by Mayumi-H | Jun 18, 2012 | Fearless, Process
One of the themes with which I like to play in my stories is juxtaposition.
Trait (or character) juxtaposition can manifest in different ways. In the last big story I wrote (1 More Chance!), the heroine is a small-town girl who falls for a big-city boy. Nothing new, there…except she was the fighter (and the dominant) in this relationship, while her boyfriend filled the role of gentle artist (and submissive, for the most part). During the course of the story, though, they ended up changing roles depending on the situations that arose, and they learned you don’t have to be just one type of person or another. They grew together to trade off responsibilities and character traits, where warranted.
I prefer these relationships.
One of the aspects of “typical” romances that really bugs me is how women (seemingly) have to be powerful in business, money, skills, whatever, and then the man (usually) breaks them down into a damsel, for sake of the typical role fulfilment. When I wrote 1 More Chance!, I was dealing with pre-conceived characters, so I was thankfully able to ignore that. With Fearless, the situation is different.
I wanted Amber to be a strong woman. But I didn’t want to make her powerful. Part of what Ross (the main character and point of view) finds so alluring about her is that she’s audacious, worldly, and intrepid…but she’s still very much a girl. She likes clothes and shoes and wants to be pretty. She also wants to prove herself (and that gets her into trouble). But she isn’t someone who threatens or emasculates him, which is what I see many supposedly “strong” women characters do to men.
Woman on top
http://bonusparts.deviantart.com/
I’m perhaps playing into a more masculine mentality with this story, and that will likely alienate romance readers. But Amber as she is feels so true to me. I don’t want to make her a genius or a tough fighter or something else that feminism might demand me to do with her, to make her more modern.
And I really enjoy writing the role reversals that come with the conflict of the story. Not only does it show what Amber’s capable of…but it lets Ross grow, too.
I’m interested to see what my beta readers think of Ross and Amber (and the rest of the crew) when they get to reading it. Not that I think I’ll be willing to change who they are. Because I’m just stubborn like that.
What are your feelings on “strong” women?
by Mayumi-H | May 19, 2012 | Process, Uncategorized
Just like with any skill, editing takes practice.
The first words from my pen tend to paint detailed pictures, which can sometimes be nice to read…but it does nothing for the story. It’s just a lot of background filler that takes up space, and unnecessarily so.
Writing challenges that require me to stay to a low wordcount have made me think about the use of my words, and how to give them more impact, since I have to do more with less. Now, I’m not as good as some people out there (and I still enjoy creating a well-imagined world), but I think I’m starting to get the hang of this.
Here’s a little science fiction piece I wrote a while ago, about a group of stowaways.
Take one, 521 words:
Lelie curled her fingers around the edge of the cargo hold door and gently swung it open.
“What do you see?” Tyc whispered from behind her.
Lelie craned her head around and shushed him. As she turned back to the hold, she held her breath.
It was a wide, open room, about as big as the old galley at the Institute. Metal hold containers lined all four walls, and with the exception of a few emergency lights along the stairs and floor, the hold was completely dark, a thankful allowance given their predicament.
She crept out of the container and, with one finger pressed to her lips to remind them to be quiet, she beckoned her companions forward.
Short, compact Tyc came out first, peering around from behind those over-sized goggles that helped pilots focus in Darkspace. The eyewear was usually connected to a navigation computer, projecting a heads-up display of vehicle location and statistics to the wearer, but without a precious computer (or ship, for that matter), the goggles were essentially just a trapping. Tyc still wore them, though. Bred as a long-haul pilot, he would have felt naked without them.
Lithe Imien was next, her fingers stretched out before her, the subtle electro-receptors along her skin glowing faintly in the dim light. She stepped lightly, her bare feet noiseless against the metal floor. She cocked her head to the side. “I can feel the engine – it’s about two levels below us. I’ll need a map for anything more.” She turned to Lelie and blinked, uselessly. The cipher had been blind since birth: all the better to open her peripheral senses to the programming of being a sensitive.
Stoll was last from the container, cracking his neck as he stood to his full height. Bio-engineered to be a soldier, he was both tallest and broadest among them. Even at the end of adolescence, he was all sinewy muscle, without hint of the age or paunch of the guards at the Institute. He was also the most capable in a fight, should things come to that.
“Just find me a gun,” he muttered to Imien.
Lelie shook her head. “No. No guns.” She took a step toward Stoll. “You promised.”
Stoll leaned toward her, dropping his voice further. “Lel, I can’t protect us without something to use as a weapon.”
“No guns,” Lelie repeated, emphatic. She raised both of her smooth, slender hands in a warding-off gesture. She straightened. She was not as tall as he was, but she had presence; all concubines did. “I want to be a Substantive as much as you do,” she murmured. “But the only thing guns will get us is killed.” She looked beneath the dark hair in front of his eyes. “I didn’t risk everything to get out of the Institute just to be shot on a nameless cargo freighter, did you?”
Stoll glanced away, unable or unwilling to hold her gaze. He might have been able to snap her neck with a single quick motion, but there were still some ways that she was stronger than him, and they both knew it.
“Well,” he said. “We can’t stay here.”
It’s all right. I mean, I don’t think it’s utter dreck; there are a few little nice bits in there that could be fleshed out to create something pretty cool. But it plods, and doesn’t go anywhere, quickly or slowly.
Now, here’s take two (365 words).
The ship was quiet. Save for the skeleton shift on the bridge, there was no movement, no talk, no breath.
Or, there shouldn’t have been.
In the hold below decks, close to the engine, one cargo container creaked, shifted, and then burst open, its door clattering to the metal floor.
“Quiet!” Lelia hissed as she crept from the container, pressing a finger to her lips.
Short, compact Tyc was first behind her. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “We’ve already shifted into Darkspace.”
Lelia looked at him. “How can you tell?”
He peered up at her from behind his oversized pilot’s goggles, his snub nose curling in something like disdain. “Can’t you feel it?”
“He’s right,” Imien said, as she stepped from the container, too, her fingers outstretched before her. The electro-receptors along her skin glowed, like the lines of emergency lighting beneath their feet. “Engines are running hot.” She turned hear head toward Lelia, too, and blinked, uselessly. “Is there a comm panel nearby?” she asked. “It should have a map I can download.”
Stoll was last from the container, and he cracked his neck as he stood to his full height. “Just find me the armory,” he said. A rotation of shoulders made another cracking sound. “I need a gun.”
Lelia shook her head. “No!” she said. “No guns. You promised.”
Stoll leaned toward her, dropping his voice. “Lel, I can’t protect us without a weapon-”
“No guns,” Lelia repeated. She wasn’t nearly as broad as he was, nor even as tall, but she had presence; all of her kind did.
She laid her hands on his chest, looking at him but speaking to all of them. “The only thing guns will get us is killed,” she said. “I didn’t risk everything to get away from the Institute just to get shot on a cargo freighter. Did you?”
There was no answer from Tyc, or from Imien; both of them knew better than to get between the paramour and soldier.
At last, Stoll glanced away. He could snap her neck in an instant…but she was still right, and he knew it.
“Well,” he rumbled as he pushed past her. “We can’t stay here.”
You see what I’m saying? I tell the same moment, with the same pertinent details, but taking out all of that useless explanation makes the whole thing move at a quicker pace. Not fast, yet, but quicker. (It still needs a lot of work.) Nonetheless, it’s a good exercise, to learn what you can cut and still get your story across.
What lessons have you learned from editing your own work?
by Mayumi-H | May 14, 2012 | Fearless, From Hell (A Love Story), Process
It’s my belief that any story is, at its core, about relationships. Relationships between people or groups of people, usually: families, friends, lovers, enemies, warring countries/planets/galaxies, spies trying to outdo each other, whatever. A story about a boy and his dog making their way through the post-apocalyptic countryside is about a relationship. Or a story about a female fighter pilot and the only thing in the world she trusts – her plane – is about a relationship. Even a story about the last surviving scientist looking for a cure to a world-spread disease is about a relationship.
Perhaps the greatest unconsummated love affair of them all?
Now, my stories tend to examine relationships on a smaller scale, usually between two people, along with a supporting cast of eccentrics around them. Love stories. But it’s never just a love story. I like some kind of conflict (often external) that will rear its ugly head, and which my characters need to face together to overcome. Or die trying in the process.
My question, though, is – when you have an external conflict that the lovers must face – how much time can you spend building the relationship, first?
I like building relationships, myself, but in this age of short attention spans, if a storyteller spends a lot of time forging that alliance between the characters, will the reader get bored before the big ol’ conflict hits? What’s a reasonable amount of time to spend getting a couple together? What if I’m telling this story all wrong?!
(image by Michelle Burnette)
Have you ever read a story and thought, “They would never get together that quickly!” Or, conversely, “Why is this truce taking so long?” What are your thoughts about this topic? I’d love to know!
by Mayumi-H | May 5, 2012 | Fearless, Process
“Sell-out!”
My husband makes this casual accusation all of the time, mostly of visual or musical artists. His perspective is that an artist is true to their work or vision only if they’re suffering in obscurity and relative poverty. I argue back at him that, sure, an artist has a vision and should stay true to that. But how many people really get into music or writing or art and don’t want to be successful and make money at it? Green Day, for example, lost a lot of their punk “cred” (at least with my husband and his friends) when they signed to a big record label and became international superstars.
My answer to that? “…What?”
“No, guys, I don’t want to make a bajillion dollars playing stadium shows. Let’s just go back to playing in our garage.”
This brings me to my point (such as it is): What’s the right balance of creating art for yourself, and creating it for other people?
Theresa Stevens over at Edittorrent has a great post about Complexity in stories. In it, there’s a terrific bit about writers who spell things out for the reader, and weaving a bit of mystery and complexity into the words.
When I’ve written fiction stories before, I try to write on two levels: on a very basic level, a reader can just read the words and get a hopefully fulfilling story. On another level, though, I try to introduce deeper meaning for the moment or characters. It’s not super-obvious, but if you’re willing to think about what’s happening on the page, there’s another layer to the story.
This invariably takes more concentration and skill, though. And I occasionally think that maybe I’m just creating more work for myself. After all, I’m an unproven writer, and most readers likely won’t take a chance on whatever I produce, without a name to myself.
But I don’t want to write for a genre or audience – or in a style – simply because it’s popular or the latest new thing. It’s impossible for me not to emulate the stories I’ve loved since I was a little girl, but I don’t want to study a Twilight or Hunger Games to change the way I write, to make my novel more mainstream and publishable. I want to tell my story, in my voice, with all of the sexy, fluffy, ugly stuff that goes along with it.
So, I ask you. Which is more realistic for the starving starting novelist? To be the artist, or the hack?
Ben Skinner – one of the inspirations for Ross – strutting his stuff on the water.
photo courtesy and copyright Geoff Tydeman
by Mayumi-H | Mar 26, 2012 | Excerpts, Fearless, Process
“This is for you,” he said, clicking open the small velvet-covered jewellery box with a flick of his thumb, to show her the fragile silver necklace with its moonstone briolette and the tiny pearls wrapped around it.
Amber’s delicately made-up lips broke into a wide smile. “Oh, Ross…!” she breathed as she looked from the box to him. “You shouldn’t have done!”
He wrinkled his nose dismissively. “It’s a Christmas present,” he muttered.
She giggled. “That’s still almost two weeks away!”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I know,” he said, and then grinned. “But, I couldn’t wait.”
Even the bright lustre of the chain couldn’t outshine the smile she graced on him. “Well, thank you,” she whispered. “It’s lovely.”
He smiled again, and plucked the necklace from its black bed with his fingers. “Here,” he said, passing her the box as he shifted around behind her. He pushed the blonde curtain of her hair over one shoulder, then lowered the chain in front of her, settling the dangling pearl onto her chest, not far above her cleavage. He fastened the catch and smoothed it down upon the back of her neck, then paused very briefly, to lay a light kiss just above it, between the scooping collar of her coat and her hairline.
“Thank you,” she whispered again, pressing back into his hands, which he’d settled on her shoulders. Then she turned about on her toes in a graceful little pirouette, and wound her arms around his neck. She didn’t say another word, just rose up and kissed him, while the rain came down upon the awning above their heads.
Recently, I’ve had several conversations about the value and necessity of depth of description in stories. Personally, I’ve always been something of a word-hound, and I like setting scene and offering details. I have been known to go overboard with my details, though. (That’s one of the reasons why I’m really enjoying the 100-Word Challenges; they really make me think about the words I’m putting down on paper.) However, I think that – especially in a genre such as romance – details are quite important.
Even though women tend to be the main readership of romance, writing from a man’s perspective has made me consider how visual men are, as a gender. They’re stimulated by what they see. Not that women don’t have that visual stimulation, too, but with men it seems to be so much more acute. The male voice also tends to be a lot more immediate than the female voice, at least for my men. So, with this story, I’ve tried to concentrate on offering details mostly when they’re warranted, and when they’re in relation to what Ross would notice in the world around him: such as the way Amber looks, feels, smells, and moves.
It’s been very interesting to find a voice for Ross. I hope that readers can sympathise (or even empathise) with him along the way. But, even if they don’t, even if I don’t find readers for this story, it’s still been a fun and enlightening experience for me.
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