The A to Z Fantastic: Anthing Goes

Last year, the first time I attempted this theme before dropping out after 6 posts, I talked about how I believe fantasy is the best genre for Adventure.

This year I want to talk about how in fantasy Anything Goes. (Who has the song in their heads now? And who thought of the version from the Monty Python sketch?)

Anyway!

The more fantasy novels and stories I read the more I realize how utterly limitless the genre is. Most genres seem to have limited subject matter and often come with guidelines about how that subject matter should be explored. (Example: Romance needs to be about the romantic relationship between two people and generally needs to have a happy ending.) But fantasy can be about anything and in fantasy anything can happen. Sure, maybe some things are predictable. Good always triumphs over evil. But there are infinite ways it can happen and the joy of the genre is that sense that you never know what's going to occur on the next page.

As a writer, I love the freedom that fantasy grants me. Literally anything I can imagine I can write about. There's no idea so crazy or so outlandish that fantasy can't accommodate it. There's no idea so mundane that fantasy can't spice it up.

And just for kicks, here's Anything Goes (the song) Indiana Jones style:

New Baby, A to Z and Turning 31, Oh My!

I'm starting this post at 3 am because there's a hungry newborn baby in my arms. Severian Wolfe, born March 20th, continues mine and my husband's insane tradition of naming our kids after literary characters. Our first two are named after Elves from Tolkien's Middle-earth. The two after that are named after a prince and princess from Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. Severian, number 5, is named after the main character from Gene Wolfe's (you see what we did there) The Book of the New Sun series. (Wolfe is also a reference to the lupine character from The 10th Kingdom movie.)

Who's the precious? You are!

Needless to say, this had made daily life rather busy lately. Hence my relative silence. And yet here I am signed up for the A to Z on Monday. I've been trying to come up with a good theme for the past month or so. I've tried several out and sat down to work out what to use for each letter and hit upon about 5 or 6 dead letters each time. Anyone who thinks blogging by the alphabet is easy should be shot. So in the end I've decided to fall back on the theme I picked for last year. The year when I signed up for the A to Z, put out 6 posts and then abruptly failed to do anything for the rest of the month. I guess this will be my opportunity to finish what I started since I had a lot of positive feedback on A through F. (Of course, I'll be using different words for those letters this year.)

The A to Z Fantastic will examine 26 qualities of fantasy literature that I think make it unique and wonderful. And I promise I'll finish it this time.

If all this weren't enough, today is my 31st birthday. Which means that I've been 30 for a whole year. I can remember when the thought of being 30 was horrifying, but the truth is it's been a surprisingly good experience. I've learned a lot more about myself in the last year than I have in a long time. I've noticed many changes from my younger days and I think that it's fair to say they were universally good changes. It's almost shocking, but I'm enjoying getting older. I feel like a better person than I've ever been before.

So all in all I am looking forward to April. I've always loved the Spring with its feeling of growth and potential permeating the air. This year I feel particularly hopeful about the coming months. I feel like I'm in a good place to really accomplish some things this year. Now how do you keep the evil spirit of procrastination away?

Blogfest! My Favorite Movies

Today I signed up to post for Alex Cavanaugh's Top 10 Movie Countdown blogfest. And the truth is, I've been trying to figure out what my favorite movies are for the past week with little success. Oh some choices are obvious.

All three of the original Indiana Jones films were huge influences on me in my childhood. It was Raiders of the Lost Ark that sparked my love of ancient history and made me want to be an archaeologist for several years. Of course, when I became older and wiser I learned that what Indy does is not archaeology, but I never lost my fascination for ancient cultures that these movies inspired.

The Last Crusade is my favorite of the three. You simply can't go wrong when you pair Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. I'm also probably one of the few people who thought the new movie was fun and decent. Harrison Ford was still Indy and that's enough for me.




Jumping ahead, in the last few years I've discovered the films of Hayao Miyazaki and fallen completely head over heals in love.

Japanese animation is a great storytelling medium and Miyazaki is its King. I cannot overestimate his genius, every single one of his films is a work of wonder and delight and incredible imagination. ALL Miyazaki films are better than at least 95% of the other fare out there. I've blogged about Spirited Away before, but brilliant as that one is, it's not one of my favorites of his.

For me, his first epic masterpiece, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, is still the best. It's a story set in a post apocalyptic world where humanity is fighting for survival against a poisonous environment only to discover that their ancestors were responsible for the devastation that threatens to wipe out human life. The land its self has set up a system of purification, but can humanity survive long enough to see the remade earth? Nausicaa believes that only learning to live in harmony with the earth again can save them, but not everyone agrees and war sweeps across the kingdoms that remain while Nausicaa fights for life. The world of Nausicaa is vividly imagined and the conflict is both awesomely epic and deeply personal. The score is also one of my favorites. Joe Hisaishi, who does all of Miyazaki's scores, is as unparalleled a musical genius as Miyazaki is a storytelling genius.

Then there's Princess Mononoke. Everything about this film is beautiful. The magical forest environment where most of the action takes place, the nuanced characters, the amazing musical score. This is a story which never takes the easy way out. It asks tough questions about how humans should treat their environment, it pits several different characters with differing viewpoints against each other and yet there is no "bad guy" and no one faction wins in the end. The message is clear: life is sacred and hatred can do nothing but destroy.

Other awesome Miyazaki films that everyone should definitely see include: Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, and Ponyo. Though like I said, every single one he does is great.

Dune. Not the cheesy 80s movie. The visually spectacular, and much more faithful, mini series adaptation. (Do mini series count for this? They'll have to.) The book Dune is my favorite though its cerebral nature makes it a hard read. Somehow, the makers of this mini series managed to take a book that should be nearly impossible to film effectively and create an amazing visual interpretation that enhanced rather than detracted from my enjoyment of the book. (Which is saying something. I am a book to movie purist all the way.) The actors deserve major kudos for their portrayals of some of the most nuanced and real characters ever to grace genre fiction. If you like the Dune books and you've never seen this adaptation then you're really missing out.




I'll finish this not-a-Top-10-Countdown list with a couple of my favorite fantasy movies.

 

I admit it. I'm a sucker for David Bowie as the Goblin King. Dance Magic Dance. Also, Labyrinths are just cool.

"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."

What more could you ask for? That quote is actually from the book, by the way, which, yes, is still better than the movie. Though not by much.

All right, I cheated and didn't actually list 10 movies. I'm not good at categorizing my favorites. (Don't ask me why I signed up to do just that.) These are some of my favorite movies. They are movies that have had an influence on me as a person and as a storyteller.

Truth be told, I've always been more of a book person. ;)

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Learning to say "It is good"

Take an insecurity and ratchet it all the way up and what do you get? An anxiety.

I've probably obliquely mentioned that I have anxiety issues before. But I'm one of those people who likes to (needs to, really) maintain a veneer of being calm and collected no matter how I feel on the inside. So while I'm projecting this...

There's a very real chance that on the inside I look more like this...

And the problem with the anxiety that I suffer is that it's general, meaning that at any given point in time I'm feeling strong anxiety about nothing in particular that manifests its self by making everything I want to do difficult. My anxiety isn't based on anything real or anything rational for the most part. And let me tell you, that drives me insane. Because I am a very rational and logical person. So I can sit back and examine my symptoms of anxiety and KNOW that there's nothing to be anxious about, no reason to argue about the possible consequences of every little thing, no basis to most of my fears. And yet, that knowledge has absolutely no affect on my symptoms. I simply can't control the physical effects of my fear. I can't stop the breathing difficulty or the rapidly beating heart or the muscular paralysis or anything else that I experience every time I need to make an important phone call. (That's right, I get severe anxiety from making phone calls. It's stupid and really, really inconvenient and I've been struggling against it for years with no results.)

Quite honestly, anxiety is something that people who have never suffered from it can't understand most of the time.

And I'm talking about this today because in addition to phone calls, trying new tastes, needles and other various things I suffer from anxiety of putting my own words out there for other people to read. I know that this is what's been holding me back for a long time as a writer. It was easier, once upon a time, when I didn't really consider publication as the goal of my writing. I just wrote because I couldn't help it and the only person I ever showed any of it to was my husband. Now that every word I write has the potential to be seen by the public...

Well, let's just say I even have a hard time hitting the publish button on blog posts. There's a part of me always second guessing myself, whispering "You could have said that much better with a bit more time". But down that road lies madness. If you start telling yourself that with a bit more work it could be so much better (even though it's true) then you'll never get around to publishing anything because it could ALWAYS get better. None of us are sitting down to the computer and typing up perfection on the first draft or even the 50th.

For me, this particular madness is preemptive. Before I even get a first draft down the voices are whispering to me, "Why bother? You'll never get it right. It will always fall short of what you want it to be." And that's probably true as well. It's probably been true of all the masterpieces of literature that were ever published. In one way or another, they fell short of the author's vision. And yet we have those masterpieces because at some point the writer looked at his or her creation and said "It is good." Not "It is perfect and could never get better" but simply "It is good."

I haven't managed to reach this point yet, but I'm working on it. I suspect simple discipline is necessary and I am admittedly not a very disciplined person in my habits. That's something I plan to work on this year.

So how about you? Do you struggle with this anxiety? Have you found ways of combating it? I could use all the tips and tricks I can get.

Getting to Know My Characters

Characterization is pretty important to me as a writer. If I have a good understanding of my characters and their natures it makes it a lot easier for the words to flow. For me, to a certain extent, the plot flows directly out of the characters. Who they are and what choices they would make determines what happens in the story. So I need to know my characters. I need to know how they think and what they would do.

For this reason I often do characterization writing where I'll just sit and write stream of consciousness style from a particular character's point of view to try to get them to reveal themselves to me. I generally do this until I can hear their voice, and I mean that literally. When I can actually hear the sound of their voice in my head as I'm writing their words (it usually takes the form of a voice I've heard from an actor or actress) then I know I'm ready to write them in the story.

Right now I'm gearing up to finally make a fresh start on my novel which I'm planning as the first in a saga. (I like the sound of "saga" better than "series".) So I've been doing some characterization writing and I thought I'd share some of it here. What I'm sharing today is from the point of view of the character Menes, who is one of the two characters that speak from the future in the saga's framing device. Menes is a priest who is the curator of the great library in the city of temples. I hear his voice as the voice of the character of the technomage Elric in the sci fi show Babylon 5...


Menes

I remember.

When the summit of holy Tatenan breached the surface of the primordial waters I was there to remember. When Seppo the Architect broke ground at the feet of that mountain to make the foundation for the first of the four great cities I was there to remember. And when the rumblings of the earth caused the seas to boil and overwhelm the land I was there to remember. All things I remember. This is my role within Mayet.

For a thousand thousand years I have watched and remembered. I have lived among the mortal children of Re through countless cataclysms and catastrophes. I have seen them in their darkest hours and known the depth of their potential for honor and glory, as well as for betrayal. In the unending struggle between the Bas of Order and the Sheut of Chaos, I believe it is the Akh power of these mortal Men that will tip the balance for Mayet or Isfet.

I live among Men, when most of my brethren have retreated beyond the living world, to help guide their steps along the path of Mayet and prepare them for the task they must take up if Order is to triumph.

What others have forgotten, I preserve. What they have forsaken, I will restore.

This is my participation in Mayet.

So what do you think? Does Menes seem like an interesting character? Does Elric have the best voice ever or what? Do you do any similar exercises to get to know your characters?

Thoughts about Love on Valentine's Day

Eleven years ago I had one really perfect Valentine's Day with my future husband. 5 months later we were married and we've never worried about Valentine's Day since then. We've never worried about "romance" and we've also never for a moment not known with absolute certainty that our marriage will last until death do us part.

Over the last few years my husband and I have watched helplessly as the marriages of my brother and his sister (both of whom have one child) fell apart suddenly and ended in divorce. In one case we know why it happened. One of the spouses turned out to be a crazy, lying piece of excrement. In the other case, the divorce is so ridiculously amicable that I cannot fathom why the marriage had to end at all. It's heartbreaking to see how it is affecting the children caught in the middle. It is also heartbreaking to have to occasionally assure my oldest child, who can see what is going on and is unsettled by it to say the least, that divorce is something she never, ever, ever has to worry about in her family.

Some weeks ago when the subject of divorce entered a conversation with my mother, I had occasion to comment to her that divorce is something my children will never have to go through. My mother, who went through 2 divorces before finding happiness with her third husband, looked at me seriously and said, "I hope so." I was shocked by that response, though in hindsight I know I shouldn't have been. Mostly because the tone of her voice clearly said "that's a nice thought, dear, but you'd better be prepared for the possibility". She didn't really believe me, in other words. Divorce is too much a part of her reality (going through 2 herself, seeing other family members around her going through it and now helping my brother through his) for her to ever believe that it's not always lurking around the corner.

And it seems like that's true of most people. Most people seem to view relationships of any kind with the built in assumption that there's always the chance that the relationship will change and come to an end. And the world is filled with people trying to figure out how to keep that from happening. Married couple discuss their tips and tricks for having a healthy relationship. Gurus and experts and counselors tell people all sorts of things they need to do to keep a relationship going. But the assumption is always that there's a limit. There's some point where you've done all you can do and you just have to let a bad relationship die. That it's a natural part of the process.

Well, I've only been married for 10 years. And God knows we have our ups and downs like everyone else. But there is one huge difference between our relationship and every other relationship that I see around me. It's very simple and I truly believe that it is the one and only thing that will guarantee the life of a relationship.

We do not, under any circumstances, admit the possibility of separation or divorce. It is simply not conceivable in our view of marriage.

So we argue and disagree. We fight. (I once threw a hard cover book at my husband's head and gave him a concussion.) We're normal people who have tempers and don't always feel mushy and loving toward each other. But we always know in our hearts that none of that stuff matters. Because we are married and we are always going to be married and that is that. Ending the relationship in any way is simply not an option.

That's what love is. I'm the most fortunate person in the world to have it and to have had it from the beginning and to know without a shadow of a doubt that I will have it until death tears us apart.

What is an Epic?

Ok, I'll let this one go.

The word "epic" gets bandied around a lot on the internet these days and I admit that it makes me very sad to see the meaning of the word watered down and used in ridiculous ways. The truth is that the word epic comes from the Greek meaning "word, story, poem" and was traditionally used to refer to a lengthy narrative poem. Homer wrote epics. The word does not refer to something you think is neat or impressive. It is not an adjective to be shoved willy nilly in front of the words "win" or "fail" as if they weren't opposites.

Of course, we've appropriated the term for things other than narrative poetry that aren't so stupid. I'm a pretty big fan of Epic Fantasy. But then, I think we've been defining Epic Fantasy too loosely. If we're going to use the term "epic" for prose rather than poetry, that's understandable. Long narrative poems just aren't really a viable method for storytelling these days. But I do think that our prose version of the epic should at least participate in some of the other characteristics that set the epic poem apart.

This definition of the epic is from A Handbook to Literature by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman:

Epic: a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.

Let's look at some of these elements. 

An Elevated Style 

Within the context of poetry, that's pretty self explanatory. Poetry is an elevated style. But what would this mean in the context of a prose tale? The idea brings to mind passages from certain works that express ideas and emotions so strong, so grand, so glorious that you want to shout them into a thunderstorm or while swinging a sword above your head. Words that stir you. For instance, it used to be that whenever we had a storm around here my husband would feel the need to go outside and proclaim into the gale:

And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Which is, of course, a line from Shakespeare's King Lear. Just the other night I read some lines from the classic fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros which gave me distinct chills:

And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia obscure her shrine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and night must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this great piece.

Or this from Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany:

Far over the waters, and on the wings of the prayers beats the light of an inaccessible star. No hand hath touched it, none hath journeyed to it, it hath no substance, it is only a light, it is the star of Hope, and it shines far over the sea and brightens the world.

An elevated style, I think, is using the power and the sound and rhythm of words to conjure up in our hearts things of grandeur and beauty. Things greater than anything we are likely to experience in our day to day lives. 

Central Heroic Figure and Characters of High Position

Achilles. Beowulf. Odysseus. Gilgamesh. Rama. Siegfried. 

The great epics feature huge casts of characters, but the nexus of the story is the Hero. The character whose words and actions can move mountains and ultimately drive the story. The Hero of an epic is a larger than life character and usually embodies the values of the culture from which the epic is born.

The Hero is not, of course, the only character of importance. Given the vast scope of most epics there will be many other actors in the drama having their own adventures and escapades either with the Hero or on the side. But all the parts of the tale come together through their relation to the Hero. He is, in other words, the glue that holds the epic together.

But why, one might ask, should an epic specifically be concerned with "characters of high position".

Well, keep in mind that the art form of the epic goes back thousands of years to times and places where it was only those of high position who would have participated in adventures on a scale grand enough to influence the history of a nation and justify an epic. Everyone else was too busy wondering where their next meal would come from. Also, which type of tale would you rather be entertained with at the end of a long day toiling in the fields? A story about Joe who lives in the next village and has the exact same cares and faces the exact same conflicts as you? Or the tale of mighty Achilles overcoming the great Hector outside the walls of Troy? I know which I'd prefer.

Still, we live in a different world now. People of "high position" who can change the course of a nation or influence a culture can come from anywhere. To incorporate this idea into a modern prose epic one can choose to focus on the individuals in a story that have the most at stake and the most influence over their world. The characters whose actions and words have powerful ramifications within their culture are the characters of "high position".

Episodes Important to the History of a Nation

My husband suggests that a better choice of wording in this part of the definition would be "episodes important to the identity of a nation or race". In other words, epics are born out of a culture as well as helping to shape the culture. Reading the ancient epics gives us insight into the mind and heart of the cultures of the ancient world. These epic poems developed from the tales told by the people as part of their cultural identity. They reflect what was sacred to the people, what made them Greeks or Romans or Anglo-Saxons, etc.

Stories don't have quite the same relationship with culture these days. Not only because there are hundreds of thousands of books published every year allowing us to be really picky about which ones we readers turn into successes, but also because culture just doesn't mean the same thing these days. The world has become, at the same time, a much bigger and much smaller place. Bigger because we're not confined to villages anymore. Smaller because the unknown and unexplored has all but vanished. Which is why, I believe, a lot of us have turned to the realms of fantasy and science fiction for those things which once would have been part of the cultural epic.

To achieve the same kind of importance and meaning in a prose epic today an author almost has no choice but to create their own setting. An epic should involve circumstances and events that have far reaching consequences and it should be played out across a vast and lofty canvas. 

Artist's rendition of mythological Ireland, where the sagas of the Age of Heroes happened.

I'll be honest. I think there's too much "epic fantasy" out there that doesn't count as epic in any way. I think we need more truly epic works of fiction. And the reason I am exploring this topic is because it is my goal to write some. Toward that end, I'll probably spend some time talking about particular epics and examining some of the other common elements of the ancient epic here in future posts. Wish me good fortune!