Hey guys! Some of you might know me from IF and a few other sites. For those of you who don't--hello, I'm Ben, also known as Spinner. I hail from Vermont, where I attend college for Professional Writing. Aside from novice blogging, I'm also training myself to write novels professionally. But like most of y'all, I also do a lot of writing for fun--segueing into the point of this post.
Online writing's a slowly growing and potentially thriving world. Many of you aiming to be published will probably post work on forums like Be Creative to test yourself against an audience and improve your prose and storytelling. Forums are a great means for that, and you're going to find there's a wealth of them in every genre imaginable. There really is nothing like slaving over a piece of writing for hours, only to post it, sign off and get comments in the morning. For something that can be as arduous as writing, its a heavenly feeling.
Every writer strives toward writing something interesting--both enough for themselves and their readers. In online writing, this can be a tricky balance. You know your plot--or rather, you should to some degree--and sometimes there are going to be things you need so things can make sense. Many times, I've committed the crime of writing 20 pages of world building only to have people be all *...yawn*. Not a fun feeling. This is supposed to be interesting!
When building your online stories, you need to be mindful of a few vital facts: firstly, that reading on a computer screen is hard. Your updates should be short and to the point. This will become very helpful when you start writing longer pieces for publication (it teaches you pacing). Secondly, info dumps are even more wearing. Try to find a creative means of building your world. This can be done through overheard conversations, conversations characters take part in, or things on bulletins, computer screens, what have you. Information is all around you--it doesn't always have to be spoken. This can also be an imaginative vehicle for subplots.
Keeping your posts short and the content in abundance will keep readers flocking to your story. But just because its quick doesn't mean you need to spend any less time on it. In fact, you can use the extra time to add more content, giving the world a vitality. This was how Charles Dickens used to write, and while he was paid by the word-count, his stuff is extremely vibrant. Read Tale of Two Cities if you don't believe me!
What you should remember above all, is that writing is supposed to be fun. A lot of people post things about what you should or shouldn't do online. This isn't a formulaic process. Its easier to identify unoriginality and derivation than you think. In fact, if you find yourself thinking, "I wonder if people will notice if I borrowed from this," the answer is probably that someone will.
Good luck with your stuff. See you on the forums!
Ben
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Description
The WG Editors Thoughts: Description
So, every now and then, the WG editors will each collaboratively post their thoughts regarding an aspect of writing. We won't be giving any pointers or tutorials, but perhaps a paragraph or two regarding their thoughts on good ways to do it, or perhaps how they do it.
Isaiah
Description is the most descriptive part of writing, if it's done correctly. There are several things you can do that will help you describe things in your story. A common way is to talk about the way it interacts with your 5 senses (what does it sound like, feel like, look like, smell like, taste like?). Another way is to come up with as many adjectives as you can that describe what you're writing about. You should definitely incorporate colors as adjectives. It's also a huge help to visualize what you're describing. Let's use a tree as an example. Don't just think "trees are tall and green with brown bark", you have to really visualize the finer details. The way some of the bark is ripped up, how the veins on the leaves are slightly crooked, the way it bulges near the center, like a planet, etc.
Warden
Descriptions... Dangerous in wrong hands, disastrous when gotten wrong and just magical when used well. Some call it the butter of the story sandwich; with plot being the bread and emotions the topping. Without the butter it's not half as good, while without the topping it's still edible. But for whatever is said about that part of writing, it's indisputable that it's one of the most crucial parts of any story - for without description... What would you be writing?
Ever
Description. One of the most important things in writing a book. If you do not have description in your story then all you have is a buch of words that are nothing but blurs when you try to imagine the scene behind them.
There is one thing that I have been told by others, mostly PF, and learned to do and that is, when describing a place or person you must put yourself in the place of your character. Feel and see what your character feels. Imagine every detail of your characters surrounding, then put into words.
Example.
"Sam sat upon her homes roof, with her arms wrapped around her kness and her head resting on her shin. Her black hair swirled all around her peaceful looking face as the wind blew through the land. Her sea blue eyes looked around the vast green woodsy land around her and the endless blue sky above her."
Also, you can use other objects to describ something, such as what I did above ^ with the color of Sam's
eyes. (Her sea blue eyes looked around).
Jsquared
Description is a really tricky subject. If you're too superfluous, then you bore your reader. If you lack in it, than either your reader does not know what is going on, must picture what is going on using their own imagination, and/or your flow will be hindered. In addition, the work will feel rushed. When you are explaining something, do not say what it is. Describe its characteristics until the reader knows what it is, who it is, what they look like or what was done.
Think of it like this. In a fight scene, writers do not go into grotesque details of what the fighters see as they hack and slash through. Why? Because then the reader is going to be grossed out and not want to read. We do not want to know about the entrails that began to fall out of a dude that just had his stomach slashed open. You will alienate some of your readers as well. The same thing goes for all description, just replaced grossed out, with perhaps bored to death in some cases.
______________________________________________________
The WG editor's thoughts will be in sync with the articles of the blog, whichever topic they decide to post, the WG editors will add in their thoughts to. Though, if we see something in WD that a lot of people want to see, then we will look at that as well. One of the editors, Angelic Ninja, could not be reached for comment.
So, every now and then, the WG editors will each collaboratively post their thoughts regarding an aspect of writing. We won't be giving any pointers or tutorials, but perhaps a paragraph or two regarding their thoughts on good ways to do it, or perhaps how they do it.
Isaiah
Description is the most descriptive part of writing, if it's done correctly. There are several things you can do that will help you describe things in your story. A common way is to talk about the way it interacts with your 5 senses (what does it sound like, feel like, look like, smell like, taste like?). Another way is to come up with as many adjectives as you can that describe what you're writing about. You should definitely incorporate colors as adjectives. It's also a huge help to visualize what you're describing. Let's use a tree as an example. Don't just think "trees are tall and green with brown bark", you have to really visualize the finer details. The way some of the bark is ripped up, how the veins on the leaves are slightly crooked, the way it bulges near the center, like a planet, etc.
Warden
Descriptions... Dangerous in wrong hands, disastrous when gotten wrong and just magical when used well. Some call it the butter of the story sandwich; with plot being the bread and emotions the topping. Without the butter it's not half as good, while without the topping it's still edible. But for whatever is said about that part of writing, it's indisputable that it's one of the most crucial parts of any story - for without description... What would you be writing?
Ever
Description. One of the most important things in writing a book. If you do not have description in your story then all you have is a buch of words that are nothing but blurs when you try to imagine the scene behind them.
There is one thing that I have been told by others, mostly PF, and learned to do and that is, when describing a place or person you must put yourself in the place of your character. Feel and see what your character feels. Imagine every detail of your characters surrounding, then put into words.
Example.
"Sam sat upon her homes roof, with her arms wrapped around her kness and her head resting on her shin. Her black hair swirled all around her peaceful looking face as the wind blew through the land. Her sea blue eyes looked around the vast green woodsy land around her and the endless blue sky above her."
Also, you can use other objects to describ something, such as what I did above ^ with the color of Sam's
eyes. (Her sea blue eyes looked around).
Jsquared
Description is a really tricky subject. If you're too superfluous, then you bore your reader. If you lack in it, than either your reader does not know what is going on, must picture what is going on using their own imagination, and/or your flow will be hindered. In addition, the work will feel rushed. When you are explaining something, do not say what it is. Describe its characteristics until the reader knows what it is, who it is, what they look like or what was done.
Think of it like this. In a fight scene, writers do not go into grotesque details of what the fighters see as they hack and slash through. Why? Because then the reader is going to be grossed out and not want to read. We do not want to know about the entrails that began to fall out of a dude that just had his stomach slashed open. You will alienate some of your readers as well. The same thing goes for all description, just replaced grossed out, with perhaps bored to death in some cases.
______________________________________________________
The WG editor's thoughts will be in sync with the articles of the blog, whichever topic they decide to post, the WG editors will add in their thoughts to. Though, if we see something in WD that a lot of people want to see, then we will look at that as well. One of the editors, Angelic Ninja, could not be reached for comment.
Writing: What Not To Do (Part 2)
As you studious younglings last remember, I promised to bring you an examination of the Draconic Ponies and their Land Before Time. Well, first off, there was no Land Before Time scenario. Character's in that beloved animation had a quality known as personality, which was skillfully separated from their abilities. Such is not the case here. Unlike the former critique, mostly for the stake of fairness and credibility, I'm going to do something more akin to a line-by-line critique. This will offer the reader a much clearer picture of why this is an example of bad writing. In fact, the first sentence is a good start.
"In a place unimaginably far from the Abyssal (capitalization error) ((At least I think it is)) home of the Dark Queen's brood, a different world took shape, gradually emerging from the chaos of Godly dreams."
This sentence is confusing. The beginning isn't problematic, but it isn't clear in the final parts of this sentence whether the dreams in question are the dreams of the Gods (Giving us the impression that this novel is going to take a philosophical turn, giving us the impression that reality is just a dream of some God or Gods). Of course, one could infer that the author was trying to go subjective experience on us, being that our subjects are the cutest little firebreathing monsters on the planet. Now, give me a moment to browse over the text...
The author pretty much throws more "GOOD V.S EVIL" crapola in my face for a good few sentances, assuming that I am five years old, and have difficulty distinguishing between a hellish underworld (our first setting) and what seems like a Garden of Eden, or to be more accurate, a Grotto of Eden. (Why do I keep on thinking Ghetto, these dragons are many things, Gangsta is NOT one of them)
Do any of you know what it means for something to have "Gleamed in the colors of precious metals"? I don't think it's an explicit grammar violation (You should have an easy time locating the text I'm referencing in the excerpt) but it doesn't sound right.
Do any of you know what it means for movement to stir? (I'm detecting a pattern)
"metallic shells rupturing to allow scaly wyrmlings to emerge" Now here's the problem, eggs aren't metallic. They may have a metallic sheen, but to BE metallic would make hatching impossible, and we wouldn't have any characters, as they would have died. Also, the shells do not rupture under their own power, as the author seems to suggest, the hatchlings rupture them.
Next we get a description of these cute bundles of flaming joy (or in this case flaming, shocking, freezing and other such elemental joys) have an aura of peace sheltering them (at this point, I vomited on the keyboard, so do forgive me. This took several minutes to clean up, and delayed my lesson). The description surrounding isn't actually that problematic, yet. It's very romantic, which was the intention of the author. I had no problems with this.
"All were vigorus, active, and strong." This is all redundant, these words are very close synonyms, and when used together in this context, are nearly the same thing.
"Still there was never any question but that Darlantan and Aurican would vie for mastery within their nest." Now this is interesting. There is a non "Good v.s Evil" difference between Crematorium's upbringing and our goody four claw's, other than being ruled by an evil matriarch and all. Here we have some conflict, whereas Crematorium dominates everyone. Fairly soon, we see two distinct behavioral patters, although rather cliche, emerge. (THere is nothing wrong with cliche in and of itself, so long as you don't depend on it.) We have our strong skilled type, and our quick, clever type. These two, through their constant competition, developed games, and were the intrepid explorers of the nest.
I will take a moment to give my views on Cliche. The general trend in modern literature is to avoid any cliche like the plague. This is because they view cliche as a plague anyway. It is not merely an adjective that can be applied to an element of a story, but it is an infectious quality, it spreads and destroy's everything around it, eating away at the very fabric of not just the individual story, but the entire literary world. Quarantine is needed, vaccination must be mandatory, young authors must have protection against cliche, they cannot write without protection, the risk of cliche is too great.
However, I take a much more liberal view of cliche. Personally, I like stories of knights going off to slay the dragon (Which is so cliche it might actually be original now) I like the nostalgic affect of a well done cliche, the feeling of familiarity it brings to a story. Intrepid youngsters, specifically a competing pair of such individuals, is very common in stories. Yet I still enjoy it. And I am sure that a majority of the audience can too.
Now... back to the chapter. One problem this story has a priori is the fact that it covers VAST spans of time. Hundreds of years pass between chapters, sometimes thousands (When we get into generations shifts). This makes writing difficult. Epic time spans have to be done very well to work (much like playing the queen's pawn first in chess), it requires skill and experience to learn how to display such a vast change in time. However, when it is achieved, the result is very powerful (at least to me). The author has put himself in a corner here, the manner in which he writes makes it impossible for him to show the evidence of any meaningful passage of time (an isolated nest) and he has to resort to telling us, and telling us alone (which is the problem).
Also, other "personalities" begin to emerge. Smelt is said to be an inquisitive chatterbox, although this is told to us through the narrator (this is a character type I sympathize with for obvious reasons) and not shown or proven (the latter assuming he already told us) by any latter encounters. It is a fact mentioned, by the narrator, and then regurgitated by the characters. (The personalities are predictable by a chart such as this
Although the author fails to create highly expressive personalities, which is a problem. He bases characters on stereotypes (fine) but doesn't even develop the characters TO the stereotype, much less characterize beyond (which is optimal).
Actually, the author does some implied characterization with Darlantan and Aurican, so these character's aren't complete cutouts. Although they derive most persona from they're "subspecies".
Our two friends, Darl and Auri go into the darkness, dun dun dun.
"In a place unimaginably far from the Abyssal (capitalization error) ((At least I think it is)) home of the Dark Queen's brood, a different world took shape, gradually emerging from the chaos of Godly dreams."
This sentence is confusing. The beginning isn't problematic, but it isn't clear in the final parts of this sentence whether the dreams in question are the dreams of the Gods (Giving us the impression that this novel is going to take a philosophical turn, giving us the impression that reality is just a dream of some God or Gods). Of course, one could infer that the author was trying to go subjective experience on us, being that our subjects are the cutest little firebreathing monsters on the planet. Now, give me a moment to browse over the text...
The author pretty much throws more "GOOD V.S EVIL" crapola in my face for a good few sentances, assuming that I am five years old, and have difficulty distinguishing between a hellish underworld (our first setting) and what seems like a Garden of Eden, or to be more accurate, a Grotto of Eden. (Why do I keep on thinking Ghetto, these dragons are many things, Gangsta is NOT one of them)
Do any of you know what it means for something to have "Gleamed in the colors of precious metals"? I don't think it's an explicit grammar violation (You should have an easy time locating the text I'm referencing in the excerpt) but it doesn't sound right.
Do any of you know what it means for movement to stir? (I'm detecting a pattern)
"metallic shells rupturing to allow scaly wyrmlings to emerge" Now here's the problem, eggs aren't metallic. They may have a metallic sheen, but to BE metallic would make hatching impossible, and we wouldn't have any characters, as they would have died. Also, the shells do not rupture under their own power, as the author seems to suggest, the hatchlings rupture them.
Next we get a description of these cute bundles of flaming joy (or in this case flaming, shocking, freezing and other such elemental joys) have an aura of peace sheltering them (at this point, I vomited on the keyboard, so do forgive me. This took several minutes to clean up, and delayed my lesson). The description surrounding isn't actually that problematic, yet. It's very romantic, which was the intention of the author. I had no problems with this.
"All were vigorus, active, and strong." This is all redundant, these words are very close synonyms, and when used together in this context, are nearly the same thing.
"Still there was never any question but that Darlantan and Aurican would vie for mastery within their nest." Now this is interesting. There is a non "Good v.s Evil" difference between Crematorium's upbringing and our goody four claw's, other than being ruled by an evil matriarch and all. Here we have some conflict, whereas Crematorium dominates everyone. Fairly soon, we see two distinct behavioral patters, although rather cliche, emerge. (THere is nothing wrong with cliche in and of itself, so long as you don't depend on it.) We have our strong skilled type, and our quick, clever type. These two, through their constant competition, developed games, and were the intrepid explorers of the nest.
I will take a moment to give my views on Cliche. The general trend in modern literature is to avoid any cliche like the plague. This is because they view cliche as a plague anyway. It is not merely an adjective that can be applied to an element of a story, but it is an infectious quality, it spreads and destroy's everything around it, eating away at the very fabric of not just the individual story, but the entire literary world. Quarantine is needed, vaccination must be mandatory, young authors must have protection against cliche, they cannot write without protection, the risk of cliche is too great.
However, I take a much more liberal view of cliche. Personally, I like stories of knights going off to slay the dragon (Which is so cliche it might actually be original now) I like the nostalgic affect of a well done cliche, the feeling of familiarity it brings to a story. Intrepid youngsters, specifically a competing pair of such individuals, is very common in stories. Yet I still enjoy it. And I am sure that a majority of the audience can too.
Now... back to the chapter. One problem this story has a priori is the fact that it covers VAST spans of time. Hundreds of years pass between chapters, sometimes thousands (When we get into generations shifts). This makes writing difficult. Epic time spans have to be done very well to work (much like playing the queen's pawn first in chess), it requires skill and experience to learn how to display such a vast change in time. However, when it is achieved, the result is very powerful (at least to me). The author has put himself in a corner here, the manner in which he writes makes it impossible for him to show the evidence of any meaningful passage of time (an isolated nest) and he has to resort to telling us, and telling us alone (which is the problem).
Also, other "personalities" begin to emerge. Smelt is said to be an inquisitive chatterbox, although this is told to us through the narrator (this is a character type I sympathize with for obvious reasons) and not shown or proven (the latter assuming he already told us) by any latter encounters. It is a fact mentioned, by the narrator, and then regurgitated by the characters. (The personalities are predictable by a chart such as this
Although the author fails to create highly expressive personalities, which is a problem. He bases characters on stereotypes (fine) but doesn't even develop the characters TO the stereotype, much less characterize beyond (which is optimal).
Actually, the author does some implied characterization with Darlantan and Aurican, so these character's aren't complete cutouts. Although they derive most persona from they're "subspecies".
Our two friends, Darl and Auri go into the darkness, dun dun dun.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Writing: What Not To Do
Generally, one common tactic writers use to instruct others aspiring to their noble profession is to dispense sage-like advice upon us mortals, to give us guide lines such as "Provide depth in your worlds, give a meaningful history to your characters..." This is all well and good. However, there is yet another teaching tool at the dispense of the instructor, that is, to provide neophytes with what cannot be called anything other than the most abysmal writing ever. Invision provided us with a basic idea as to what makes good writing, I will elaborate, while discussing our negative examples, including epic failures such as "DragonLance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI 'The Dragons' and any other abomination that happens to fall in my path of puritanical purging.
Let's begin with some basics, my pupils.
1. Good and Evil: In the real world (That means where people aren't either Sith or Jedi for you Star Wars fans out there) there is something known as Moral Ambiguity. This quite magical quality is a result of the fundamental truth that no single individual on this planet (except for Jesus Christ for you Christians out there) was ever completely good, or completely evil. Also, since this applies to individuals, this applies to various groups in conflict. The idea that people are either good or evil is fundementally infantile. (If you want proof, just google "Object-relations theory") Note that in fairy tales (That is, children's stories) characters are generally all good or evil. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, since children reading George R. R. Martin (A writer who can show you the meaning of Moral Ambiguity) wouldn't be able to understand such a world. Children see the world often as either good or evil, it is part of being a child. But also, as children, we learn that people all have faults. When an author makes "perfect" characters, either perfectly evil, or perfectly good, this pulls us back to the days when we decided that mommy's breasts were good because we could get milk from them, and consequently mommy was good. We are taken back to a state of childishness, and not in a good way. While some level of Moral ambiguity is good, it is certainly just as bad to try and completely neutralize your characters. What this does is destroy sympathetic characterization, and it means that no reader will give a rat's rear what happens to your character, because he's a jerk anyway.
2. Characterization: People are part of the world, they have good and evil traits. They have histories, they have personalities, they have goals, and preferred means to achieve them. They have hopes, dreams, and fears. Forget this, and you can flush your aspirations of writing something even remotely respectable down the toilet. Writing is fundementally a deception, a clever puppet show on a handmade stage, where the author tries is best to make us forget we are reading words on a page. When your characters are essentially cardboard cutouts mounted on Popsicle sticks, YOU WILL FAIL!!! This isn't merely something that MAY happen, it is something that WILL happen. If you poke a sleeping dragon, you will die in some painful form or fashion (Unless you are Bilbo Baggins with a magic ring, in which case you will die of old age like the rest of us). While you can use cardboard characters with a child audience, as your readership matures, such parlor tricks will illicit vollies of tomatoes. (Or more accurately swarms of negative reviews) Characters are people. (whether they are Dragons, Aliens ((Or both at the same time) Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, or Amoebas) If you want an analogy that will be more fitting with the times, you can imagine a "Character Wal-Mart" with endless shelves of stock characters that can be bought cheaply (No effort put into it), yet are of extremely low quality. Example: Wise Magician Dude, $1.00 per unit, useful for infodumps, dying pointlessly, killing large numbers of enemies with deus ex machina, and anything your pathetic excuse for an imagination can think of. Now, of course, just because a character is wise, and happens to be wise in the ways of magic and such, doesn't imply that they are a bad character. The distinction between a GOOD WMD (lol) and a BAD WMD is that a bad one has no other significant aspects besides its being a WMD. Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions. Sometimes, a character can be used as a symbol of the author's idea of good and evil, an example being Jesus of Nazareth (or Howard Roark, or John Galt). However, none of these characters are without limitations, or struggles (Jesus had to die on a cross, suffer temptations like the rest of humanity, Roark was merely a great architect, and lacked super powers of any sort etc.)
With these ideas in mind, let's explore some tomato worthy literature.
My first exhibit for you students is the one mentioned in the beginning of the article. Dragon Lance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI (If you want to read the book for yourself, you can buy it here ((Or read an excerpt and get a taste) http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Dragonlance-Lost-Histories-Vol/dp/0786905131 )
This story is from the "Dragon Lance" universe, a fantasy world with which I am not acquainted. Most of my criticism is through the fields above, I do not hold any failures in worldbuilding against the author, the world was there for him, pre fabricated. (Although some of my criticism WILL be world building related since it will come through the other fields)
From page one, the author burns a path of destruction through Fantasy literature, leaving rich forests of character potential and ethical reflection in smoldering ruin. Let's begin with our main evil character: Crematia. We can already tell that she is evil, if not from her name (Which sounds like crematorium) from the fact that within the first few pages, she slaughters a bunch of furry innocent creatures. Not only that, but she decides to mix in infant sadism with hatchling hunger, and proceeds to commit acts that would make Voldemort and Galbatorix blush, if the former had the anatomical ability to do so. Crematia is evil. This is abundantly obvious, the author doesn't state it flatly, or imply it, he flings it in the reader's faces like a rabid monkey who had just downed a chili dog, adding an acidic sting to the warm, sickening sensation of scat on our faces. After this torture porno of a hatching, our mistress of death meets her maker, who happens to be teh ebul dark lord. (Note: Readers, the name of said dark lord is the Dark Queen. Why are all of the beginning evil characters female? I sense subtle sexism.) The Evil Dark Lord talks of Crematorium's Evil Dark Destiny to do Dark Evil Deeds for Dark Evil reasons (meaning pure sadism and the logic that "Mercy is Weakness" ((Yes, it is THAT corny). Pretty much, our cute cruel dragoness has a divine mission, which pretty much amounts to destroying everything good and pretty and naturey in the world. By this, I mean
that she is commissioned to destroy all that is "My Little Pony w/ Dragons" in the world. We will meet our draconic ponies later, for now, let us dwell on the fact that Crematorium has a few siblings, all apparently evil. Of course, to add to this fact, they are all one particular CLASS of evil beings who are ALL evil. If your intellects are worth respecting, you see the problems here.
Now of course, there must be an eternal balance of Good and Evil, so... in our next installment, we shall explorez teh Draconic Ponies and their adventures in what can only be termed as what happens when a 5 year old finds his mother's cocaine.
Let's begin with some basics, my pupils.
1. Good and Evil: In the real world (That means where people aren't either Sith or Jedi for you Star Wars fans out there) there is something known as Moral Ambiguity. This quite magical quality is a result of the fundamental truth that no single individual on this planet (except for Jesus Christ for you Christians out there) was ever completely good, or completely evil. Also, since this applies to individuals, this applies to various groups in conflict. The idea that people are either good or evil is fundementally infantile. (If you want proof, just google "Object-relations theory") Note that in fairy tales (That is, children's stories) characters are generally all good or evil. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, since children reading George R. R. Martin (A writer who can show you the meaning of Moral Ambiguity) wouldn't be able to understand such a world. Children see the world often as either good or evil, it is part of being a child. But also, as children, we learn that people all have faults. When an author makes "perfect" characters, either perfectly evil, or perfectly good, this pulls us back to the days when we decided that mommy's breasts were good because we could get milk from them, and consequently mommy was good. We are taken back to a state of childishness, and not in a good way. While some level of Moral ambiguity is good, it is certainly just as bad to try and completely neutralize your characters. What this does is destroy sympathetic characterization, and it means that no reader will give a rat's rear what happens to your character, because he's a jerk anyway.
2. Characterization: People are part of the world, they have good and evil traits. They have histories, they have personalities, they have goals, and preferred means to achieve them. They have hopes, dreams, and fears. Forget this, and you can flush your aspirations of writing something even remotely respectable down the toilet. Writing is fundementally a deception, a clever puppet show on a handmade stage, where the author tries is best to make us forget we are reading words on a page. When your characters are essentially cardboard cutouts mounted on Popsicle sticks, YOU WILL FAIL!!! This isn't merely something that MAY happen, it is something that WILL happen. If you poke a sleeping dragon, you will die in some painful form or fashion (Unless you are Bilbo Baggins with a magic ring, in which case you will die of old age like the rest of us). While you can use cardboard characters with a child audience, as your readership matures, such parlor tricks will illicit vollies of tomatoes. (Or more accurately swarms of negative reviews) Characters are people. (whether they are Dragons, Aliens ((Or both at the same time) Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, or Amoebas) If you want an analogy that will be more fitting with the times, you can imagine a "Character Wal-Mart" with endless shelves of stock characters that can be bought cheaply (No effort put into it), yet are of extremely low quality. Example: Wise Magician Dude, $1.00 per unit, useful for infodumps, dying pointlessly, killing large numbers of enemies with deus ex machina, and anything your pathetic excuse for an imagination can think of. Now, of course, just because a character is wise, and happens to be wise in the ways of magic and such, doesn't imply that they are a bad character. The distinction between a GOOD WMD (lol) and a BAD WMD is that a bad one has no other significant aspects besides its being a WMD. Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions. Sometimes, a character can be used as a symbol of the author's idea of good and evil, an example being Jesus of Nazareth (or Howard Roark, or John Galt). However, none of these characters are without limitations, or struggles (Jesus had to die on a cross, suffer temptations like the rest of humanity, Roark was merely a great architect, and lacked super powers of any sort etc.)
With these ideas in mind, let's explore some tomato worthy literature.
My first exhibit for you students is the one mentioned in the beginning of the article. Dragon Lance: The Lost Histories: Volume VI (If you want to read the book for yourself, you can buy it here ((Or read an excerpt and get a taste) http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Dragonlance-Lost-Histories-Vol/dp/0786905131 )
This story is from the "Dragon Lance" universe, a fantasy world with which I am not acquainted. Most of my criticism is through the fields above, I do not hold any failures in worldbuilding against the author, the world was there for him, pre fabricated. (Although some of my criticism WILL be world building related since it will come through the other fields)
From page one, the author burns a path of destruction through Fantasy literature, leaving rich forests of character potential and ethical reflection in smoldering ruin. Let's begin with our main evil character: Crematia. We can already tell that she is evil, if not from her name (Which sounds like crematorium) from the fact that within the first few pages, she slaughters a bunch of furry innocent creatures. Not only that, but she decides to mix in infant sadism with hatchling hunger, and proceeds to commit acts that would make Voldemort and Galbatorix blush, if the former had the anatomical ability to do so. Crematia is evil. This is abundantly obvious, the author doesn't state it flatly, or imply it, he flings it in the reader's faces like a rabid monkey who had just downed a chili dog, adding an acidic sting to the warm, sickening sensation of scat on our faces. After this torture porno of a hatching, our mistress of death meets her maker, who happens to be teh ebul dark lord. (Note: Readers, the name of said dark lord is the Dark Queen. Why are all of the beginning evil characters female? I sense subtle sexism.) The Evil Dark Lord talks of Crematorium's Evil Dark Destiny to do Dark Evil Deeds for Dark Evil reasons (meaning pure sadism and the logic that "Mercy is Weakness" ((Yes, it is THAT corny). Pretty much, our cute cruel dragoness has a divine mission, which pretty much amounts to destroying everything good and pretty and naturey in the world. By this, I mean
that she is commissioned to destroy all that is "My Little Pony w/ Dragons" in the world. We will meet our draconic ponies later, for now, let us dwell on the fact that Crematorium has a few siblings, all apparently evil. Of course, to add to this fact, they are all one particular CLASS of evil beings who are ALL evil. If your intellects are worth respecting, you see the problems here.
Now of course, there must be an eternal balance of Good and Evil, so... in our next installment, we shall explorez teh Draconic Ponies and their adventures in what can only be termed as what happens when a 5 year old finds his mother's cocaine.
Copyright (C) Matty Lee, 2009.
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