In a romance, no Force, no story.

In a romance, put simply, keeping the reader interested is a matter of creating two characters we want to see fall in love, then drawing the couple closer together, then employing different techniques to keep them apart. This creates a longing in the reader to see them come together, and a worry that they will remain apart forever. And in any novel, you need something at stake. Meaning there must be something the characters stand to lose, and that loss must be something all important to them, something they can't live without.  

Another way to put that is, Romance in stories is love made dangerous. There is a great risk in the couple falling in love. Sometimes the danger is life and death. Sometimes the danger is losing one’s heart or being hurt. Whatever it is, it must be something the character can’t afford to lose without causing themselves heartache, or worse. 


It isn't enough to bring the couple closer and then pull them apart by the same sort of interference again and again. The risk must increase throughout the story in order to keep the reader interested. In short, you must raise the stakes. 

Lets use a beloved fairytale, Beauty and the Beast, for an example. I’ll use the movie, since it delves much deeper and has much higher stakes than the original concept.

The Beast must fall in love with Belle, and must earn her love in return. The issues that prevent her from loving him (his monstrous temper), or him from gaining her love (his mistaken belief that no one could love a beast, thus causing him to sabotage his chances, often with said temper) is the conflict. In Beauty and the Beast, romantically speaking, the Beast’s temper and his lack of faith in himself, his belief that as a beast, he is unworthy of love, is the Force.

With me so far? Good. Back to the stakes. Lets borrow from Beauty and the Beast again, shall we?  The Beast’s goal is to earn Belle’s love. In this story, the stakes are huge from the outset. If the Beast fails to earn her love, he will remain a beast forever. He will lose his humanity. So his humanity is what’s at stake. In the movie, Disney did an excellent job of raising the tension by using a classic manoeuvre, employing the ticking time bomb, or what’s called a time limit. The Beast not only has to fall in love with Belle and earn her love. He has to do it by his 21’rst year. And Belle arrives at the castle close enough to the deadline that it lowers his chances and makes it more difficult for him. It’s like tightening the noose. But the threat of his remaining a beast for all time would not have been enough to sustain a movie on its own, not while keeping us on the edge of our seats. So how were the stakes raised?

Well, from the outset, Disney found a way to make the situation matter more by having the curse effect, not just the Beast, but also everyone in the castle. If the Beast fails, not only will he remain a beast, but every other person in the castle will remain in an inhuman form (as inanimate objects) forever. Disney turned it from a personal conflict to a “world conflict.” The world, in this case being, not the literal world, but the world of the castle. Everyone else in the castle needs them to fall in love too.

No pressure, Beast.

So if you have a romance with plenty at stake, like this, how can you raise the stakes even more? How about how Disney did it?

About 3 quarters way through the movie, he added another apposing force to keep Belle and Beast apart. It helped that he did it when it would carry the greatest impact, right after Beast confessed his love for Belle, and was just about to win her heart. You remember the movie. After the romantic dance and Mrs’ Pots’ rendition of the now classic movie theme song (I think it was named after the movie), the two went out onto the terrace, hand in hand. Beast asks Belle if she’s happy with him. She says yes, but she misses her father. When Belle asks to see her father in the mirror, she discovers he’s lost in the woods and terribly sick. Beast has mastered his temper and brought Belle closer, but now there is a new apposing force. Something to keep them apart right at the moment before his victory. Belle was finally happy with the Beast, a step closer to love, but now she must leave him or her father could die. So her father is at stake, something she could lose if she stays. 

You all remember how it went. The Beast released her, and she was no longer his prisoner. She returned to her father. In doing this, he sacrificed his chance at happiness with Belle, as well as, seemingly, giving up the possibility of restoring his human form. This moment still works for raising the stakes, because it’s always good to raise them, not just for the protagonist, but for the antagonist, in this case, not a person, not a villain, but the force that keeps them apart. This also goes to making things worse for the characters, an essential element of good storytelling, which I mentioned in other posts.

But were the stakes raised even more once Belle left? Yes indeed. While up until now, the danger to Beast and his friends has been the psychological cost of never being human again, this is where it turns to life and death. As you know, Gaston, who, from the start, wanted Belle as his wife, paid the local psychiatrist to use Belle’s father’s claims of a Beast living in a castle as grounds for insanity, and threatened to lock him up if she didn’t marry him. This raised Belle’s personal stakes. It gave her more to lose. But then when a well meaning Belle tries to prove the existence of the Beast through his mirror, it backfires on her, and Gaston rallies the town to go after “the Monster.” Which suddenly upped the stakes for the Beast and Bell. If Belle can’t get to the Beast in time, Gaston and the villagers will kill him, and everyone in his castle. And as we saw in the movie, the rose had already begun to wilt, meaning that the end of Beast’s 21’st year is close at hand, and his chance of returning to human form will disappear forever if Belle doesn’t finally confess her love to him before the last pedal falls. This seems impossible with Belle and her father locked up, and Gaston and the villagers converging on the castle.

In the ensuing battle between the Beast and Gaston, we see just how deadly things are, just how at risk the Beast’s life is, because Gaston tries to kill him in a jealous rage. Gaston wants Belle and the Beast is in love with her. Up until the very end, the Beast’s life literally hung in the balance.

Which meant not only would he lose his life, but Belle would lose him, just when she’s learned to love him. And there is an added implication in the subtext here. If the Beast dies, that leaves Belle in Gaston’s fist. Her freedom is at risk, since it would invariably mean marrying Gaston, which, since he only wants a trophy for a wife, would cost her everything any woman holds dear.  

Now, I’ve seen plenty of romances where the stakes never get anywhere near that high, and even the emotional ones don’t go that deep. Category romances, the shorter ones turned out monthly by companies like Harlequin, don’t require as high stakes, partially because the word count restricts the time in which you can build things to that height. They also often require softer reads. Longer romances, or romances that combine genres like thriller or suspense, often have higher stakes in order to provide the high intensity the genres need. Longer, single title romances that have deeper thematic significance and stronger characterization, like Gone With the Wind, The Cowboy, Sound of Music, or Romeo and Juliet, need higher stakes, giving the characters more to lose because they seek to send a message or provide a lasting impact. A movie like Beauty and the Beast needed huge stakes because the story was intended to send a powerful and important message, to carry strong “thematic significance” for viewers.

So if you are writing a shorter category romance, or one that is intended to provide a quick read without any lasting effect, then the stakes may stay relatively low. But if you want your story to stay with the reader long after it’s over, if you want the type of book that will be talked about and remembered for years to come, then yes, high stakes are a must. And if, like Disney did, you can turn what’s at risk into a “world stakes,” so make it something the community at large cares about, then so much the better.

Raven

Gays in Literature - Avoiding Stereotypes

(Reposted from my Weebly site)

Recently, several readers asked me to do a blog post on an issue that plagues many readers and writers – stereotyping in literature, or more specifically, the stereotyping of gays.

I have to be honest, although I was aware that stereotyping was a problem in literature for any minority, I never really noticed how big of a problem it is for the LBGT community. While doing research for this blog, I found pages and pages of blogs from writers and readers expressing their concerns over the way gays are consistently stereotyped in books. Most have the same complaint. Whichever one the character is (Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, or Bisexual) they are always portrayed in similar fashions. At first, I kept thinking, "Is it really that big of a deal? It doesn't happen that often, does it?" I mean saying that all gays are feminine, skinny hairdressers, who think about nothing but sex is like saying all Jewish people are cheap, or all women are weak. No one thinks that way anymore, do they? At least not anyone outside the dark ages.

It's unfortunate, but yes. They do. Case in point - while looking for a cover to post with the blog, I saw exactly how big an epidemic generalizations, assumptions and ignorance still are today with regards to LBGT's. Since I was asked to do a blog on "Stereotyping of Gays in Literature," that's what I put in the search box. I clicked the images setting in Google, and can anyone guess what happened? I got pages and pages of...wait for it....gay porn and naked men/women.

Uh...am I the only one who sees a problem here? So all gays care about is sex? They're all into orgies and porno? What gives? Ok, so it wasn't ALL sex, but the rest was rainbows, which isn't much better. They aren't all about sex, and they are not all bright, shiny, sparkly people either. It isn't all rainbows and shag carpets.

If you read a lot of literature that has gay people in it, you see it. The men are either all feminine and lispy, or they are big, macho type men in the closet, and at the end of a book over which a guy struggles with his sexuality, he embraces his gayness by wearing a lot of pink, and suddenly talking with a lisp. And women are all butch, masculine and against marriage, man-haters, or, again, overly preoccupied with the horizontal mambo. In addition, when gay couples enter the story, they are always portrayed in strict gender roles. That is, one plays the female role, the other plays the male. I didn't notice it until I started doing the research, but when I thought back to all the books I read with someone who is gay, I realized, the complaintents are right. One is hard pressed to find someone who is gay, or a gay couple, who does not fall into one of those cliches. Or if not them, then into another one.

It's true that most of us think of a romance as involving one person who is more male, and one who is more female. One buys the flowers and holds the door open, and the other wears makeup, pretty, clothes, and does all the household duties. And these days, everything is cliche. With so many stories out there, everything has been done. So the question at hand is, if you are a writer and looking to make a character a member of the LBGT community, how do you avoid stereotypes? 

On some of the pages I read, I found some great suggestions for this. For example, lets say you want to portray a two men or two women in a romantic fashion. Why have them placed neatly into the gender role cookie jars? Why not have them both act male? Or both female? Why not have them both buy the flowers, and both wear feminine/masculine clothes? And lets say you want to portray a lesbian with her own story to tell, but you don't want her to come across like every other lesbian character you've seen? Why have her be tough and masculine and hate men? Or overly feminine and meek, in love with said character? Why not have her wear a bit of makeup, have lots of male friends, and in love with a mechanic who is even more feminine than she? And instead of making the story about an overly macho guy in love with a lisping, rainbow toting hair dresser, make him a shy, quiet guy who gets annoyed at people who think he likes pink, and he's in love with a regular Joe bartender whose overbearing mother has no idea he's gay? (You need tension, in there, somewhere. LOL.)

Another thing of note I discovered, in literature, gays/lesbians fall into one of two categories. Recognizing them may help you to form more original characters. In general, there are "gay characters," and then there are "characters who happen to be gay." The difference? With the first, the plot revolves around a character whose gayness is the driving force of the plot. So, someone who is struggling with their sexuality, or whose being gay somehow otherwise effects everything that happens in the story. With the other, the plot has little or nothing to do with his or her being gay - they just are. Like everyone else, gay people like to read stories about themselves. And like everyone else, they want something original and new.

One tip to avoid annoying or offending them is, if your story is about a character who happens to be gay, don't make a big fuss of it.  Just let them be whomever they are without over-dramatizing it. And if the story is about a person whose gayness is integral to the plot, make it only as big a deal as it has to be for the story. Over-dramatizing it is you, as the author, waving your hand at the gay community shouting, "Look, see, I'm writing about gays! See how tolerant and accepting I am? See?"

Ugh. Not only is that annoying, but it actually comes across as though you are uncomfortable with it. After all, in most stories, do characters preach about their heterosexuality? Not if they don't have an issue with gays, they don't.

Generalizing and stereotyping of gays annoys me, and I'm hetero. The more I researched it, the more it grated. Can you imagine how annoying it is for someone who is gay? Another common complaint is how many authors write in a character who is gay, and then kill them off for fear of losing readership. Don't create a gay character just to die.

One other thing I think should be pointed out here. A common question that kept coming up in my research was, how to deal with gay/lesbian sex in stories? How much do you put in? How much is too much? I agree with the writers who answered thus:

When adding gay sex into a story of any kind, show the same amount of sex from them as you do with the hetero partners. So if your story is a hot and heavy romance with a hetero couple always going at it, then the homosexual couple should be getting some too. If the novel has only one or two short scenes with a hetero couple, or it's offstage, then why should the homosexual couple always wind up in bed? In short, treat your gay characters with the same attention, originality, love, and care as your hetero ones. And when in doubt, ask. If you aren't sure if it is original enough, or you're afraid of offending someone, find a gay person and ask them. Ask them what they see too much or not enough of. Ask them what they would like to see in a story that features someone who is gay.

Minorities either get too little attention or the wrong type, so they love having people ask them about their lifestyle. Being someone who has Cerebral Palsy, I am a minority. So trust me, I know. There is nothing worse than a writer who assumes that because I have a limp, I must feel sorry for myself or that I'm bitter and angry. Or that I'm too slow to understand. And if the person you ask gets twitchy, well, then ask someone else.

Originality is hard with any character. But it can be done. Ask. Research. And read. A lot. Trust me, the LBGT community will appreciate it, and so will your character.

Until next time everyone, write on!

Raven

Creating Cultures In Fantasy: Beliefs

So you’re thinking of creating a fantasy race for your novel? As discussed in part one of this series, you choose the physical aspects of your race—you know what the creature looks like 24/7 or what it turns into on certain nights. Besides knowing the breeds of your fantasy race, one important aspect you should consider when creating a fantasy culture is the beliefs of the people. Who or what do they believe in? When creating a fantasy religion, there are a few things to consider.  

  

1.  Society    

What’s the core societal structure of your fantasy race? Before you begin to think about how the beliefs are structured, you should know the ins and outs of your culture.

First of all, how is the society organized? Are they a race that’s primarily patriarchal or matriarchal? Look within your fantasy culture’s myths and legends; see how the hierarchal structure is. Do the males inherit or do the females? Is there a reason—such as a god or a mythological prophecy—deeming which gender is meant to rule?

Or perhaps, there’s something physical that only males or females can do—such as, in Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey’s If I Pay Thee Not In Gold, only females can use the powers of conjuration—and thus allows them to have great power and influence in the culture. Find out if your own fantasy race has a gender-specific power and see if you can use that within the beliefs to enrich the culture, make it seem unique.

As with any real world religion, each culture has different views on sin and what is considered a sin. In your fantasy race’s culture, what is considered improper or vulgar? Depending on how your fantasy race is set up (hierarchy, the sources of power or income, and the line dividing the different class systems) take a look at the laws and limitations that you put on your race, and try to find something that would mock their systems or be different/odd to them. For example, in a fantasy race that prides itself on honesty and modesty; they may find telling lies, or showing too much skin in public, to be offensive.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, what are your race’s opinions on virtue? Again, depending on how your fantasy race is set up, take a look at the laws and limitations that you put on your race, and try to find something that they would find acceptable or good. Things such as kindness or honesty or a physical feature/attribute, for example.  

2.      Purpose

Greek mythology had many gods for many different purposes—Artemis was the virgin goddess of the hunt and of women, Aphrodite was goddess of love, and Hades, the god of death. Likewise, in your fantasy race’s beliefs, a god or gods must serve a purpose.

A few things to find out regarding the purpose of the god or gods in your pantheon are:

Myths. Who are your mythological creatures or people? Did they cause an event to happen— such as when Persephone was bound to the Underworld for six months creating winter, or where they the basis of a creature—like Arachne, a weaver who boasted her skill, was turned into a spider.  

What are you fantasy race’s views on creation and destruction? Which force or god is connected with each? Within a pantheon, there always seems to be that dividing line between good and evil, heroes and villains. In your pantheon is there a clear distinction between the heroic gods and the villainous ones or is there a gray area? It’s always good to have a mixture, to add depth and potential tension to the culture.

Speaking about creation and destruction, the powers of the gods should fulfill some key role in explaining how the world works, and how world incidents came to be. Which god or gods control life and death? Love or magic? How do the gods affect each other or connect in your pantheon to explain world events—such as the change of seasons, natural disasters, or the lunar cycle? Give each god a power (or multiple powers) and a reason for controlling that force. Consult your fantasy culture’s myths and legends and try to interweave the culture of the race deeply within this created pantheon.

3.      Worship/Ritual

In your world, your races beliefs can also be shown by the rituals they preform, the holidays and rites of passage they celebrate or things that are shown in your world such as signs and statues. A few things to consider when creating rituals in your fantasy religion are:

Color: The symbolism of color can play a key role in the culture and thus also in the rituals they perform. Different colors also have cultural significance to the reader, such as red for blood and death or purple for royalty. This chart lists different colors and the common associations with each.

Fruit/Vegetables: Fruits eaten or shown during rituals also have cultural/religious significance. Depending on your myths and legends, certain fruits and veggies might symbolize certain gods or invoke certain things such as pomegranates (in Greek myths) symbolizing long life and rebirth.

Symbols: Think of certain symbols such as a sword or a crown and apply them to your culture. Depending on the ritual and the god(s) being called upon, there may be many different symbols attributed to them, such as a loom or a hammer for a god of trade or a shield or arrow attributed to a god of war. If there are many symbols, be specific in the way they are used, and choose one universal symbol for each god to avoid confusion for the reader.

The next topic in our 4-part Fantasy Culture Creation series is “Powers”. Besides creating the physical appearance and beliefs of your fantasy race, it’s important to look over the powers of your race—the magical and physical abilities that can make your race stand out from all the standard races of fantasy and make the creatures your own.

Creating Cultures in Fantasy: Part 1: Breed

Anyone who reads even a little bit of fantasy knows that fantastic or mystical races are a common element to the genre, easily as common as magic. If you’ve read books like Lord of the Rings, or Dritzz Duordan, you know how easily a well constructed, original culture can elevate a story to a whole other level of greatness. Where would LOTR be without the furry footed Hobbits of Hobbiton, or the creepy creature Golom? What would the Elvin race, rather white as they were before him, be without the last black elf called Dritzz? But have you noticed that when it comes to fantasy, but for a few exceptions, most books feature the same beings? Vampires, werewolves, faeries, Elves, Dwarves. And few new authors bother to develop a culture behind their race, a deep and complex system of habits, taboos, and beliefs. At least if authors added a few cultural quirks to their vampires or faeries, they would feel a little more original. I think that’s because for most, the concept of building an entire race from the ground up is such a daunting task that it’s too overwhelming for most. But could you imagine developing your own culture and having it become so much a part of the world’s consciousness that everyone, everywhere knows it by name? A writer’s dream come true, that. But in this day and age, when there are so many other stories to compete with, how can one hope to stand out from the crowd and get noticed? And with the endless possibilities that could go into the creation of whole race, how can you be sure you have a winning combination?

The task of building an entire culture from the ground up is a massive undertaking and a huge topic, enough that I’ve decided to collaborate with fellow FTLOW author and veteran creator Madelaine Bauman, to bring you a 5 part blog on the subject.

After talking with Maddie, we saw that there are literally dozens of elements that can go into a single race. Consider the real cultures of our world. Every race on this planet has a way of dressing, thinking, acting, that is as different from the others as light is to day. All over the world, everything our many cultures do differs, from the music we listen to, to the language we speak, from our faith to what we eat, to the way we view other races. In many cultures, there are various sub-cultures, sometimes with a different dialect of the same tongue, sometimes with slightly altered belief systems, ones that to us, seem like a different shade of the same hue, but to them, seems a vastly different as light and dark. What one culture considers the norm another might consider an enormous taboo. With so many possibilities, how does one even know where to start? Not to mention, races in fantasy have other layers that those of this world do not. The race in your story may have other features besides human, and may also have magic or other abilities that make it even more complex than the races of our world. After much discussion, Maddie and I decided that creating an effective fantasy culture can be broken down into five basic components: Breed, Beliefs, Powers, Language, and Purpose. I don’t think development has to go in that order, but I personally find it easiest to start by giving my new race a face, or, more definitively, a physical framework to build from. So for this first installment, we’ll discuss Breed - that is, what physical traits your beings should have.

For those of you who’ve been reading me for a while, you know I’m fond of breaking things into smaller steps. It makes it easier to organize a larger topic. Where we've cut the construction of a race into four sections, the subject of breed is also broken into parts. For me, it breaks down into three. Relatability, appeal, and plausibility. 

To my mind, the physical aspects of creation is perhaps the most difficult. This is partially because of the sheer scope of possibilities. Are your beings bi-peddle or four legged? Do they have smooth skin, scales, fur or something else? Do they have claws? Wings? Two eyes or eight? The other reason this aspect is so difficult is that there’s a fine line between coming up with something unique and interesting, and something that is still relatable to readers.

Consider what’s been done. The most common ancestry seems to be birds, bats, wolves, and winged insects (faeries). When creating a race, a first step toward making it unique can be to use a creature or traits that haven’t been used much, or combine several. Winged beings are all too common, but why not give your beings the wings of a bird, and the pointed ears of an elf? And throw in blue skin just for fun? Many novice writers who try to create a new race will use a more unlikely creature thinking that it will score them points on the originality meter. They’ll give their beings a half spider form, or make them look like a hybrid of a worm and a human. Nine times out of ten, that won’t work. So many of us are unsettled by creepy crawlies that beings who possess too many such traits will be an instant repellent and not at all easy to relate to. I’m not saying certain traits from any creature can’t work. Who doesn’t love Spiderman? I’m a firm believer that anything can work if it’s used right. In the case of Spiderman, the idea of a man with the abilities of a spider worked because, other than his ability to sling webs and scale walls, he was a normal everyday guy. That and there was nothing horrifically gross about him. He didn’t spit acid out of his mouth, or molt his skin like a snake. Yuck. Your beings have to be relatable, and like it or not, that means giving them some human traits that make us see them the way we see ourselves.

I think there’s a second reason certain creatures are overused – it’s because they’re safe. We already know people will accept Vampires and Werewolves. Creating a new race with as yet unused traits is risky. Readers might not be able to suspend their disbelief enough to accept them. They might be seen as b-movie material. But if you combine features the right way, and you put it right on the page, readers will accept anything. It’s all about the appeal of the race and the writer’s ability to make a reader believe in what they say. Which brings me to the second part of the segment.

When I say appeal, I’m not referring to whether or not readers find your new race of people attractive. I’m talking about whether or not they have a mass market appeal. So, whether or not your beings will be accepted by a wide range of readers. The trick to creating a race of beings that appeals to many is to give them traits that appeal to most humans. I know it sounds shallow, but that’s why creatures with eight legs or a head full of eyes is so hard to pull off, and if they are used, they’re usually villains or henchmen, temporary challenges for the heroes to overcome, without big roles or heavy interaction. We as humans have a hard time relating to that. You can still avoid your people being overly attractive or generic without making them so unusual that people can’t take it seriously.

Consider the concept of a Werewolf. A huge, hairy creature that mauls and kills people. How is that attractive? But why does it work? Because Werewolves are only like that part of the time. In most stories that feature a werewolf, the character is human for the bulk of the time, perhaps with certain traits of the wolf left over while in man form, like heightened senses or super speed, the kind of traits that makes people look badass. Not to mention, predatory animal traits in a sexy package generate a massive hottie appeal. :D. *Wipes drool from mouth* (Actually, I don’t like werewolves or vamps, but I love creating races with badass animal traits, and if used right, they are sexy).  

Getting back on track, if you combine human traits with those of another creature without losing the being’s humanity, you make it easier to believe in. Which brings us to the third and final element. Plausibility.

If you think about it, any being with human and animal traits combined seems a little far fetched. Take a mermaid. A being with the head and torso of a woman, (a man if it’s a Merman) and the tail of a fish? How weird is that? And yet, stories the world over tell of these half fish beings who live in the sea, and people love them. Why? Partially it’s because we have the other two elements, relatablity and appeal, at work here. Mermaids are just human enough to see as being like us, but just “fish” enough to seem exotic. Plus they come from a place that is universally mysterious and still relatively unexplored. This adds to the mass market appeal and the exotic allure of a race. But Mermaids are also effective because, from the perspective of readers who like to escape into a fantasy world, they seem plausible. The sea’s largely unknown depths leave open the plausibility necessary for readers to suspend disbelief enough to accept the concept. Plausibility in creating a new and original race lies in cultivating the ever tantalizing question all humans have in the back of their minds - What if. It lies in starting with the seed of an idea and then building off it by answering other questions. Other questions that spark our curiosity and make us want to learn more. Questions like, if you create a race, how do they act? What do they believe in? What might their religion be like? How different might they’re every day lives be from ours? When we begin to explore these concepts, that’s when a whole culture starts to come to life in our minds. 

This Monday, Madelaine Bauman continues our blog with Part 2: Beliefs, through which she’ll delve into perhaps the most interesting aspect of building a race, developing a belief system that will keep your readers wanting to learn more, and offer your story a real world feel that makes your readers forget the world they’re in is just a fantasy.