The Marketplace of Technique: Open to All

It never can be said ENOUGH that Phillip "Dark Materials" Pullman was not merely mistaken about C.S. Lewis; he LIED ON PURPOSE when he called Lewis a racist. This, merely on the basis of the Calormenes having dark skin. In reality, Lewis' EUROPEAN-DESCENDED Telmarines were featured BEFORE Calormenes were. Besides, villains can't get ANY MORE WHITE than Jadis was.

Here, now, is a very intelligent recent look at recent fantasy literature.

My new laptop is TERRIBLY FLAWED in many functions. It stubbornly refuses to copy and paste ANYTHING.

Therefore, I can only urge you to search YouTube for this:

Hilary Layne The Second Story This Is Why We Never Got Another Lord Of The Rings
 
Since I wrote Post #501, _despite_ a change of laptop, I _still_ can't make the traitor copy links >or< paragraphs. Therefore, I resort once again to identification. I urge T.D.L. members to check out a YouTube channel called Exits Examined. A video of theirs, titled "The Brutal History of Barsoom," reminded me of something I haven't thought about lately.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series was important in the history of science-fantasy, but not >as< revolutionary as people today think it was. I definitely remember one writer named Otis Adelbert Kline, who got started just a handful of years after Burroughs. Kline's sword-and-planet novels are different enough _not_ to be mere copycat products, but are not inferior in world-building. What is tantalizing to me now is that I _think_ there was one similar pulp novelist, better than Lin Carter, who appeared _before_ Burroughs. If someone were to name the guy, my memory would probably click. I think I even have a visual memory of a book cover, with monsters.
 
Frances, I'm glad you're still around. Since you last heard from me, I've had the pleasure of acting as a comical Scrooge. I managed to concoct some Scrooge jokes. For instance: "Should old acquaintance be forgot-- I'll be GLAD to forget it!"


Meanwhile, on YouTube, I've been flabbergasted to encounter something ASTONISHINGLY SIMILAR to my own "Spacebullies" epic! You'll recall that I've depicted all sorts of crossovers, like D.C. superheroes meeting Marvel superheroes. You want scary? I have shown Halo characters meeting Star Wars characters..... and EXACTLY THIS combination is now included in the newly-arisen channel!!!!

The channel is called StarVerseX. I recommend it. If you're familiar with "The Boys," that's one of the franchises this channel plays with.
 
I see my first post in this thread was 20 years ago. My, my! In those 20 years I've published several works and been an editor at Worthy Trailman Press. I've also seen my friend Roger (Prince of the West) Thomas produce several fine works with Ignatius Press. I'm not big on "Please read my novel" type requests, simply because Lady Badger and I are busy with teaching classes in youth mentoring, serving as regional chaplain, and working on the TLUSA National Advisory Committee's SENAC working group. What little time I have to simply be creative is spent working on a few bits of my own. That said, I will answer questions and give advice. I've also had all my shots, so the last person I bit merely came down with a lapse of dignity.
 
For members who haven't gotten the memo: John Burkitt alias Evening Star is working at A RETURN TO STORY WRITING here on The Dancing Lawn. It isn't my place to post any spoilers, but he DOES have a plotline developing.
 
I have posted "THE VISITOR" here in The Professor's Writing Club. I would love to share this with you, for writing it was very meaningful for me.
 
Having been assured that "The Visitor" is totally stand-alone, Copperfox is STILL AT WORK trying to sort out which other narrative subtopics might send John's characters to visit my plotlines, and which might send mine to visit his.
 
REAL LANGUAGES / FAKE LANGUAGES - If you use a fake language, strive for consistency. Create a vocabulary and stick with it, the same with grammatical order. Like for instance, "Magroth am furthin ra!" for "Send them to the jail" and then later "Am magroth furthin ket!" for "Bring them from the jail. Far more satisfying however is to do the research and use a real language. Maureen, my protagonist in The Visitor, does not use this plot bunny (pun not intended) in the main story, but she has an ANCIENT memory from her past, and she uses real Gaellig to read the love letter her future husband wrote her. Doing this involved using the google search phrase "English to Gaelic". Look at the result and see if it's not deeply satisfying....

Gaellig: Nam biodh a’ mhuir de dh’inc agus an speur air a dhèanamh de phàipear-sgrìobhaidh, cha b’ urrainn dhomh tòiseachadh air mo ghaol dhut a sgrìobhadh.

English: If the sea were of ink and the sky made of parchment, I could not begin to write my love for you.

Whatever you do, don't try to write fake Gaellig.
 
Copperfox said:
Well, the subject of plausibility in adventurous fiction has subsided...

So let's take a look at poetry, beginning with one of the few classical-form sonnets I've written in my time. It started with my noticing that the numerous early specks of green on trees in spring were like droplets in a mist; then this neutral visual observation became tied in to thoughts about those who "worship the creation rather than the Creator."

In the poem you will see what I meant by saying elsewhere that comparisons do not have to correspond EXACTLY to the thing being paralleled. My image of robins here is only meant to connote something recurring—not to say that robins are in character like the deniers of God whom this poem rebukes. What is particularly being rebuked is the notion that, instead of spring reminding us of resurrection, the idea of any literal resurrection is itself only a figurative reminder of spring, with earthly nature being all that matters. ///


The trees condense a cloud of leafy mist;
And, like the robins coming home to perch,
Once more the skeptic and materialist
Wield springtime as a flail against the church.
“Your Resurrection’s just a metaphor
Of spring’s renewal!” Saying this, they tell
The world that they don’t know, or they ignore,
The different climate in old Israel.
There, winter was the growing time, and spring
Meant harvest, endings, dryness—not rebirth;
Yet there and then the resurrected King
Leaped far above the seasons of the Earth.
While spring, as we know spring, serves for a sign,
There’s more than metaphor in the Divine.


Joseph Ravitts, author of “Southward the Tigers”
Click to expand...

I just retrieved this because I'm pleased with it.

I'm sorry we lost LifeMaiden, the once-reliable member who pinned this topic before she lost her way.

There was a time when she told me she had feelings for me. Paths not taken. I just hope she made it into Aslan's Country.

I, meanwhile, am free to be a father figure to Wood Nymph, and to pray that non-TDL-member Geralyn Rodgers doesn't die.
 
Last edited:
NON-TRADITIONAL CHARACTERS: As someone who does extremely academic writing and instruction, I can sum up the vast majority of characters I read in fanfics as one of maybe seven types. The misfit become hero, the trickster who valuably helps at first but then betrays, then is defeated, the faithful companion willing to sacrifice self, the villain who can't wait to sink claws into their prey, the noble king, the corrupt advisor....well, you get me.

Once in a while I like to do non-traditional characters. They spice up writing and open new questions as they answer old ones. It's healthy to master the archtypes and the standards of conflict, but wow, I wrote a story with a person who had Down's Syndrome, and one starting with a dead guy that was told in flashbacks that explained everything that led up to the funeral.

Problem is, someone invented the anti-hero in an attempt to write a non-traditional character, then everyone else glommed onto it and made it so traditional that you might as well start out, "It was a dark and stormy night." Anti-heroes are not novel, they are everywhere.

Back in 1949, at the height of formula-based movie entertainment, one director had the guts to film "D.O.A." in which someone poisoned with a slow-acting, incurable drug was trying to hunt down his killer and bring him to justice. Wow...just...wow.

Speaking of Narnian fanfics (I was...honest), I did an ENTIRE SERIES that didn't include ONE SINGLE HUMAN CHARACTER and wasn't set during a war that required the unlikeliest of heroes to save the world. Imagine that, a story about WHY THE WORLD WAS WORTH SAVING?? Was I insane?? It's called Byron on Wells, and I assure you it was written by a sane man, and by me, which by extension means I am sane. Don't call me insane, I'll start breaking things.... ;-) Has anyone even considered for a moment defeating a baddie WITHOUT THE HELP OF A LOYAL TO THE DEATH ARMY at their command?

Another way to do a non-traditional character is to have a villain who is villainous in ways that go beyond vaudeville and melodrama. I've seen the old classics, like tie little Nell on the tracks and threaten her that if she does not marry you, you will finish her training (boo, hiss). That is so 19th century, but you'll be surprised how many people think they can make a battle more epic by simply doubling the number of soldiers on each side. Which is also 19th century, and early space opera 1930s...think Flash Gordon or Planet of the Green Goddess. In a very real way, the little cruelties you see in this world are ever so much better in stories than saving the galaxy with a ragtag rebel fleet willing to shed their ocean of blood for you. Think about the 1941s film "The Maltese Falcon". Finding a priceless artifact was the obsession of Sidney Greenstreet, and he had his hired thugs do unthinkably impolite and unsanitary things to people who stood in his way. Helping him was his protegee Wilmer, who thought of him as a father, and often Sidney referred to Wilmer as "like a son to me." Then toward the end when it came to killing someone and getting away with the murder, he was willing to let Wilmer be the fall guy and get arrested and executed for the death. "If it's any consolation, I thought of you like a son. A man can always have another son, but there is only one Maltese Falcon...." COLD, folks, COLD. And it didn't involve the Star Wars universe inventing an entire planet that was one big gun or several thousand star destroyers waiting for the signal to massacre entire systems. It was one man willing to step on literally ANYONE to get his hands on an OBJECT. And not even an object that grants supernatural powers.

I'd like to hear your thoughts or plot bunnies on this riff.
 
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT:

I confess to having written a lot of garish magical swashbuckling here. But if nothing else, my recently-started short novel The Trinity Musketeers confines itself to the real world. The three heroes, all virtuous Christian men, have no super-cosmic specialties. The distinction they share is that, by no fault of theirs, they DON'T get the girl. In descending order of age, the Native American private detective Issakar Bainbridge, the Egyptian-American paramedic Tadros Meseha, and the Latino-American computer geek Noel Fidencio, have to live with a deprivation they did nothing to deserve..... much like the prophet Jeremiah.

These heroes have to play the cards God's will deals them.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo




A SEPARATE MATTER, SOMETHING I JUST _HAVE_ TO SHARE _SOMEPLACE:_

A YouTube channel called EncourageTV has just lately offered a modern version of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility." Like when "Emma" was rebooted as "Clueless." I have not had time yet to see if the new movie as good as I hope it is.






_
 
Back
Top