The Marketplace of Technique: Open to All

Okiedokie, you're doing something different, so they compare as well (or poorly) as apples and oranges.

When you are setting a stage, creating a mental image, you start with OBSERVATIONS.

When you are setting an emotional tone for a bit of introspective musing, such as what you might say if someone asks, "Are you feeling quite all right?", you begin with emotions and significance and then explain their existance in terms of circumstances. Quite the reverse.

Both are legitimate strategies.
 
This is a fascinating thread!! I will definately be watching this closely.

I do have a question about writing stories, though. Quite often I will write a story and start posting it somewhere, only to find about half-way through that the end or something doesn't flow correctly. It makes me irritated to continue writing something without correcting it but I'm afraid that if I rewrite part of a story it changes how the rest of it works...I dunno. But it's a strange feeling.
 
The first draft is for getting all your ideas down in one spot...then, in the second draft, you can say what you really want said. (That's a very rough quote from some author.)
Your problem happens to me a lot, like in my recent story Dust. I had this huge plan how the MC was supossed to meet up with this girl from his past and go live with her and all this stuff; and by the time I got there it was entierly different. People on the forums are usually really understanding about plot changes in the story if you explain the problem to them.

Ouch ES! ;) We were talking about the beginning of a scene, right? Thats the beginning of a typical scene of mine. What you're saying holds merit; its just strange to see how differently you would do something vs how I would do something. I do tend to be a bit 'hasty' in my writing whereas you tend to be analytical . . . it could be a bit of a style issue.
 
Orious, I try to decide where a story is supposed to lead before I begin writing it; but I confess that this doesn't always work. At the time I started writing "Southward the Tigers," I had no idea that I was going to invent the characters of the Nine Djinni, or the Talking Koalas. Yet both of those groups ended up playing important roles in the action.

Still, it may help if you make sure to have a firm back-biography for each leading character. This can make it clearer to yourself what things each character wants, and what he or she would be likely to do.
 
Well, yes Copperfox, I do have very firm backgrounds for my characters in this particular story. And I really like working with them. But the story (it's Horsemasters, elsewhere in this forum) is kinda Phantomish and I thought that I was going to end it like the Phantom story, but it ended out not working that way...I dunno. So I started re-writing the ending and now I've got almost 4 pages of this different idea. It's just taking me a while to end it. :rolleyes: I'm a bit confuzzled I guess...
 
I always avoid writing as I go. Once you've posted Chapter 1 and you've mentioned the Dance of the Seven Leopards, you're stuck with it. My stories are always broken into several posts because of the technical limits of vBulletin forums.

With that said, and after a delightful voice chat with Copperfox earlier today, I decided to reveal one or two secrets of writing.

First, for me there is a spiritual component of writing. The truly Living (with a capital L) part of us is locked away in a physical body, unable to directly touch the life of other people. We bring in the life about us and let free the life within us only to the degree that we can encode and decode information about thoughts, feelings and dreams. The better we are as communicators, the more fully we can share life with others. Not the magnitude (even a simple man can show willingness to die for his beloved) but the clarity (as in how sharply you can focus your spiritual camera). For me, therefore, writing is a spiritual discipline, as is storytelling, teaching and observance of others.

Second, I am very sympathetic to Carl Jung's idea of the collective subconscious. Heroes, villains, tricksters, tragic lovers, insecure tyrants, gentle healers, these are all roles or ARCHETYPES that hearken to some deep spiritual truths that cut across racial, cultural and temporal boundaries. That's why stories about them resonate with audiences through time and space. The way to uncover the "truthy truth" core of archetypes (I won't dwell on Neoplatonism) is to read classic literature, study classic myth, analyze the writings of others that appeal to you, and get a feel for what's going on. For instance unashamedly compare timid and beset Harry Potter who suddenly gets the empowerment of discovering his magical abilities, and the poor child that saves a rich man from walking into the path of an oncoming carriage and finds himself left millions in the old man's will. In both cases the archetype is the moral unempowered youth who represents untapped potential. The circumstance that empowers usually comes through some righteous or responsible act such as kindness to strangers, or from a higher sense of justice from a divine being in response for patient suffering. The end result is that the potential is unlocked and does some great thing conveying nobility without miring itself in the mud of arrogance.

Such stories are models for our own struggles to achieve the potential God put in us. They encourage us to be courageous yet prudent, patient yet peristent, generous yet self-sufficient. Without having to state the "moral to the story" at the end, they affirm our beliefs.

Tapping directly into modern situations for your readers to relate is not necessarily hopeful. I wonder how many billions of times I have started to read--and broke off reading--something like this: "Jimmy heard the alarm go off. It was time to get ready for school. He groaned and turned over trying to hide from the sound with a pillow placed strategically over his ear."

Problem is, yes, we all relate to not wanting to go to school. But on the other hand the experience does not excite the reader's sense of novelty. How much more interesting the same plot would be if it were removed by a couple of centuries. "Jimmy broke into a peaceful smile as a hog gently nudged him where he slept in the hay. He muttered, 'Alice...people will see us!' then upon hearing an indignant grunt his eyes popped open and he locked eyes with a large swine. Gone were the glittering spectacles of his dreams, replaced by the hard reality of life on a farm."

Hope that stream of consciousness helps....
 
Yes, Magister, that was a great phone conversation

It so happens that I was just remembering a Native American folktale which is more or less an example of what ES finds in myth and legend. A young brave is going on a quest to find and consult a reclusive medicine man. On the way, he comes upon what looks like an abandoned campsite, where he sees lying on the ground the best-crafted bow he ever saw, with a quiver of perfectly-formed arrows beside it. Although no one is there to see him, the young brave makes the moral decision not to steal the bow and quiver of arrows. When at last he finds the medicine man, the medicine man immediately greets him thus: "Here is the young warrior who refuses to steal from a stranger! Because of your honesty, I now present you with THIS bow, which is even better than the one you left where you found it..."
 
My point is not the virtue of that particular story-hero; my point is to reinforce what EveningStar said about the basic character types which occur in all human storytelling. Not so much the young brave, as the medicine man who rewards him for his integrity, is a tool used by the storyteller to feed spiritual truth into his hearers' minds. A hearer might imagine that he IS the young brave, but imagine that he MEETS the wise man and learns from him.

Consider one recurring type of character: the Faithful Companion. Elijah had Elisha, Beowulf had Wiglaf, Robin Hood had Little John, Yoshi-tsune had Benkei, the Monkey-King had his buddy the Pig-Ogre, the Lone Ranger had Tonto, Batman had Robin, Frodo had Samwise, the Pevensies had the Beavers, and Doctor Who had scores of sidekicks. Now, if you were starting afresh on a brand new story, you could choose to begin by planning what sort of right-hand man, woman or beast the main character of your story should have. You would work _with_ the classical elements of the sidekick, yet look for ways to make your own Samwise-type unique and memorable.
 
On the subject of sidekicks, I generally find them to be very cardboard, or I like them more than the MC. In LOTR my brother liked Samwise more than he liked Frodo.

I'm sure someone is going to argue with me over this, but personally I think the whole sidekick or 'helper' thing should be avoided...not that you can't have the best buddie, but that the buddie has his/her own conflicts and they have a purpose besides saving the MC.

(I think Sam would be a good example of a purpeosful sidekick. He wanted not only to help Frodo, but to destroy the ring. Frodo was his best friend, and Frodo was the bearer, so he helped, but had it been the other way around, I think Sam would have done the job all by himself.)
 
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As a matter of fact, a strong case can be made that Samwise is THE most valiant hero in LOTR. Others do great deeds, of course; but often they are compelled by an awareness of destiny (Frodo, Aragorn), or have something to prove (Boromir, Faramir, Gimli). The heroism of Samwise is pure; he _chooses_ to stick by Frodo, sacrificing his own interests. He is of course richly rewarded in the end, but he does his great deeds not yet knowing that he will receive ANY reward in mortal life.

Oh, by the way: among Aesop's Fables is a story similar to the one I cited about the honest young Indian brave. In the Greek version, it is the god Hermes who tests a peasant's honesty in a very similar way, and rewards his truthfulness.
 
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I just got the new Writers Magazine and there was something in there I thought was just great: each scene should be a relevation.
I love that! isn't that great? I think that's a really good way to tell if a scene needs to but cut or kept...is it a relevation to the reader? This just clicked for me b/c I've read books that are entierly 'relevations', no scene out of place, and then I've read books that take a long time to say nothing. There's a big difference.
Anyone else feel that way?
 
Kinda-sorta. Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," great story though it is, rambled around for page after page in longwinded digressions which contributed NOTHING to the plot. And yet, if we make a blind obsession out of shortening everything, we can rob ourselves of the benefits of a GRADUALLY unfolding picture.
 
Turning up snakes in the grass

Literary skills, like firearms, can be used for good OR evil. My local newspaper's book-review section has lately provided an example of bad use: another case of what Isaiah 5:20 warned about, people _calling_ evil good and good evil. Bear with me, here:

Imagine that I set out to write a history of, say, America's Revolutionary War. I do lots of research on the era, and it shows in my descriptions of 18th-century weapons and military discipline, of how the Continental Congress deliberated, of how civilians endured the war years, etc. All very impressive. But then, suppose I rely on this to convince my readers that my research achievements give me a right to draw conclusions which are not supported by _anything_ in my data. Suppose I say, in effect: "These collected facts about Revolutionary War conditions prove that George Washington was regularly cheating on his wife, Benjamin Franklin enjoyed torturing little kittens, and Patrick Henry was the real founder of the Nazi Party."

Kind of dishonest? Yeah, but there are America-bashers who would pretend to believe that the reasoning was valid, because they WANT to believe that the United States is bad at the very root.

The same thing has just been done (for the zillionth time) to the Biblical record of history.

A woman named Lesley Hazleton, lavishly praised by the hard-leftwing Denver Post, has written a book titled "JEZEBEL: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen." Note that it is classified as NON-fiction. To prepare for this project, Ms. Hazleton did extensive research into the archaeology of Israel and Phoenicia, the commercial and military relationships that existed among ancient countries. Well and good, but all of this does not by itself establish the personalities of historical individuals. What establishes _those_ in this book is what Ms. Hazleton _wants_ to believe.

Ms. Hazleton wants to believe that the Biblical account of Jezebel trying to kill all prophets of Israel's God is only propaganda, a slander fabricated by those mean, intolerant monotheists. In her version of events, Jezebel is an enlightened pagan heroine, who meant no harm at all to the monotheists, while Elijah is the villain--you know, just like the Taliban. The Denver Post book reviewer is eager to endorse Hazleton's view that polytheism is tolerant and openminded, while belief in one Supreme Being Who actually has some requirements is one and the same thing as bigotry and hate.

To do all this, Hazleton has to do something which none of her archaeological research would really have warranted: she has to presume a priori that the Biblical record _cannot_ have been divinely inspired, that it _must_ have been a forgery, and that Jezebel _couldn't_ have been capable of robbing and murdering the innocent landowner Naboth.

Part of this author's cunning is in her timing. Now that "The DaVinci Code" has enjoyed success, she can see that there is a vast readership ready to swallow _anything_ that lets them off the hook of owing obedience to the real God. Fans of Ms. Hazleton, as of Dan Brown, are demonstrating what Jesus said to unbelievers in John 5:43: "I have come in My Father's name and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive."

Neo-pagans who may see my words here are sure to tell themselves that I'm "only against Lesley Hazleton because she's a woman." This is nonsense, and they themselves will know it's nonsense even while they're saying it; but that's the very trend that Ms. Hazleton is promoting: the post-modern trend of simply inventing any "truth" which appeals to your emotions. But if Ms. Hazleton wants to see just how much more tolerant polytheism is than monotheism, let her go to certain regions of the polytheistic nation of India and tell the locals that she has come to preach the gospel of Jesus. If, after doing this, she lives to write anything else, she will perhaps write more truthfully.
 
Establishing legitimacy in your message is relatively simple. There are certain earmarks people look for that makes something "real" or "scholarly" and if you know how to use them, you can push forward bravely with your Society for Clothing Naked Animals. In the days before word processors and laser printers became widespread, if you could set up a letterhead and the letter was in proportionally spaced fonts, you were the real thing. Then you would be sure to have the fascimile signature printed in a different colour of ink. These days it takes a little more effort, but the end result is the same.

A book written by an older man or woman is more scholarly than one written by a younger one, unless the concept is startling or offensive. Then a young person is the best spokesperson.

People are willing to watch a shocking video of tribesmen performing some sort of extremely nasty ritual on other young men during their initiation if a person with a "professional" voice is describing everything in a "TV Special" sort of way. The effect is intensified if a music track is also used. This was also used during Nazi Germany to warm health care professionals to the idea that the race will die without a "natural" culling of the weak and the infirm. Such films almost always started out with a wise, sympathetic professor in robes teaching young college students. A girl almost invariably squeals when a snake kills a rat, but he hastens to tell her that Nature, while harsh, is starkly beautiful and that these small sacrifices make possible the variety and beauty of our world.

One fellow who wanted to make a paper look REALLY well researched looked up the species of animal he was writing about to find its name in Russian, went to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia in its original Russian and by carefully using a chart of the alphabet so he could find it in alphabetical order, used a PHOTOGRAPH from the article and then credited the GSE in the bibliography. Incredulous, the prof looked up the article (by volume and page number) and saw an article with a picture of the animal in question. He was in total shock. Some people would inflate their papers by quoting "A penny saved" from Benjamin Franklin from one book, and "is a penny earned" from another. Shameful but true.

89.34 percent of all statistics add weight to your arguement, even if they are foolish. Add a pie chart and you win hands down.

It really helps to put in quotes in a language your readers don't understand. It adds that Je ne sais quoi and lends an air of savoir faire. Or as the Babylonians said, "Marduk qu'a ha'shem ou geshua kurtek en."
 
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This kind of fraud has been going on for a long time. Some years back, another God-hating woman named India Edghill wrote a book titled "Queenmaker," about King David's first wife Michal. Ms. Edghill at least had the honesty to admit that her book was fiction; but like Dan Brown, she tried to use fiction to make people believe unfounded assertions about history. The assertions, of course, amounted to the same feminist neo-paganism now promoted by Ms. Hazleton.

Much farther back, a so-called anthropologist named Margaret Mead wrote a treatise called "Coming of Age in Samoa," in which she pretended to have discovered that the native Samoans were "free from all those silly puritanical ideas about chastity;" she depicted Samoan life as practically a nonstop orgy. Her work was taken seriously by the atheistic educational establishment. Later, a REAL anthropologist went to Samoa and revealed that the Samoans were no more promiscuous than anyone else; but of course, his less-sensational findings received much less publicity.

Margaret Mead had a cynically self-serving motive behind her "scholarly" writing. In real life, she was herself a habitual adulteress. She WANTED God's moral standards to be seen as false and unnatural, so that SHE could do as she pleased. The same is true of another Margaret, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who was also habitually sexually immoral.
 
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