I don't have a lot of time because I'm totally into the Guild Wars 2 beta. Today my little sister rocked out in her dance recital, which was awesome. I'm super proud of her.
Ashes of Silver is still published, and I've made a profit on it. I'm still really excited and happy about it. Now I'm enjoying the rest of this beta weekend. I don't feel bad about the brevity of this post because, well, I posted twice yesterday and BETA.
So yeah, talk to you tomorrow.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Excerpts From Ashes of Silver
As I said in my update to the previous post, I'm going to release some excerpts from my book to give a taste of the sorts of things contained in Ashes of Silver. Don't worry, none of these are particularly spoilery (they're from early on in the book). Enjoy!
Excerpt 1:
‘They call this place Hearthstead. I was once a stranger to these lands.
I came during one of the worse summers of dragonwaste, when the dragons prey on the people because the beasts’ only threats are too few and too disinterested in human troubles to bother cleaning up their mess.'
--
Excerpt 2:
Someone rapped the door and pushed it open before Xlynx could finish painting the Rune. The intruder stepped in while taking a deep draw at a pint of beer, one hand pocketed in his waistcoat. He grinned the whole while, eyes glittering. Virol.
“Is there something you need,” Xlynx droned, “or are you pestering?”
Virol’s grin smoldered into a smirk. “Pestering, as always.”
Xlynx narrowed his eyes. “As that is the case, get out. I am occupied.”
The layabout didn’t leave. “I’d love to play historian,” he said. “Whenever I try it, though, I just end up rambling.”
“I shall be amused later. Leave.”
In a flash, Virol’s smile faded. Sometimes it would leave his mouth, but Xlynx had never seen it leave his eyes. Despite himself, Xlynx set his brush aside.
“I’ve come,” Virol said, “to tell you I’ve bought you some time.”
“Time?” Xlynx said.
Virol said, “Time to untangle snags and gather lost sheep.”
Xlynx smacked his desk. “You come in here while I am working, telling me you’ve bought me time to count SHEEP!”
Virol chuckled, and just like that the smile was back. He pulled at his beer. “I thought you liked cryptic, green-eyes.”
Xlynx stood, casting a small spell which rolled his stone chair back to become part of the wall again. He started to step around his desk, contemplating how to repay the insult.
“Oh good, you are listening,” Virol said, unmoved. “But, since I have to spell it out for you.”
He took his hand out of his pocket and held it palm up. An image of a man in black wielding a pair of knives appeared. Xlynx stifled his surprise at the spell. It was a devilishly complicated syntax. None of the mages in Hearthstead should know of this spell, let alone be capable of it, and never say this perpetually-drinking jester. But then, Virol always had a surprise up his sleeve. That was how he’d gotten into the guild in the first place.
The man was familiar to Xlynx. Marlom. The Shade. The Smith. The inner war of Dark Fire and Blank magic.
The image flickered, and suddenly it was Hinder. Xlynx had not seen that man since the Terrus hunt. A suit of armor walked beside him. Another flicker. Aera. One more—Sahl.
“You’ve only got one of them beside you,” Virol said. “They have united before, however briefly, and they need to again. But now you’re all after the same thing. Rest.
“You cannot rest, Xlynx. The world outside Hearthstead still moves. It’s time to stop treating your guild like a desk job.”
Xlynx glared at Virol, but Virol just glared right back. “Who do you think you are?”
Virol stuffed his hand back into his pocket. “Far too old, and not nearly old enough.”
--
Excerpt 3:
'For lifetimes, the Empire battered at our gates in the Umbral Valley. The Ebon sat in safety, laughing at the Endless while our warriors frustrated their might. We were reviled for this.
Our darker skin colors, our ever-green eyes, and our bone-white hair were all demonized.
Every new generation of Ebon saw a more ferocious generation of Endless pounding at our door. It only made us mock them more. For their short-sightedness. For their apish rage.
The siege of our homeland ended when the drakes came. In this time of war no drakes, Elemental or otherwise, resided on Hearthstead. They had their own land across the sea. According to some accounts, the Elemental Drakes fled their lands because they were hounded by the other drakes of that homeland—drakes that made the Elementals seem unimposing. Regardless, many Elemental Drakes migrated to Hearthstead and took up residence in the Endless Empire. It was enough of a distraction for the Endless to lessen their assault on our border. The Elemental Drakes began to work out a partnership with the Empire that may have proved mutually beneficial.
The partnership was short-lived. The Elemental Drakes were followed by their cousins the dragons. The Hydra dragged dragons into the sea, the Dracon summoned terrible storms, and the Salamanders wrestled them to the ground, but there were too many. I do not know how many is too many, but the accounts I have read indicate the sky was darkened by their numbers, and part of the scarcity of Elemental Drakes today is because of those lost trying to prevent the dragons from reaching the Endless Empire.
You may begin to detect a pattern here. I made a point of the might of the Endless to give the arrival of the dragons proper context. The Elemental Drakes fought their desperate battle because the Empire had no hope for survival.
One dragon in particular, Anbraax, led the swarm. They call him the Demon. He bested several Grand Drakes in combat to reach the Prolonged capital Vahalla. While fending off Alacrit the Grand Dracon and Vulcan the Grand Salamander, Anbraax unleashed his fiery breath on the city. It melted to the ground with most of the Prolonged in existence trapped inside. They died.
Whenever you hear the curse, “Anbraax’s breath,” be sure to remember that.
By then the Empire was already shattered. Half of it was gone. Those Prolonged who survived the pyroclast of Vahalla were scattered to the winds. Anbraax did not settle with Vahalla. He flew to Magmell and would have repeated his catastrophe there at the Persistent capital if Atlas had not emerged from beneath the earth at just theright moment. The Grand Wyrm sheltered Magmell from the blast. His hide was burned into the earth, but the Persistent capital survived, albeit buried beneath the drake who became a living mountain.
Anbraax was brought down then, by the spells of a mage named Marduk and the earth-shattering rage of Atlas’ mate, Tempus. Tempus ate Anbraax’s carcass, and the dragons scattered without their leader.
The damage was done, though. Atlas was irrevocably crippled. Tempus curled up beside him and has not moved since. They are a mountain range now. Vulcan’s mate was killed in the fighting, and the Grand Wyverns were also grievously injured. The empire that besieged my people for centuries was crushed in two days’ time.
And where were the Ebon when this occurred? We used our vast arcane knowledge to hide ourselves. Not a single Ebon warrior lost his life to dragons. You should know, too, that my people felt vindicated in this.
There is a reason I no longer live in the Umbral Valley.
If there is a day the name Hearthstead took on its bitter irony, it was that day, when one great city was melted into scrap and another was buried beneath its savior.’
PUBLISHED
Today is the day. I have published my book. Also, the GW2 BWE2 starts today, but that's not nearly as exciting. Because, you know, I have published my book! I don't want to ask you to buy it, but... please buy it! Also, tell your friends about it. Since I'm self-publishing this sucker, the best method for success is word of mouth. So yeah, tell people about it. Also, if you purchase my book and you want it signed, e-mail me at braveshield19@yahoo.com or Facebook message me to coordinate that. God bless you, everyone, and I hope you have as awesome a day as I'm having!
This link will take you to where you can buy my book:
https://www.createspace.com/3894289
In the coming week I'll probably put the link up on this blog, and I'll probably post links to Amazon (and especially the Kindle page for e-reading folks) both here and on my Facebook wall. For now, though, peace out!
Update: I figured I might give my blog readers a taste of what you'll find in Ashes of Silver, so in another post I will give a few excerpts of the book.
This link will take you to where you can buy my book:
https://www.createspace.com/3894289
In the coming week I'll probably put the link up on this blog, and I'll probably post links to Amazon (and especially the Kindle page for e-reading folks) both here and on my Facebook wall. For now, though, peace out!
Update: I figured I might give my blog readers a taste of what you'll find in Ashes of Silver, so in another post I will give a few excerpts of the book.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Does It Appeal to You?
What's the appeal of world-building? You want an honest answer? The cool factor. If you're experiencing a world and you're like "awesome!" then that world was probably built successfully. You end up with concepts like balefire and firebending and spice that allows people to fold space and a world where all humans have a sixth sense for magic.
You have Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with whole histories behind them.
Some of my college friends and I spent some time inventing interesting races and detailing their histories with cultural/technological development. That was really fun, to have a badger-people and bat-people threatening war on a race of ostrich-people because the ostriches had enslaved some badgers and bats. Then a biology major joined us with octopus-people who communicated primarily by bioluminescence (if I remember correctly).
Epitomy of awesome.
I believe I've mentioned another benefit of world-building. The kind of story you tell is directly linked to the kind of world you build—as evinced by the importance of diction/word choice to the building of your world. The sweeping epic that is the Lord of the Rings tells a story of ugly war and the struggles of the small and the simple against the perpetrators of the war. And if you missed this part, the Hobbits and the Elves and the Dwarves all lose in the end, and Man is the ultimate winner. For now.
The story of the Wheel of Time series is all bound up in the cyclic nature of time in that universe. Time is a spinning wheel, and people are the threads of the tapestry it weaves. That's an actual metaphor pulled straight out of the series, and balefire burns people out of existence throughout time. Then there are Ta'veren, who unconscious weave the lives of those around them to their own purposes.
So you can world-build to explore world-possibilities other than the one we live in (as Wheel of Time does) or you can use it to talk about the world in metaphorical terms (as the Lord of the Rings does, and despite Tolkien's own aspersions toward allegory). I mention the word "allegory" in that parenthesis, but I'm not saying the Lord of the Rings is actually an allegory. For one thing, you don't have an allegory unless the author intends it (argue against that all you want, but I believe it to be true) and is skilled enough to accomplish it. LOTR has allegorical elements, which comes with the trappings of fantasy. There are metaphorical (or archetypical) parallels to the world we know and live in couched in the adventures of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn. The reason I am not ashamed to love fantasy is because I believe it allows us to look at parallels to our own lives in a different context and think about them in ways I think are more honest than we otherwise can.
I'm not saying everything in fantasy has to be black and white, good and evil. Look at the Harry Potter series or at Gollum and you have some good case studies for morally complex storytelling in fantasy. I'm saying there's more room for stylization, and good stylization can sometimes be more real than reality (Up, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc. anyone?).
Do you know how much insane detail goes into the worlds of Pixar movies like Toy Story? Those movies make you believe, for a time, that toys are alive, and in the process say something important about the value of children (and the value they give to the things they love). That's what's "literary" about world-building. When done (and presented) well, it can make a story concept work that would be crippled without it.
So yeah, that's why I like fantasy, guys. Now go read A Wizard of Earthsea if you haven't already.
You have Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with whole histories behind them.
Some of my college friends and I spent some time inventing interesting races and detailing their histories with cultural/technological development. That was really fun, to have a badger-people and bat-people threatening war on a race of ostrich-people because the ostriches had enslaved some badgers and bats. Then a biology major joined us with octopus-people who communicated primarily by bioluminescence (if I remember correctly).
Epitomy of awesome.
I believe I've mentioned another benefit of world-building. The kind of story you tell is directly linked to the kind of world you build—as evinced by the importance of diction/word choice to the building of your world. The sweeping epic that is the Lord of the Rings tells a story of ugly war and the struggles of the small and the simple against the perpetrators of the war. And if you missed this part, the Hobbits and the Elves and the Dwarves all lose in the end, and Man is the ultimate winner. For now.
The story of the Wheel of Time series is all bound up in the cyclic nature of time in that universe. Time is a spinning wheel, and people are the threads of the tapestry it weaves. That's an actual metaphor pulled straight out of the series, and balefire burns people out of existence throughout time. Then there are Ta'veren, who unconscious weave the lives of those around them to their own purposes.
So you can world-build to explore world-possibilities other than the one we live in (as Wheel of Time does) or you can use it to talk about the world in metaphorical terms (as the Lord of the Rings does, and despite Tolkien's own aspersions toward allegory). I mention the word "allegory" in that parenthesis, but I'm not saying the Lord of the Rings is actually an allegory. For one thing, you don't have an allegory unless the author intends it (argue against that all you want, but I believe it to be true) and is skilled enough to accomplish it. LOTR has allegorical elements, which comes with the trappings of fantasy. There are metaphorical (or archetypical) parallels to the world we know and live in couched in the adventures of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn. The reason I am not ashamed to love fantasy is because I believe it allows us to look at parallels to our own lives in a different context and think about them in ways I think are more honest than we otherwise can.
I'm not saying everything in fantasy has to be black and white, good and evil. Look at the Harry Potter series or at Gollum and you have some good case studies for morally complex storytelling in fantasy. I'm saying there's more room for stylization, and good stylization can sometimes be more real than reality (Up, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc. anyone?).
Do you know how much insane detail goes into the worlds of Pixar movies like Toy Story? Those movies make you believe, for a time, that toys are alive, and in the process say something important about the value of children (and the value they give to the things they love). That's what's "literary" about world-building. When done (and presented) well, it can make a story concept work that would be crippled without it.
So yeah, that's why I like fantasy, guys. Now go read A Wizard of Earthsea if you haven't already.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Archetypicality
It's hard to blog in the morning when you don't have internet. I spent most of the morning reconfiguring my family's wireless router so we could get on, then trying to get an old computer to download Guild Wars 2 for this weekend. It seems that the problem is that it doesn't have enough RAM to download the client, let alone anything else. Solution? I guess we're gonna go buy enough RAM to get to 4gb at some point. Then, maybe, the computer will work out.
I'm a little dazed this week, I guess. Having a heard time putting it together and getting going. Maybe I need to set my alarm for earlier. I dunno.
I've covered the importance of diction, word choice, and characters to writing, and how those apply to building the world your readers will see as they absorb your prose. In no way have I been exhaustive on those topics. There's almost always more to say. But I think I've given you an idea, at least.
One of the things I love about fantasy is the archetypes. To the other-trained eye they look like clichés: overused character tropes. But depending on the kind of fantasy you're telling, the wise and arcane counselor can be quite effective. It's always best, though, to try for new and interesting combinations—and keep diction and character in mind while you deal with archetypes.
There aren't just archetypical characters, like the Wizard or the Fledgling Hero. There are archetypical settings, too. Mordor is an archetypical Wasteland ruined by the villain. Swords of Power and Words of Power are both also archetypical elements.
So what's the difference between a cliché and an archetype? Basically, archetypes are old. Old like the Epic of Gilgamesh old. Arthurian legend is a good source of archetypical ideas, as are the epics of Homer and the canon of the Greek and Roman pantheons. The other thing about archetypes is that they are closer to allusions than to clichés, and by using them you are referring to and acknowledging a vast history of stories told. It's this past-reference that makes archetypes a good thing.
Here's what you have to beware of, though. It works for alternate histories, and somewhat more casual fantasy, to rely on thinly veiled archetypes. For example, there are characters with names like Marduk, Vulcan, Tempus, Leviathan, and Tiamat in the world of Hearthstead. That's because my cousin and I decided that one of the motifs of Hearthstead would be direct allusions to mythological figures and places. But Hearthstead isn't high fantasy. Again, that's not a mark against the world. But it's an identifier.
If you're doing high fantasy, it's expected you're building a huge historied world for your story to take place in, and if that's the case you really don't want a Gandalf stand-in. Someone very old and very wise? Okay. But a wizard with a giant beard who dies and comes back to life is not a good idea. You should probably also avoid taking names directly from the real world. No Zeus. Maybe you can take some names like Zachary, but ehhh maybe not.
This ties in to diction/word choice big time. It's best to have an idea of what the people of the world call things. You're probably writing in English, but if it's a fantasy world you most likely don't want to have everyone naming their babies and their places things like Philadelphia or Johnny. There's also the whole thing of not overdoing x's and y's.
If you're basing a world or a part of the world off of a particular mythology or real-world culture, using naming conventions from those are a good idea. Norse, for example, or Spanish. However, if you want mad props for creativity, spending a long time hashing out the nitty gritty details of names, their spellings, and their meanings is probably requisite—as is trying to veil any real-world ties as much as possible.
Even then you'll be using archetypes, for much the same reasons as you're going to have people in your story. Stories are retold with new (or mixed-up) contexts. Your job in world-building is to create a place with a set of contexts that's intriguing for the reader.
One story that does this very well is the Avatar series, actually. Not the movie Avatar with its uninspired story, but Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The former introduced a world where, basically, the whole thing is Asia, and people learn martial arts that allows them to control the elements. By "the whole thing is Asia" I mean the four main peoples of the Avatar universe are based on real-world Asian peoples. All the names, cultural motifs, and much of the spiritual/magical element of the show derives from this Asian center-piece. That's one reason why The Last Airbender movie was completely terrible. In The Legend of Korra, time has moved forward (pretty rapidly for fantasy) into what seems to be 1920's era city-life, complete with industry, high-inventiveness, and mangled city politics. The metropolitan lifestyle has affected many of the visual characteristics (such as fashion and ways of moving) but the Asian background is still there and still strong, including the fact that all the names are still created according to very not Anglo-Saxon conventions. This is a good thing.
So I talked a bit about archetypes and naming things today, and I'm sorry if it was a bit jumbled. I did say I was scattered. That's all I really have to say for the day. See you tomorrow.
Ciao.
I'm a little dazed this week, I guess. Having a heard time putting it together and getting going. Maybe I need to set my alarm for earlier. I dunno.
I've covered the importance of diction, word choice, and characters to writing, and how those apply to building the world your readers will see as they absorb your prose. In no way have I been exhaustive on those topics. There's almost always more to say. But I think I've given you an idea, at least.
One of the things I love about fantasy is the archetypes. To the other-trained eye they look like clichés: overused character tropes. But depending on the kind of fantasy you're telling, the wise and arcane counselor can be quite effective. It's always best, though, to try for new and interesting combinations—and keep diction and character in mind while you deal with archetypes.
There aren't just archetypical characters, like the Wizard or the Fledgling Hero. There are archetypical settings, too. Mordor is an archetypical Wasteland ruined by the villain. Swords of Power and Words of Power are both also archetypical elements.
So what's the difference between a cliché and an archetype? Basically, archetypes are old. Old like the Epic of Gilgamesh old. Arthurian legend is a good source of archetypical ideas, as are the epics of Homer and the canon of the Greek and Roman pantheons. The other thing about archetypes is that they are closer to allusions than to clichés, and by using them you are referring to and acknowledging a vast history of stories told. It's this past-reference that makes archetypes a good thing.
Here's what you have to beware of, though. It works for alternate histories, and somewhat more casual fantasy, to rely on thinly veiled archetypes. For example, there are characters with names like Marduk, Vulcan, Tempus, Leviathan, and Tiamat in the world of Hearthstead. That's because my cousin and I decided that one of the motifs of Hearthstead would be direct allusions to mythological figures and places. But Hearthstead isn't high fantasy. Again, that's not a mark against the world. But it's an identifier.
If you're doing high fantasy, it's expected you're building a huge historied world for your story to take place in, and if that's the case you really don't want a Gandalf stand-in. Someone very old and very wise? Okay. But a wizard with a giant beard who dies and comes back to life is not a good idea. You should probably also avoid taking names directly from the real world. No Zeus. Maybe you can take some names like Zachary, but ehhh maybe not.
This ties in to diction/word choice big time. It's best to have an idea of what the people of the world call things. You're probably writing in English, but if it's a fantasy world you most likely don't want to have everyone naming their babies and their places things like Philadelphia or Johnny. There's also the whole thing of not overdoing x's and y's.
If you're basing a world or a part of the world off of a particular mythology or real-world culture, using naming conventions from those are a good idea. Norse, for example, or Spanish. However, if you want mad props for creativity, spending a long time hashing out the nitty gritty details of names, their spellings, and their meanings is probably requisite—as is trying to veil any real-world ties as much as possible.
Even then you'll be using archetypes, for much the same reasons as you're going to have people in your story. Stories are retold with new (or mixed-up) contexts. Your job in world-building is to create a place with a set of contexts that's intriguing for the reader.
One story that does this very well is the Avatar series, actually. Not the movie Avatar with its uninspired story, but Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The former introduced a world where, basically, the whole thing is Asia, and people learn martial arts that allows them to control the elements. By "the whole thing is Asia" I mean the four main peoples of the Avatar universe are based on real-world Asian peoples. All the names, cultural motifs, and much of the spiritual/magical element of the show derives from this Asian center-piece. That's one reason why The Last Airbender movie was completely terrible. In The Legend of Korra, time has moved forward (pretty rapidly for fantasy) into what seems to be 1920's era city-life, complete with industry, high-inventiveness, and mangled city politics. The metropolitan lifestyle has affected many of the visual characteristics (such as fashion and ways of moving) but the Asian background is still there and still strong, including the fact that all the names are still created according to very not Anglo-Saxon conventions. This is a good thing.
So I talked a bit about archetypes and naming things today, and I'm sorry if it was a bit jumbled. I did say I was scattered. That's all I really have to say for the day. See you tomorrow.
Ciao.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The Rocket Summer, Bronies, and Legend of Korra
I spent much of my morning messing around with Scrivener, a word processor on steroids. It has some nice organizational tools, but isn't ideal to transfer existing documents into. Which is what I was doing, of course.
I'm just working with a trial right now. We'll see where it goes. -shrugs-
I'm not really prepared for another marathon blog post about writing, so I'll give you a break today.
In other news, my excitement for this weekend's beta event does not wane. A new Rocket Summer album came out today, and I want it. But the money, and the not spending it, and the infinite sadness.
My sister recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You know, the show that made bronies out of grown men? I can see the appeal, but not when she's been marathoning the whole show over the course of a few days. Then it's just kind of obnoxious. It's less so when you're watching it.
So I guess I just admitted to having watched it. -shrugs- No big deal.
Saw the new Legend of Korra today. That show just keeps getting better. Oh man. Nerdout. What really makes me happy is that Nickelodeon is being smart and posting (most of) their episodes online. That way they can make the money that would otherwise be lost to piracy. Because face it, people are going to watch this show online. It's awesome. The themes are slightly more mature than in Airbender, and the characters echo archetypes from that show while possessing their own personalities. So yeah, I like that show.
Gotta go.
I'm just working with a trial right now. We'll see where it goes. -shrugs-
I'm not really prepared for another marathon blog post about writing, so I'll give you a break today.
In other news, my excitement for this weekend's beta event does not wane. A new Rocket Summer album came out today, and I want it. But the money, and the not spending it, and the infinite sadness.
My sister recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You know, the show that made bronies out of grown men? I can see the appeal, but not when she's been marathoning the whole show over the course of a few days. Then it's just kind of obnoxious. It's less so when you're watching it.
So I guess I just admitted to having watched it. -shrugs- No big deal.
Saw the new Legend of Korra today. That show just keeps getting better. Oh man. Nerdout. What really makes me happy is that Nickelodeon is being smart and posting (most of) their episodes online. That way they can make the money that would otherwise be lost to piracy. Because face it, people are going to watch this show online. It's awesome. The themes are slightly more mature than in Airbender, and the characters echo archetypes from that show while possessing their own personalities. So yeah, I like that show.
Gotta go.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Character and World-building
I said yesterday that there's a beta event for Guild Wars 2 this weekend. I am immensely excited for this, and hope to spend a large amount of time playing. Maybe that old computer can even get set up for GW2 so I can play with my wife!
Running is my go-to idea for exercise, but I'm really bad about doing it. I should probably do it soon, but the internet! And the things!
And pizza!
Friday and Saturday I talked at length about diction and word choice and how they relate to writing (with a focus on Fantasy because, well, I'm me). I wanted to talk today about characterization and its utmost importance.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to tell a compelling story it requires at least one person at the center of things, experiencing and interpreting the world, and influencing it with agency. If there isn't a person involved, it's not a story in my estimation. That isn't to say it isn't art. There's quite a few poems where there's hardly an author's voice, let alone a narrator (though this is most often a finely crafted illusion because, you know, there's an author or at least an editor where there's words involved), and that doesn't detract from the artistry of the poem. Similarly, visual arts don't need human subjects to be artful or beautiful. They just aren't stories in my eyes.
Now you might mention wilderness documentary stories, like that Chimpanzee movie. But here's the thing: in those works, the creatures depicted are anthropomorphized. They're not people, and I believe they shouldn't be treated like people. That's why movies like that bother me. When things get more metaphorical it bothers me less, but animal movies annoy me because the stories pretend that these creatures are people.
I am making sure to use the word "person" because that is a more significant catch-all than human being. In my worldview, the only "people" are human beings (aside from God and maybe angels). However, there is a rich tradition of giving a non-human the aspects of personhood (self-cognizance and the like) throughout human history. It's a good exercise for the imagination. So I should clarify that the stories that bother me the most are the ones that are direct documentaries, especially of primates, that try to sell them as people when they're not.
So anyway, people are at the center of storytelling, because people are the origin of stories we tell. I also believe that God is a storyteller, and that he has imparted stories to us, and that our penchant for storytelling is part of His image in us, but that does not detract from the centrality of people in our storytelling.
I've said all this to contextualize why doing your characters right is as important to the world you build with your story as diction and word choice. It's also not one of the things you think about when you think "world-building." That phrase conjures to mind the imagining of geography and infrastructure and special laws outside the ones that govern our universe.
But all that mind-blowing stuff has no meaning and no purpose when not considered through the lens of character. It's hard for me to say this. I love world-building for the sake of it. Coming up with places and types of magic and different political systems is really fun. But I realize that if you don't have a character who reacts to the circumstances you've invented for him (or her, or it) you don't have a story. You just have a world. And it's harder to sell or spread the word about a world you built aside from within a story. You need a medium to convey the world you've carved in your mind. That's where the art comes in, and fantasy writing relates to world-building as a medium for that creation you've done.
In the series I worked on for most of my adolescence, called Talas Ke, there are two characters who come from (a slightly alternate version of) Earth, but spend the vast majority of the series on Talas Ke, the world I built. They bring all their prejudices, experiences, memories, mannerisms, and so on from Earth with them, and view the differences of Talas Ke in light of that paradigm. It's a fairly common formula, and because I started writing it when I was about twelve I wrote to discover, building the world as I went. Looking back, I see the world-building and storytelling I did when I first wrote that story as sloppy and sometimes ill-conceived, but I've been told by many of those who've read it that it works. Why?
Because they cared about the characters. I plunged my characters into the world that I had made, as shoddily as I might have made it, and made them live it. Because they lived it, and they reacted as fully as I could make them react, and as fleshed out as I could make them, I had invested readers.
Now, as I reflect to friends and family on my disappointments with that story, and express my need to revise it to a tremendous extent, I likely have some disappointed, invested readers. It's because of them that I haven't given up on Talas Ke and intend to return to the world soon, to finish what I started almost ten years ago. It's also because, in my slightly-insane writerly way, I owe it to those characters to finish their story.
Most of my short stories fail because I can't give the characters the roundness they need. Epic, mainstream, AAA endeavors in writing or in film fall short because the characters aren't written true to themselves and to the world. And do you know why the Avengers was such an awesome movie? Why it's a record-breaker? It's because Whedon wrote the characters well, and gave them their fullness to live in the world that was made. If the characters weren't well written, they couldn't have been well-acted, and then no amount of fancy special effects shots could have saved the movie.
If you agonize over anything when you're writing, let it be the characters. If you believe the characters, you'll believe the story, even if the world-building sucks or is just plain mind-raping. Homestuck, as another example, has characters I am invested in for better or for worse, and it's that investment that has me reading through all the appearifying antics and yellow yards. Characters are why I'm still reading the Wheel of Time series, and why after the first season of Game of Thrones I wiki-walked through what remains of the story, and might even read the remaining books as they are released. They're also why A Song of Ice and Fire hurts me deeply to consume as a story, because it punishes you for caring about characters.
And if it sounds too painful to agonize over your characters, know that it gets better over time. Maybe it's because you get more heartless, or maybe it's coming to terms, but unless you're a children's author you're very likely going to kill off a character you love at some point when you're writing.
I'd give some pithy saying, like "invest in your characters, and..." but I can't come up with the second half. So just that. If you're telling a story, invest in your characters, then build your world for them.
Running is my go-to idea for exercise, but I'm really bad about doing it. I should probably do it soon, but the internet! And the things!
And pizza!
Friday and Saturday I talked at length about diction and word choice and how they relate to writing (with a focus on Fantasy because, well, I'm me). I wanted to talk today about characterization and its utmost importance.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to tell a compelling story it requires at least one person at the center of things, experiencing and interpreting the world, and influencing it with agency. If there isn't a person involved, it's not a story in my estimation. That isn't to say it isn't art. There's quite a few poems where there's hardly an author's voice, let alone a narrator (though this is most often a finely crafted illusion because, you know, there's an author or at least an editor where there's words involved), and that doesn't detract from the artistry of the poem. Similarly, visual arts don't need human subjects to be artful or beautiful. They just aren't stories in my eyes.
Now you might mention wilderness documentary stories, like that Chimpanzee movie. But here's the thing: in those works, the creatures depicted are anthropomorphized. They're not people, and I believe they shouldn't be treated like people. That's why movies like that bother me. When things get more metaphorical it bothers me less, but animal movies annoy me because the stories pretend that these creatures are people.
I am making sure to use the word "person" because that is a more significant catch-all than human being. In my worldview, the only "people" are human beings (aside from God and maybe angels). However, there is a rich tradition of giving a non-human the aspects of personhood (self-cognizance and the like) throughout human history. It's a good exercise for the imagination. So I should clarify that the stories that bother me the most are the ones that are direct documentaries, especially of primates, that try to sell them as people when they're not.
So anyway, people are at the center of storytelling, because people are the origin of stories we tell. I also believe that God is a storyteller, and that he has imparted stories to us, and that our penchant for storytelling is part of His image in us, but that does not detract from the centrality of people in our storytelling.
I've said all this to contextualize why doing your characters right is as important to the world you build with your story as diction and word choice. It's also not one of the things you think about when you think "world-building." That phrase conjures to mind the imagining of geography and infrastructure and special laws outside the ones that govern our universe.
But all that mind-blowing stuff has no meaning and no purpose when not considered through the lens of character. It's hard for me to say this. I love world-building for the sake of it. Coming up with places and types of magic and different political systems is really fun. But I realize that if you don't have a character who reacts to the circumstances you've invented for him (or her, or it) you don't have a story. You just have a world. And it's harder to sell or spread the word about a world you built aside from within a story. You need a medium to convey the world you've carved in your mind. That's where the art comes in, and fantasy writing relates to world-building as a medium for that creation you've done.
In the series I worked on for most of my adolescence, called Talas Ke, there are two characters who come from (a slightly alternate version of) Earth, but spend the vast majority of the series on Talas Ke, the world I built. They bring all their prejudices, experiences, memories, mannerisms, and so on from Earth with them, and view the differences of Talas Ke in light of that paradigm. It's a fairly common formula, and because I started writing it when I was about twelve I wrote to discover, building the world as I went. Looking back, I see the world-building and storytelling I did when I first wrote that story as sloppy and sometimes ill-conceived, but I've been told by many of those who've read it that it works. Why?
Because they cared about the characters. I plunged my characters into the world that I had made, as shoddily as I might have made it, and made them live it. Because they lived it, and they reacted as fully as I could make them react, and as fleshed out as I could make them, I had invested readers.
Now, as I reflect to friends and family on my disappointments with that story, and express my need to revise it to a tremendous extent, I likely have some disappointed, invested readers. It's because of them that I haven't given up on Talas Ke and intend to return to the world soon, to finish what I started almost ten years ago. It's also because, in my slightly-insane writerly way, I owe it to those characters to finish their story.
Most of my short stories fail because I can't give the characters the roundness they need. Epic, mainstream, AAA endeavors in writing or in film fall short because the characters aren't written true to themselves and to the world. And do you know why the Avengers was such an awesome movie? Why it's a record-breaker? It's because Whedon wrote the characters well, and gave them their fullness to live in the world that was made. If the characters weren't well written, they couldn't have been well-acted, and then no amount of fancy special effects shots could have saved the movie.
If you agonize over anything when you're writing, let it be the characters. If you believe the characters, you'll believe the story, even if the world-building sucks or is just plain mind-raping. Homestuck, as another example, has characters I am invested in for better or for worse, and it's that investment that has me reading through all the appearifying antics and yellow yards. Characters are why I'm still reading the Wheel of Time series, and why after the first season of Game of Thrones I wiki-walked through what remains of the story, and might even read the remaining books as they are released. They're also why A Song of Ice and Fire hurts me deeply to consume as a story, because it punishes you for caring about characters.
And if it sounds too painful to agonize over your characters, know that it gets better over time. Maybe it's because you get more heartless, or maybe it's coming to terms, but unless you're a children's author you're very likely going to kill off a character you love at some point when you're writing.
I'd give some pithy saying, like "invest in your characters, and..." but I can't come up with the second half. So just that. If you're telling a story, invest in your characters, then build your world for them.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
For Whom the Bell Tolls
So my last two blog posts were a little longer. This one won't be.
Today, I stood and watched my cousin (one of my best friends) get married, and almost cried because I'm maybe a little happy for them I guess? And it was an awesome ceremony, a great reception, and a wonderful time.
Now those kids are off somewhere having an adventure, and I'm home after about three hours or more of riding in a car. It's super late, and I'm tired, but not tired enough to just let a face-punch penance happen.
Though I might have, if my wife hadn't reminded me.
Tomorrow starts a new week with the foreseeable future dedicated to figuring this life out. A little over a week till I get my proof to verify, and less than that till a GW2 BETA WEEKEND WOO!!!! In the mean time, more writing projects to agonize over, more job applications (and similar activities) to fill out/send, and some exercise to work into my (hopefully not too) busy routine.
I leave you with this: Nate and Christine Hunter, I know you might not read this right away (you'll be busy, I know how honeymoons are), but God bless you and your marriage. I pray it be as much a blessing to you as the last ten months have been for me. All my best wishes. I love you. Seriously.
Bed time.
Today, I stood and watched my cousin (one of my best friends) get married, and almost cried because I'm maybe a little happy for them I guess? And it was an awesome ceremony, a great reception, and a wonderful time.
Now those kids are off somewhere having an adventure, and I'm home after about three hours or more of riding in a car. It's super late, and I'm tired, but not tired enough to just let a face-punch penance happen.
Though I might have, if my wife hadn't reminded me.
Tomorrow starts a new week with the foreseeable future dedicated to figuring this life out. A little over a week till I get my proof to verify, and less than that till a GW2 BETA WEEKEND WOO!!!! In the mean time, more writing projects to agonize over, more job applications (and similar activities) to fill out/send, and some exercise to work into my (hopefully not too) busy routine.
I leave you with this: Nate and Christine Hunter, I know you might not read this right away (you'll be busy, I know how honeymoons are), but God bless you and your marriage. I pray it be as much a blessing to you as the last ten months have been for me. All my best wishes. I love you. Seriously.
Bed time.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
More Notes on Diction and a Bit of Pontificating
Here I am at the inn, having a little downtime between rehearsal and the bachelor's party tonight. To be honest I'm a little distracted. There's stuff happening and it's been a busy and chaotic day so far.
I gave a lesson about diction/word choice, but I should clarify that the two things are not equal. Diction is all about "how" you say things (a difficult conveyance for writing) and so overlaps with word choice. That's why I used them fairly interchangeably in my last blog post.
I mentioned that I don't write much contemporary fiction. That's because I'm not comfortable with my knowledge of how real-world people actually talk. I don't think I quite have my finger on the pulse of the down-to-earth and the down-and-out, nor can I spin out realistically elitist phrases like I think I should if I'm going to portray the melting pot (or garden salad, if you prefer that metaphor) of diversity that is the modern world. I'm not spot on with rhetoric and jargon used by different political camps or even the nuances of dialect differences between a popular jock and a band geek in high school.
Some of this is just me selling myself short. I'm afraid to try, to be honest. There's higher stakes in writing contemporary fiction, because if you paint an inaccurate picture, people get offended (for the wrong reasons) or confused, or both. There's also my lacking sense of tact, in that if I get talking too much about what's going on in the real world all my innate prejudices and beliefs all get born out pretty quickly, and I don't even tend to believe in all the things I have guttural reactions to.
For these reasons I've largely relegated myself to the abstracted spaces of fantasy and poetry, where I can create the whole universe and the reader has to learn from me what the words mean—what the world means. In some ways it's lazy, and it's for that reason that I hope to do more contemporary fiction writing, but so far my fear of research and mistakes has kept me from accomplishing that.
I'm also much more versed in what makes good fantasy good than the ethereal, academia-defined notions (hey look, prejudices!) of what makes good "literary" fiction. So what I strive for is literary fantasy, which leads me to harken back towards Tolkien, Lewis, White, Graham, LeGuin, and others rather than try to pull the popular (and perhaps less substantive) work of Salvatore, Jordan, Brooks, and Martin. Yes, I included A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time under "less substantive" despite their being epics long enough to kill their writers before they're finished. Arguably, these extensive come from the very fact that these works are popular, but just realize I'm not knocking these guys. I just want to do something a little different.
I aspire to write fantasy that gets put in the mainstream literary canon. Yeah, that's a big order to fill. To do that, I have to be twice as good as someone writing ordinary literary work, because I have to catch the eye of the mainstream audience (incidentally not the majority of readers) from my spot out in left field. People used to do this all the time. In my estimation some of the best writers in the last century wrote speculative fiction (fantasy or sci-fi). Now, some of my fellow recent batch of degree-ified writers may strongly disagree with me. But they can continue to call fantasy useless and crap and I'll continue to call Hemingway a twit who offed himself because he was too arrogant to age and die with dignity.
So yeah, there's stuff. By the way, phrases like that one I just used are an instance of diction. I do it because I want to relate to people, and because I like irony. I'm a writer, and some say a rather eloquent one, but I know when you just need to relate on a vague level and not get into the boring details with people. Sometimes I let myself go (like this blog post for example) but that's because I feel comfortable and appreciated. And yes, I miscalculate. My own sister checks out on me when I start talking about the fascinating etymologies of words.
I'm a language nerd. I realize this. No, I don't need help. Thanks for trying.
Hearthstead, by the way, isn't one of my more "literary" attempts at fantasy fiction. It's a bit of a superhero story wrapped in a fantasy shell, which I think makes it super awesome. Of course, it's also not going to be intentionally subpar writing because of that. But its themes are a little less esoteric, maybe, than "The Fairies' Game" that I wrote this spring. Honestly I like it better. It goes places. To find out where it goes, of course, you'll have to read it.
Patience, young grasshopper. Come with time, it will. Yes, I'm aware that may have been excruciating. Just move on with me.
By the way, the novel that I hope will be available by the end of this month is called "Ashes of Silver." I put it in quotes because it's not published yet. As always, I'll talk more about the book when the time is right. Yes, I can't shut up about it. It's my first freaking book ever that's going to come out, and I have a blog where I say whatever I want. Of course I'm going to gush. A little bit. Around the finger I've got plugged in the dam for your sake.
I think that's all I have to say today. As I said yesterday, circumstances may prevent me from blogging tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes. Hope your weekend's chugging along nicely.
For now, though? -shrugs-
(seriously need to think of a better ending thing)
I gave a lesson about diction/word choice, but I should clarify that the two things are not equal. Diction is all about "how" you say things (a difficult conveyance for writing) and so overlaps with word choice. That's why I used them fairly interchangeably in my last blog post.
I mentioned that I don't write much contemporary fiction. That's because I'm not comfortable with my knowledge of how real-world people actually talk. I don't think I quite have my finger on the pulse of the down-to-earth and the down-and-out, nor can I spin out realistically elitist phrases like I think I should if I'm going to portray the melting pot (or garden salad, if you prefer that metaphor) of diversity that is the modern world. I'm not spot on with rhetoric and jargon used by different political camps or even the nuances of dialect differences between a popular jock and a band geek in high school.
Some of this is just me selling myself short. I'm afraid to try, to be honest. There's higher stakes in writing contemporary fiction, because if you paint an inaccurate picture, people get offended (for the wrong reasons) or confused, or both. There's also my lacking sense of tact, in that if I get talking too much about what's going on in the real world all my innate prejudices and beliefs all get born out pretty quickly, and I don't even tend to believe in all the things I have guttural reactions to.
For these reasons I've largely relegated myself to the abstracted spaces of fantasy and poetry, where I can create the whole universe and the reader has to learn from me what the words mean—what the world means. In some ways it's lazy, and it's for that reason that I hope to do more contemporary fiction writing, but so far my fear of research and mistakes has kept me from accomplishing that.
I'm also much more versed in what makes good fantasy good than the ethereal, academia-defined notions (hey look, prejudices!) of what makes good "literary" fiction. So what I strive for is literary fantasy, which leads me to harken back towards Tolkien, Lewis, White, Graham, LeGuin, and others rather than try to pull the popular (and perhaps less substantive) work of Salvatore, Jordan, Brooks, and Martin. Yes, I included A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time under "less substantive" despite their being epics long enough to kill their writers before they're finished. Arguably, these extensive come from the very fact that these works are popular, but just realize I'm not knocking these guys. I just want to do something a little different.
I aspire to write fantasy that gets put in the mainstream literary canon. Yeah, that's a big order to fill. To do that, I have to be twice as good as someone writing ordinary literary work, because I have to catch the eye of the mainstream audience (incidentally not the majority of readers) from my spot out in left field. People used to do this all the time. In my estimation some of the best writers in the last century wrote speculative fiction (fantasy or sci-fi). Now, some of my fellow recent batch of degree-ified writers may strongly disagree with me. But they can continue to call fantasy useless and crap and I'll continue to call Hemingway a twit who offed himself because he was too arrogant to age and die with dignity.
So yeah, there's stuff. By the way, phrases like that one I just used are an instance of diction. I do it because I want to relate to people, and because I like irony. I'm a writer, and some say a rather eloquent one, but I know when you just need to relate on a vague level and not get into the boring details with people. Sometimes I let myself go (like this blog post for example) but that's because I feel comfortable and appreciated. And yes, I miscalculate. My own sister checks out on me when I start talking about the fascinating etymologies of words.
I'm a language nerd. I realize this. No, I don't need help. Thanks for trying.
Hearthstead, by the way, isn't one of my more "literary" attempts at fantasy fiction. It's a bit of a superhero story wrapped in a fantasy shell, which I think makes it super awesome. Of course, it's also not going to be intentionally subpar writing because of that. But its themes are a little less esoteric, maybe, than "The Fairies' Game" that I wrote this spring. Honestly I like it better. It goes places. To find out where it goes, of course, you'll have to read it.
Patience, young grasshopper. Come with time, it will. Yes, I'm aware that may have been excruciating. Just move on with me.
By the way, the novel that I hope will be available by the end of this month is called "Ashes of Silver." I put it in quotes because it's not published yet. As always, I'll talk more about the book when the time is right. Yes, I can't shut up about it. It's my first freaking book ever that's going to come out, and I have a blog where I say whatever I want. Of course I'm going to gush. A little bit. Around the finger I've got plugged in the dam for your sake.
I think that's all I have to say today. As I said yesterday, circumstances may prevent me from blogging tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes. Hope your weekend's chugging along nicely.
For now, though? -shrugs-
(seriously need to think of a better ending thing)
Friday, June 1, 2012
Diction is More Than What You Say (It's What You Don't)
This morning I ordered a physical proof of my novel and it should arrive in ten days, so I have at least that long to wait to push the ball forward another inch.
Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that I haven't "made it" in writing, but I do kind of have a degree in it now. So now I'm going to give you a lesson on writing fantasy.
Well, honestly this lesson sort of applies to whatever sort of writing you're doing. It's about diction—your word choice—and it basically goes like this:
What words you use (or don't use) when you're writing a particular work make up the pieces of the world your reader builds in their heads.
This is a pretty big thing. It's actually why I rarely write contemporary fiction. What does it mean? It means you can cue a reader in on the kind of places and people they're reading about starting with your first sentence. It means books of certain genres tend to use similar words to describe similar concepts. It means someone who understands the way words create space and can use that constructive power well will be an artful writer regardless of what kind of writing they engage in. Even technical writing.
This isn't the only thing by any means, but it's huge. People who can't do this end up with pretty big communication barriers, and it's mistakes in this realm that I find the most irritating—but also the most difficult to hold against the instigator. I'd put infer/imply swapping and they're/their/there mix-ups on the far end of diction, as they're obvious mistakes.
A better example of a diction mistake is an anachronism. If television didn't exist during the time you're writing about, it should never be mentioned. Except when it should. There's a world of ironic humor that involves placing anachronisms all over settings that shouldn't have them, and a time travel story will be filled with these anyway (a good one will place them well). Also, there is no such thing as an anachronism in contemporary writing, so long as characters are eccentric/eclectic/well-read enough to know the words. That doesn't qualify for, say, people speaking Latin as their first language or something, but anyway.
I'll give another example of word choice that will hopefully illustrate what I'm getting at. In the world of Hearthstead that my cousin and I created, there is no such thing as the undead. There are no necromancers and no ghosts and no zombies digging their way out of shallow graves. Further, the possibility doesn't really cross most people's minds. Because of this, no one uses the word "undead," and the only way you might catch onto this is because there is one character in the series who has a crippling fear of the idea of revenants (undead). Because no one else bothers with the idea, he doesn't think of them as "undead," and his very concept of them is much more vague than our encyclopedic mythologies of the various forms of Risen Dead. Now, when I was writing the book, I could have included the word "undead," but it made more sense for one person not to try to coin a word for something that didn't even exist.
As another example, one of the things I used to do more often than I do now was to create a sense of antiquity to the world by removing all contractions from my narrative and from character's dialogue. It is possible to make natural-sounding dialogue and narration without contractions, even to the point where readers don't necessarily notice the absence (unless they're looking for it), but a people who naturally won't think or speak in contractions is a people who haven't had a reason to compress their speech. It's a remarkably plain way to change things up.
Similarly, if you fill your writing with as many words as possible that contain three or more syllables, no one will take you seriously. Sometimes, what you need is a short, sweet summary.
"'Nuff said."
I might talk more about diction tomorrow, or whatever else I wanna do. I might not have the chance to blog at all, since I'll be across the state and possibly attending a bachelor party. Then Sunday is my cousin's wedding, so maybe I'll get to blog that evening? We'll see. Maybe I'll have some face-punch videos for you for Monday. Like I said, we'll see.
Real quick I have to talk about two things I love. One is that Lego is finally doing stuff with Lord of the Rings, and it is hands down the best thing. Ever. Also, a huge chunk of my video game life has been dedicated to the Final Fantasy Advance games, with their addictive power creep, Dual-wielding glory, and strategy-rpg blend that's just fantastic.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a friend of mine recently started a thing on Tumblr involving pants and FF, so if you start hearing about Final Pantasy, just remember that I know that guy, and he's even cooler than FP makes him seem.
And I think that's all for now.
Ciao.
Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that I haven't "made it" in writing, but I do kind of have a degree in it now. So now I'm going to give you a lesson on writing fantasy.
Well, honestly this lesson sort of applies to whatever sort of writing you're doing. It's about diction—your word choice—and it basically goes like this:
What words you use (or don't use) when you're writing a particular work make up the pieces of the world your reader builds in their heads.
This is a pretty big thing. It's actually why I rarely write contemporary fiction. What does it mean? It means you can cue a reader in on the kind of places and people they're reading about starting with your first sentence. It means books of certain genres tend to use similar words to describe similar concepts. It means someone who understands the way words create space and can use that constructive power well will be an artful writer regardless of what kind of writing they engage in. Even technical writing.
This isn't the only thing by any means, but it's huge. People who can't do this end up with pretty big communication barriers, and it's mistakes in this realm that I find the most irritating—but also the most difficult to hold against the instigator. I'd put infer/imply swapping and they're/their/there mix-ups on the far end of diction, as they're obvious mistakes.
A better example of a diction mistake is an anachronism. If television didn't exist during the time you're writing about, it should never be mentioned. Except when it should. There's a world of ironic humor that involves placing anachronisms all over settings that shouldn't have them, and a time travel story will be filled with these anyway (a good one will place them well). Also, there is no such thing as an anachronism in contemporary writing, so long as characters are eccentric/eclectic/well-read enough to know the words. That doesn't qualify for, say, people speaking Latin as their first language or something, but anyway.
I'll give another example of word choice that will hopefully illustrate what I'm getting at. In the world of Hearthstead that my cousin and I created, there is no such thing as the undead. There are no necromancers and no ghosts and no zombies digging their way out of shallow graves. Further, the possibility doesn't really cross most people's minds. Because of this, no one uses the word "undead," and the only way you might catch onto this is because there is one character in the series who has a crippling fear of the idea of revenants (undead). Because no one else bothers with the idea, he doesn't think of them as "undead," and his very concept of them is much more vague than our encyclopedic mythologies of the various forms of Risen Dead. Now, when I was writing the book, I could have included the word "undead," but it made more sense for one person not to try to coin a word for something that didn't even exist.
As another example, one of the things I used to do more often than I do now was to create a sense of antiquity to the world by removing all contractions from my narrative and from character's dialogue. It is possible to make natural-sounding dialogue and narration without contractions, even to the point where readers don't necessarily notice the absence (unless they're looking for it), but a people who naturally won't think or speak in contractions is a people who haven't had a reason to compress their speech. It's a remarkably plain way to change things up.
Similarly, if you fill your writing with as many words as possible that contain three or more syllables, no one will take you seriously. Sometimes, what you need is a short, sweet summary.
"'Nuff said."
I might talk more about diction tomorrow, or whatever else I wanna do. I might not have the chance to blog at all, since I'll be across the state and possibly attending a bachelor party. Then Sunday is my cousin's wedding, so maybe I'll get to blog that evening? We'll see. Maybe I'll have some face-punch videos for you for Monday. Like I said, we'll see.
Real quick I have to talk about two things I love. One is that Lego is finally doing stuff with Lord of the Rings, and it is hands down the best thing. Ever. Also, a huge chunk of my video game life has been dedicated to the Final Fantasy Advance games, with their addictive power creep, Dual-wielding glory, and strategy-rpg blend that's just fantastic.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a friend of mine recently started a thing on Tumblr involving pants and FF, so if you start hearing about Final Pantasy, just remember that I know that guy, and he's even cooler than FP makes him seem.
And I think that's all for now.
Ciao.
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