I apologize for being a little late posting this morning, but I am recovering from the Fourth. And no, not THAT sort of recovering. The strongest thing I had to drink yesterday was a Coke. No, I'm recovering from 10 1/2 hours in a parking lot in the Texas heat selling parking just down from our community's Fourth Fest. Considering we had our first car arrive at 0930 and we were starting our fourth row on the adjoining grass field when I left last night, I'm hoping we exceeded our goal.
However, because of that, and because I think I think I sweated a good portion of my brain out yesterday, I'm going to leave you with some links to check out.
From our own Monkey, a very interesting and informative post on e-books and royalties. Be sure to read the link he includes in his post. -- http://davefreer.livejournal.com/99217.html
Courtesy of Smart Bitches comes this link for Tips for Writers choosing names for your characters. Now, in the interest of full disclosure [G], Smart Bitches does take exception to the third rule - that exotic names are for romance novels, soap operas and strippers.
Your mission, this morning, should you decide to accept it is to tell me your thoughts about e-books -- are they a valid form of publishing even in the absence of a dead tree version of the book? Any other thoughts you might have about e-books, including authors offering them a chapter at a time for donations or subscription fee.
Also, how do you choose names for your characters -- assuming they let you name them. Some of mine come complete with names and refuse to play nice until I agree they know best.
Have a great Sunday. I'm off to search for more coffee.
The Beagles were already on the scent when I arrived at Flat 4439. I waited in the doorway, reluctant to interrupt. The single room was like a hundred thousand others in the low zone, sixty four cubic feet of space filled with domestic appliances that dropped flat, lifted to the ceiling or folded up against the walls. The bodies were tastefully arranged on their backs in the centre of the floor.
He and his fellow Beagles stiffened to attention, standing rather unsteadily on their rear legs.
I waved a hand, “As you were.”
They went back to searching and sniffing, except for Ruff who hung around waiting to give his report. I ignored him; I liked to form my own first impressions. There had been a retro fad a few years ago for midgets dressed up as gnomes and suchlike. It hadn’t lasted, they never do, but we were still stuck with the midgets. From a poster ripped off the wall, these two had made a doubtful living as novelty wrestlers, billing themselves as Mighty Mouse and Little Dynamite.
“Ruff!” I said.
“Conciliator,” he replied, stiffening to attention.
“You were about to report that the victims were killed by a girl-gang using a drug-induced orgasmic heart overload, I imagine.”
“Yes, Conciliator.”
He looked puzzled as if I had done something clever but the erect nature of the bodies told its own story - that and the crimson lipstick logo scrawled in on the door. Now all we had to work out was why PROBLARM , the Provisional Brownies Liberation Army, was killing midgets.
So what's your critiquing style? How do you milk those nuggets of wisdom about your work from the minds of other writers?
There is the ever-popular critique group.
Advantages include the ability to bitch over coffee, or for late-night varieties, dinner and few choice glasses of wine. Networking is a bonus, and in the right company can be lots of laughs. Also on the upside, there is usually no shortage of opinions. In fact many groups bloat to such a size they are in danger of becoming dysfunctional. By the time you have reached the stage where you have a chairperson with a stop watch and you start talking in abbreviated code with words like 'Ditto' and 'Anti-Ditto' its probably time to lead a revolution or form a splinter group (or both!)
One disadvantage of the critique group is that they can fall into a rut.
The first species of rut is of the safe & predicable kind, where everyone is well known and overly careful of other peoples feelings (or just downright hedging/holding back and favoring potential networking over critique). Everyone enjoys a nice coffee and perhaps may leave with an glow of satisfaction, but key problems with work go unremarked.
Another species of rut is where a skewed dynamic takes hold. Perhaps most of the writers favor certain types of writing, genres, or characters. Over time a small clique emerges that dominates the tone and direction of critique - limiting the range of feedback as other opinions are squashed, or are expected to be so out of favor they are not mentioned in the first place. Perhaps people whose work is on the 'out' of the norm will be regularly targeted - and they find themselves in vehement finger-pointing territory. This doesn't mean that the clique are wrong, sometimes you get the most useful crits from the Hostiles, but if its so demoralizing that the writer's work ends up grinding to a halt - that's time to bail out.
Other writers go the Lone Wolf. Writing mostly alone, self-editing then getting critique only from one or two other writers they know and trust.
One example that springs to mind Louise Cousak. She told me once that she just cannot do the crit group thing. For the first draft she pretends she is the best writer in the world and does it all without external input. Only after the masterpiece is finished does she fish it out. There is an echo there with Stephen King from On Writing. In the book he says, 'Write first for yourself, then for everyone else'. Another version of this is: Write the first draft with the door closed and the second draft with the door open. I think I also recall that Kim Wilkins also tends to go the lone wolf. So there are a couple of very successful Australian writers who don't favor critique groups, but produce good quality work regardless.
I guess I howled in the wilderness for a long time before I found my first critique group. Now I tend to gravitate toward groups, although I also have a few writers I will shoot material off to on the run. Now days I do find it hard to physically get to a meeting, although that's the time factor more than anything else.
What works for you? Got any traps for the unwary to share?
Thus began Paul Clifford, a novel almost no-one remembers - but that opening is one that everyone recognizes. Edward Bulwer-Lytton is spinning fast enough to power a small city after what's been made of a novel that is not really that bad when you consider that it was published in 1830, and preferences have changed a lot since then.
Of course, that's not what I'm posting about. No, I'm posting about the "winners" of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Awards, this year's celebration of the overblown, bad, and truly bizarre opening sentence. Slush readers take heart - no, not from the authors in the slush pile, and not while they're still breathing - Bulwer-Lytton Award winners and dishonorable mentions are intentionally bad.
The bad can be as instructive as the good, and here we have the gloriously appalling, with plunges into bathos that rival the cleavage of an EE cup, puns that would make even Dave Freer blush, and run on sentences that meander around for a while before finally getting lost, or in at least one case, disappearing up its own virtual fundamental orifice.
So, go take a look at the winners, then come back here, and add your own Bulwer-Lytton-esque offerings.
To start the fun:
The circumstances of my birth are shrouded in mystery even to me, for though I may assume I have, or had, a mother and a father, I have never known either, nor wished to, for I was abandoned outside a Copenhagen perfumery, left in a discarded crate still heavily scented with the oil it had once held, thus forever sealing my fate as the little myrrh maid of Copenhagen.
*Doctor Tedd Roberts has agreed to let me do these every now and then. He would also like our readers to come up with questions. He has plans of writing a guide on the brain for writers in the future, and would like to know what our unique questions are. :) So, go ahead, comment and be unique.*
Science for the Mad Genius Writer By Tedd Roberts
"Mrs. Smith?"
"Yes Doctor?"
"Your husband suffered a terrible head injury. He's in a coma."
"Oh, Doctor, will he be all right?"
"We'll only know once he wakes up."
…
"Ashley? It's me, Melissa!"
"Where am I? Who are you? What happened? Who am I?"
"Oh, no!"
…
It's a familiar theme, amnesia as a plot device. Overused, trite, cliché, yes; but also terribly *mis*-used.
Hi, the bloggers of the Mad Genius Club have asked me to contribute a series on the science behind science fiction/fantasy. I don't claim to be a Mad Genius, nor am I necessarily a Mad Scientist – a bit upset at times, but not truly Mad! Bwahahahaha! (I think we can safely save that label for Dr. Freer.) However, I am a writer, and I have over 70 "stories" in print, although they are all scientific articles in professional journals. My field is neuroscience, the physiology and pharmacology (mechanics and chemicals) of the brain, and I am currently employed as a faculty member at a medical school.
What? Oh, yeah. This is Ratley, an intelligent lab rat. Actually that's LabRat, they insist on the capitals. Ratley and his friends will help me with these blogs.
So, on to today's topic: SF/F clichés regarding the brain with particular emphasis on amnesia.
Amnesia is little understood by the lay public. The most common experience of amnesia is the soap-opera scene with which this column opened. But what is amnesia, and how does it *really* happen?
OK, classroom time.
What? I said, class…
OK, if you insist,*you* tell them.
[Ahem. OK, y'all, I got the stuffy Doc out of the way. As the Doc said, I'm Ratley, and I've *experienced* amnesia in the lab. Let me tell ya, it ain't no picnic. Amnesia means "without memory," and there's two typical types – retrograde amnesia, meaning a loss of memory from the past. The other kind is called anterograde amnesia and it means loss of memory "forward" into the future. I've had 'em both, and they result when a part of the brain that processes memory ain't workin'. ]
Excuse me, Ratley?
Are you going to explain what you mean by "future" memory? Shouldn't you tell them that anterograde amnesia is a lack of ability to make *new* memories?
I will, thanks.
In fact, anterograde amnesia is the most common form of amnesia, even though the retrograde form (poor Ashley, above) is better known. Imagine, trying to remember a phone number but never quite managing it; reading the same newspaper over and over again, never recalling the previous read; or never being able to remember where you'd left your keys, your car, your kids, your wife…
How can this be, how can it happen? Well, let's start by looking at how amnesia happens.
Take Ratley for instance.
Not literally, calm down, please! I'm just giving an example!
When Ratley said he had experienced amnesia, he means that in the lab, scientists use a chemical to temporarily put part of the brain to sleep, causing amnesia – which type depends on the brain area affected. In humans, amnesia usually results from damage to the brain. Oh, but not just any damage! It has to be specific type of damage and specific areas of the brain. Damage can be a traumatic head injury: Ashley's tragic soap-opera car crash, or the angsty teen's headfirst dive into an empty swimming pool. Damage to specific brain areas can also occur due to epilepsy, stroke, tumor, hemorrhage, infection (meningitis or encephalitis) or drug interactions.
Yes, Ratley, just like Ratface. See folks, Ratface did a bit too much LDS in the 60's. He's harmless – really – but not all there.
And what are those brain areas? Well, in scientist language, they are the pre-frontal and frontal cortex (for retrograde amnesia); hippocampus, medial temporal lobe and diencephalon (for anterograde amnesia). Traumatic injury, tumor and stroke can affect any of these areas; infection and hemorrhage are most likely to involve the frontal and prefrontal cortex, while epilepsy and drugs are most likely to affect the hippocampus, temporal lobe and diencephalon.
Yes, I know. Go ahead. Ratley wants to show you how to tell the brain areas apart.
[ Oh, sorry about that. Okay, humans. You've got those big hands with nice opposable thumbs. So, unhand that mouse and keyboard! Now, place your index fingers on your temples, yes, the soft areas at the side of the forehead. Feel that? It is the most direct access to your brain except from the inside. From your fingers to the center of your forehead is frontal cortex. If you draw a line between your forefingers across the top of your head – that's the prefrontal cortex. Move your fingers straight back until they are directly in front of your ears – that's the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus. Move the fingers below and behind the ears – straight in from there at the center, bottom of the brain is the brain stem, also known as the diencephalon.
[What about the other areas, the top of the head, the back, the base of the skull? You humans just *love* to make movies where the bad guy hits the hero on the top or back of the skull with the butt of a gun – he (or she) loses consciousness and wakes up in the hospital with amnesia. Silly humans. Listen to the rat, now: it's not gonna happen that way.
[Next exercise, put your thumbs directly in front of your ears and lace your other fingers over the top of your head. That's the sensory and motor areas – controlling all sense of touch, position and pain, and moving the various muscles of the body. From there to the back of the skull is visual area, responsible not only for sight, but also interpreting what you see. Run your fingers down from top, center of your head, to the very back the skull. Feel that slight dimple? That bony area right below it protects the cerebellum, responsible for coordinating all of the muscles involved in any movement. ]
Thanks, Ratley!
So, in our story brave Ashley foils the terrorist, gets cold-cocked at the base of his skull for his troubles, and wakes up with amnesia, right? Well, no. He might wake up with some coordination problems, blurred vision or possibly "agnosia" a specific type of amnesia for words or faces, but not full scale retrograde amnesia.
What about that mysterious alien parasite that "wraps itself around the cerebral cortex" and takes over its host, leaving total amnesia in its path?
No, Ratley, I know what you're going to say, but I'm *not* talking about Ratfink!
Leaving aside the fact that there is no *room* for such a parasite without sacrificing so much brain tissue that the host is clearly impaired in more than just memory, the description is not specific enough to suggest any particular type of amnesia. No, the more likely result will be pressure on the other parts of the brain causing the hapless host to stop thinking and breathing well before any amnesia could set in.
On the other hand, just about any surgery on the brain carries risk of damage to neighboring area. Anterograde amnesia is a common side effect, although retrograde amnesia is rarer. In fact, to get total retrograde amnesia requires trauma – massive infection, crushing injury to the central-to-frontal part of the skull, concussive blast injury. Anything less is unlikely to give total amnesia. Oh, sure, falling off a horse and hitting your head on a curb will likely cause a bit of amnesia – certainly for the 10 minutes or so immediately preceding the injury – but not the total "Who am I?" kind. Typically the amnesia lasts as long as the brain swelling that accompanies the concussion (about 24-48 hours) but usually only extends to memories from a few hours to a few months prior to the accident.
So, how *do* you incorporate brain damage and/or amnesia into a plot? Ratley?
[First, keep it simple. If the big dumb hero takes a glancing blow to the head, he's not gonna have total amnesia and lead a complete second life for 20 years. Keep it simple, and keep it short. Give the big dummy amnesia for the day leading up to the accident, and only lasting a few days to a week. However, you *can* leave the actual events of the accident permanently forgotten.
[Second, avoid the obvious. Instead of giving the dude full amnesia, consider an alternative.
[Doc?]
Right, Ratley. Alternatives to amnesia might be: (1) agnosia– inability to remember faces or the names of common objects, (2) aphasia - the inability to speak certain words or names (we also call this the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon), or (3) neglect – an apparent inability to consciously notice objects that occur in particular places in our field of vision.
Back to you, Ratley.
[Thanks, Doc.
[Third, remember that total retrograde amnesia is *rare*. Instead of amnesia, give your character vision, hearing or coordination problems. There's a bunchaton of other stuff that happens after head injury.
[Fourth, keep in mind the differences in those different types of amnesia: give a human anterograde amnesia and they may not remember that they had the exact same conversation 15 minutes ago, but they can still remember the name of their 10th grade crush. Likewise, retrograde amnesia still leaves the ability to make new memories.
[Ah, excuse me a sec…
[HEY RATFACE! The cheese is over THERE!
[Ah, sorry about that, maybe Doc needs to finish this while I go help Ratface.]
So, folks, Ratley's final point is to keep the perspective. Amnesia typically means loss of memory for facts. Skills such as reading, riding a bike, speaking a foreign language, complex logic puzzles – those memories are processed and stored in a different manner and not subject to the same injuries as amnesia. Just like Ratface can't remember where he left the cheese just now, he still remembers how to run mazes and get under Ratley's fur.
Finally, don't be too stuck on the rules (or clichés). Try something new, or figure out a way to let your protagonist function with just a partial injury. If you want help, don't hesitate to contact an expert –
- Or a LabRat! In fact, many scientists would be flattered to help out an author.
Until next time, be kind to your brain; for now, it's the only one you have!
(Thanks to Dave for an entertaining blog post -- a round robin story about goblins and hooligan juice. We'll have to see if we can put it up somewhere).
Thanks to John Singer Sargent for his painting of children.
Something that came up during the week's blogging was the subject of children and how they are (or in some cases are not) portrayed in books for adults. Are the child characters treated realistically? What purpose do they serve in the narrative? etc.
I write for children as well as adults so I'm comfortable writing child characters but do adult readers want child characters in their books when there are holiday destinations that ban children? Fantasy books often have a young (15-17 year old) protagonist. I tried googling this topic and didn't find much on it. (Perhaps it is just me!)
Here is a list of classic books with child characters. It raises some good points:
Read or reread a classic (or at least well-known) adult novel from among the titles listed. Think critically about the work from the singular point of view of how the nature of the child and the condition of childhood are represented via the child character or characters. Consider questions such as:
Is childhood characterized as a halcyonic or nightmarish period?
Are there striking or subtle autobiographical references to the author's life?
Is the child exceptional, proto-heroic or more in the normal range?
Is the portrayal of the child character(s) predominantly external or internal?
Is the view of childhood represented by the novel appropriate to the date of composition and/or to the fictional time setting?
Does this work evoke comparison to or contrast with any children's book(s) of the same time period in its perception of the child and of childhood?
Is the portrayal realistic for a child of the class, society, situation, and time?
Then I found a list of books for adults with child narrators like:
To Kill a Mockingbrid (Harper Lee)
The Tin Drum (Gunther Grass)
A Painted House (John Grisham)
A High Wind in Jamaica (Richard Hughes)
But why use a child narrator? What can you reveal (or hide) by using a child narrator? A child is essentially a 'stranger in a strange land' because they are constantly trying to make sense of the adult world.
And then Gary William Murning has a section on his site about writing child characters in adult books here.
He comes up with some good suggestions.
So how do I approach writing child characters for adult consumption? This is a difficult one to answer. My way of writing is fairly instinctual. I’ve been doing it so long that I no longer think about it (that’s a joke, incidentally… more or less.) Nonetheless, a few points occurred to me earlier today that I thought I’d share with you. Feel free to add your own.
A child is as multi-faceted as any other character. The expression of these “facets” will differ in many cases to those of an adult, but they will nevertheless possess common roots in the reality we all share. Their interpretation of the world around them may at times be unique, but it’s the same world your adult characters inhabit.
Writing completely from a child’s point of view can rob the work of necessary perspective. Try to allow for adult exposition etc. (for example, I tend to have my narrator looking back from a future place, slipping the odd insight in here and there — though there are other methods.)
Don’t overplay the “childishness”. Be selective and remember that fiction is merely real-life with form and well-defined boundaries.
Toys, favourite TV programmes, pop groups — all these can give a good sense of time, place and character. But don’t do it on every page! (See David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green if you want to read a great book on childhood that almost falls into the Space Invader Syndrome trap.)
And finally… child characters are not adult characters, but they deserve to be treated/represented with the same degree of honesty. Childhood can be a terrifying, confusing place — even for a child with a stable background. Don’t fudge it. Be prepared to revisit those childhood nightmares and ask yourself, Did they ever really go away?
I like Murning's point about honesty. In George RR Martin's Fire and Ice series several of his main characters are children and Martin doesn't treat these children any differently from the adults. Nasty things happen to them, their parents are killed and at the end of the last published book we still don't know if they will survive. Like so many children in the real world, the fact that they are youngsters does not save them from life's cruel realities.
Personally, I try to avoid exposition (Murning suggests using adult exposition to overcome the fact that children won't understand everuything they see). I like to leave it up to the reader to make deductions about what the child sees and fill in the gaps. I think readers should be made to so some work.
What books can you think of that use child characters? How do they treat these characters? What purpose do they serve in the narrative?
It's Monday and I'm feeling a little 'omgekrap' (something that really should only happen to compost heaps.)
So I thought we'd do something different. Sentence or paragraph serial football...
I put up a paragraph. Next person (any of you) puts up a follow on - which must make some sense please. A sentence or a short paragraph - which I have to extend. Then the next. The one catch is if you've been a rotten bastij and painted me into a corner... I can challenge and the writer has to follow on with a logical extension. Let's see if we can steer it to a short of 500-1500 words.
__________
So your mama taught you to say please and thank-you. Not wipe your nose on your sleeve and not to talk with your mouth full. All of life's important little lessons. Mine should have added "and do not take up a challenge to feed hooligan juice to a Dragon."
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