To follow up from last week, we really enjoyed The Desolation of Smaug. I certainly have a few bones to pick with parts of it [mainly, I feel like the small changes and additions they made to the first movie started getting out of hand a bit here] but by and large it was a really fun experience. There was a little boy sitting behind us for both films and while he and his father spent the majority of the first up and about, it was super adorable to hear him asking his dad questions about the characters and the story. Happily, Tim survived work the next day. Surprisingly, he often does better on less than 6 hours of sleep than with 6 or more. Weird.
Some major brainstorming happened with my story yesterday and I am so stoked for the new ideas that have come into play. I have the tendency to get stuck when I write. Something isn't coming out on the page like I wanted it to, things feel disjointed and I'm not sure how to fix it, big questions are looming and I don't know how to answer them, etc. I've been dealing with all of these the last few weeks but last night, thanks to a fabulous friend and a wonderful husband, I think I made some breakthroughs.
I had decided on the general arc of the story, the main conflicts, etc. but I was running into difficulties because I want my characters to all be complex but I was clinging to my desire to write the story from one person's point of view. Now, it is very hard to convey the complexity of several characters if you're only seeing things through one person's eyes. This problem had left me at a standstill, grabbing at straws to try and invent ways to make each character's struggles more apparent and compelling. Every time someone asked me if I would be writing from multiple perspectives I would respond with a quick and definitive no that may or may not have made some people feel like they'd offended me at the suggestion. Tim told me something last night, though, that made me more open to considering an alternative.
Tim kept coming back and back to why I wanted to keep the perspective with one person. He told me that in all the big, acclaimed fantasy books, the story is never told from one person's perspective exclusively [yes, I'm sure there are some exceptions]. Very gently, he admitted that when I first explained my intentions to restrict my POV for the story, it immediately became an unimpressive YA fantasy novel in his head. While that admission stung just a little bit, it made me think. I have never strictly billed this story as a fantasy, but it does have a lot of things in common with that genre and the complexity of each character is one of those elements. I'm relatively new to the fantasy genre as a reader so I hadn't realized the perceived difference between stories written from one or multiple perspectives and, believe me, the last thing anyone sets out to do when they start to write is to create mediocre stories.
I had dug myself so far into my determination to have the story told by one character that I had never considered adding other perspectives as a means of solving many of my problems. But the more I'm thinking about it, the more things are clicking into place. By adding perspectives from three other characters, gaps that I was having difficulty filling are already being written in my head. The complexity of these characters will be visible and the intricacy that I'm trying to build into the plot will be more integrated now.
Guys. I'm seriously stoked about this.
So, moral of the story this week? If you're running into road blocks with your writing, try looking at things from different angles, even ones you never thought you'd use before. Try out different POVs, from different characters. Sometimes this may feel like it's adding a lot of work for you, and it does take time and you may not use all of what you write, but by exploring options you may keep yourself from asking "what if"s down the road. And if your experimenting reveals something that just makes everything click better, won't you be better off than if you tried forging ahead with something that didn't feel like it was working?
Writing is work - anyone who tells you differently is lying. But it should also be fun, a time and place where we can play with out imaginations. So have fun with it :)
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
a book review and other ramblings
On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble I caved and bought two books. Generally I try to keep my defenses up when I go to B&N because if I didn't I'd probably end up going into serious debt. It had been a while, though, so I decided to treat myself to something new in The Looking Glass Wars and Under My Hat: Tales From the Cauldron [an anthology of tales about witches and such].
I picked up Looking Glass Wars because I had heard a good deal about the series and I've developed a liking for most things Wonderland [Has anyone seen Phoebe in Wonderland? Awesome movie]. I really enjoyed the TV mini series "Alice" that aired a while ago as well as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland so I figured Beddor's series would be a good pick.
While I can't say the book was terrible, because it wasn't, I was rather underwhelmed. The premise of telling the true story of Wonderland is one chock full of potential, most of which I didn't find to be realized. As one reviewer on Amazon wrote: "It's just that Beddor hasn't a clue who his audience is or where he wants to go with this series." This encapsulates how the book felt to me. As a new writer Beddor seems to have struggled with concrete world-building, designing a Wonderland that is fantastically advanced [all of our greatest inventions on Earth supposedly come from there] but at the same time historically quaint, which was hard for me to reconcile and really picture in my mind. Some of the terminology that Beddor invented also tripped me up a bit, again because I was trying to picture a fantastical Wonderland that also semi-resembled our, more demure world. It was hard for me to take some things seriously even though the characters took the existence of certain bizarre creatures and foods as a matter of course.
The feeling of the book kept oscillating between middle-grade and YA and I think the main cause for this confusion was the way Beddor approached and developed his characters. For the most part, I enjoyed all the characters. I think he created a good cast without any really unnecessary characters and there's something to be said for that. However, for me, a big difference between middle grade and YA is how in depth you get with characters, how intensely you feel their emotions and struggles. Beddor seems to have created YA worthy characters who hint at complex backgrounds, motives, and desires, but he treats them like middle-grade characters, only skimming the surface of their thoughts, actions, and feelings. I kept waiting to get more intimately involved in Alyss's grief over losing her parents and her world, her huge decision to shut that all away in order to survive on Earth, her reorientation to Wonderland, and how she finally accepted her role and strengthened herself to take back what is hers. There was just so much potential here for a truly compelling story with characters that you root for but, try as I did, I couldn't really get attached to the characters because it felt like Beddor just skimmed over everything. Nothing made me feel like the stakes were high or that characters were really struggling with their decisions, they just did 180s and moved on. Part of me wants to take this book and rewrite it, not to change the plot, just to flesh out the characters.
So I'm not really sure if I'll pick up the next two in the trilogy. I don't think I could read them if the characterization remains this two-dimensional.
In other news, Tim and I are going to the double feature for the new Hobbit release tonight. This will either be a wonderfully stupendous experience or a slightly suicidal one since we both still have to work tomorrow. The game plan is to go to bed once we get home and sleep for two hours in the hopes that we can mitigate the amount of sleep we'll be losing. I'll get back to you on whether that's effective or not.
In random-personal-experience-moment-of-the-day: It's amazing to me how many times personal trials have enabled me to connect with people who are struggling with the same thing. Most of the time these end up being struggles that are intensely personal for me and that I don't share with anyone aside from Tim. So this morning when a friend started telling me about something she recently learned and is struggling to figure out how to comes to terms with, I was blown away by how almost exactly similar her situation is to what I experienced about three years ago.
This was a topic that I had figured I would never talk to someone else about because you don't just start a conversation about that sort of thing but here I was, having found myself in a situation where this friend needed advice and assurances that most people wouldn't be able to give, but I could. I debated whether or not to tell her my experience because I could feasibly give appropriate advice without divulging my own story. But I could remember how much I would have appreciated someone telling me what I know now those three years ago and hearing it from someone who has been there - how things can work out - would have helped give me the strength and hope I may have felt I lacked.
I'm sorry if that made no sense to some of you, but I thought I'd share. It's such an amazing feeling and experience to see something that has been a trial for you turn into a positive influence for someone else.
I picked up Looking Glass Wars because I had heard a good deal about the series and I've developed a liking for most things Wonderland [Has anyone seen Phoebe in Wonderland? Awesome movie]. I really enjoyed the TV mini series "Alice" that aired a while ago as well as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland so I figured Beddor's series would be a good pick.
While I can't say the book was terrible, because it wasn't, I was rather underwhelmed. The premise of telling the true story of Wonderland is one chock full of potential, most of which I didn't find to be realized. As one reviewer on Amazon wrote: "It's just that Beddor hasn't a clue who his audience is or where he wants to go with this series." This encapsulates how the book felt to me. As a new writer Beddor seems to have struggled with concrete world-building, designing a Wonderland that is fantastically advanced [all of our greatest inventions on Earth supposedly come from there] but at the same time historically quaint, which was hard for me to reconcile and really picture in my mind. Some of the terminology that Beddor invented also tripped me up a bit, again because I was trying to picture a fantastical Wonderland that also semi-resembled our, more demure world. It was hard for me to take some things seriously even though the characters took the existence of certain bizarre creatures and foods as a matter of course.
The feeling of the book kept oscillating between middle-grade and YA and I think the main cause for this confusion was the way Beddor approached and developed his characters. For the most part, I enjoyed all the characters. I think he created a good cast without any really unnecessary characters and there's something to be said for that. However, for me, a big difference between middle grade and YA is how in depth you get with characters, how intensely you feel their emotions and struggles. Beddor seems to have created YA worthy characters who hint at complex backgrounds, motives, and desires, but he treats them like middle-grade characters, only skimming the surface of their thoughts, actions, and feelings. I kept waiting to get more intimately involved in Alyss's grief over losing her parents and her world, her huge decision to shut that all away in order to survive on Earth, her reorientation to Wonderland, and how she finally accepted her role and strengthened herself to take back what is hers. There was just so much potential here for a truly compelling story with characters that you root for but, try as I did, I couldn't really get attached to the characters because it felt like Beddor just skimmed over everything. Nothing made me feel like the stakes were high or that characters were really struggling with their decisions, they just did 180s and moved on. Part of me wants to take this book and rewrite it, not to change the plot, just to flesh out the characters.
So I'm not really sure if I'll pick up the next two in the trilogy. I don't think I could read them if the characterization remains this two-dimensional.
In other news, Tim and I are going to the double feature for the new Hobbit release tonight. This will either be a wonderfully stupendous experience or a slightly suicidal one since we both still have to work tomorrow. The game plan is to go to bed once we get home and sleep for two hours in the hopes that we can mitigate the amount of sleep we'll be losing. I'll get back to you on whether that's effective or not.
In random-personal-experience-moment-of-the-day: It's amazing to me how many times personal trials have enabled me to connect with people who are struggling with the same thing. Most of the time these end up being struggles that are intensely personal for me and that I don't share with anyone aside from Tim. So this morning when a friend started telling me about something she recently learned and is struggling to figure out how to comes to terms with, I was blown away by how almost exactly similar her situation is to what I experienced about three years ago.
This was a topic that I had figured I would never talk to someone else about because you don't just start a conversation about that sort of thing but here I was, having found myself in a situation where this friend needed advice and assurances that most people wouldn't be able to give, but I could. I debated whether or not to tell her my experience because I could feasibly give appropriate advice without divulging my own story. But I could remember how much I would have appreciated someone telling me what I know now those three years ago and hearing it from someone who has been there - how things can work out - would have helped give me the strength and hope I may have felt I lacked.
I'm sorry if that made no sense to some of you, but I thought I'd share. It's such an amazing feeling and experience to see something that has been a trial for you turn into a positive influence for someone else.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
struggling to put thoughts into words
I know I don't usually use this blog for very introspective things and fear not, that's not changing. I was just trying to think of what to talk about this week and what came to mind isn't writing-oriented but I can't shake it tonight.
I typically stay out of discussions about various topics that are prevalent right now. This stems from personal ignorance [like with politics] as well as a desire to avoid offending others or just getting into angry yelling matches [as often seems to happen whenever religion is brought up]. To even say you're religious is to draw criticism much of the time, forget about identifying as a member of the LDS church [Mormons], so I usually keep my nose out of heated conversations.
I have a lot of friends who are not members of my faith and I love them all dearly. They're wonderful people that I'm blessed to know and I hope they've never felt that I've tried to impose my beliefs on them, as Christians are often accused, and sadly guilty of doing. When I think of these friends, I like to focus on what brought us together and the things we share rather than our differences, but sometimes I'm reminded just how differently we see the world.
With adults, sometimes all it takes is a difference of opinion to spell the end of a friendship but, aside from distancing myself from toxic relationships, I hope to never use that excuse. Not because I'm determined to "bring everyone to baptism" [though I wouldn't complain :P], but because I know my life would suffer for losing those people. The older I've gotten and the more I've come to understand and evaluate my own beliefs, the less these differences of opinion make me angry as sometimes happened when I was a teenager. I don't enjoy getting into shouting matches where each side is ignoring the other person's point of view. I don't like the feeling of anger that so often comes with the choice to be offended. Oddly enough, these differences make me sad, and I don't mean in a condescending way. My heart hurts.
I have seen so much pain, and struggle, and suffering happen in friends' lives that might have been different, better, more bearable if they knew what I know and saw the world the way I see it. I'll be the last Mormon to claim that my life is free of suffering because of the doctrine I believe in. While my life has not seen the hardships that many have had to endure, I have had, and continue to have my own trials - many of which have threatened my mental and emotional well-being in very real ways. No, struggles, and suffering, are a part of life. But when I look back on the things I've gone through and those of my friends, mine feel like they were less - not because they weren't hard, but because I see things differently and it is amazing how much perspective can change your trials without taking them away.
So many of these arguments that are taking place in our country, in our world, right now - the debates about abortion and gay marriage - I hesitate to join in because I feel like people aren't focusing on the central disagreement. How can I explain why I believe what I believe about these issues when your argument is based on one idea and mine is founded on something deeper that changes the context of the problem entirely? It is hard enough to communicate with someone who is willing to honestly listen to what you have to say, how much harder when you're almost talking about separate things? Perspective. So it's easy to get frustrated and upset when people broach these topics and you feel like they aren't listening. I just wish we knew better how to communicate.
Okay, that's it.
I typically stay out of discussions about various topics that are prevalent right now. This stems from personal ignorance [like with politics] as well as a desire to avoid offending others or just getting into angry yelling matches [as often seems to happen whenever religion is brought up]. To even say you're religious is to draw criticism much of the time, forget about identifying as a member of the LDS church [Mormons], so I usually keep my nose out of heated conversations.
I have a lot of friends who are not members of my faith and I love them all dearly. They're wonderful people that I'm blessed to know and I hope they've never felt that I've tried to impose my beliefs on them, as Christians are often accused, and sadly guilty of doing. When I think of these friends, I like to focus on what brought us together and the things we share rather than our differences, but sometimes I'm reminded just how differently we see the world.
With adults, sometimes all it takes is a difference of opinion to spell the end of a friendship but, aside from distancing myself from toxic relationships, I hope to never use that excuse. Not because I'm determined to "bring everyone to baptism" [though I wouldn't complain :P], but because I know my life would suffer for losing those people. The older I've gotten and the more I've come to understand and evaluate my own beliefs, the less these differences of opinion make me angry as sometimes happened when I was a teenager. I don't enjoy getting into shouting matches where each side is ignoring the other person's point of view. I don't like the feeling of anger that so often comes with the choice to be offended. Oddly enough, these differences make me sad, and I don't mean in a condescending way. My heart hurts.
I have seen so much pain, and struggle, and suffering happen in friends' lives that might have been different, better, more bearable if they knew what I know and saw the world the way I see it. I'll be the last Mormon to claim that my life is free of suffering because of the doctrine I believe in. While my life has not seen the hardships that many have had to endure, I have had, and continue to have my own trials - many of which have threatened my mental and emotional well-being in very real ways. No, struggles, and suffering, are a part of life. But when I look back on the things I've gone through and those of my friends, mine feel like they were less - not because they weren't hard, but because I see things differently and it is amazing how much perspective can change your trials without taking them away.
So many of these arguments that are taking place in our country, in our world, right now - the debates about abortion and gay marriage - I hesitate to join in because I feel like people aren't focusing on the central disagreement. How can I explain why I believe what I believe about these issues when your argument is based on one idea and mine is founded on something deeper that changes the context of the problem entirely? It is hard enough to communicate with someone who is willing to honestly listen to what you have to say, how much harder when you're almost talking about separate things? Perspective. So it's easy to get frustrated and upset when people broach these topics and you feel like they aren't listening. I just wish we knew better how to communicate.
Okay, that's it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)