The Great Eight

I’m fascinated by figure skating, so so I was interested in reading this book. There are millions of self-help books, but this one was written by Scott Hamilton, an Olympic gold medalist who survived two different types of cancer.

The “eight” in the title refers to the figure 8, which Hamilton had to trace in the ice countless times for the figures that were once compulsory. The book uses skating examples and analogies to illustrate Hamilton’s eight ways in which people can deal with adversity and remain happy.

I like to write reviews a few days after reading the book, with the book closed so I can see how much I remember. With The Great Eight, two of Hamilton’s lessons are ones I hope I’ll always recall. And they’re good advice for writers as well.

The first is the story of the school figures. It’s boring to keep tracing the figure 8 in the ice, again and again. Yet later on, Hamilton realized that the dull exercise had given him stamina and concentration that helped him become a great skater.

The same thing applies to life – and writing. Sometimes we have to choose between a quick fix and years of tiring work with no immediate reward in sight (for instance, vanity publishing vs. slogging through rejections to be commercially published). And when we see other people taking the instant-gratification route, it helps to be reassured that another way is likely to work better for us.

The second lesson is the one about Kristi Yamaguchi’s smile. After taking a tumble, she bounced up and gave the huge audience such a smile that Hamilton, watching, wondered if he had actually seen her fall. Act like a cheerful and classy winner, and very often, people will take you for one.

That being said, the book’s take on cancer did not work for me. Cancer is presented as an experience which will enhance your life – if you let it. Cancer can certainly increase one’s faith in God and make people more appreciative of life, but cancer can also kill you. Or leave your children parentless. So I find it difficult to see cancer as a “gift”.

I would also not give this book to anyone with cancer, because they’re going through enough already without getting the impression that they have to laugh and joke their way through the illness. I appreciate optimism, but in this area, Hamilton’s focus on positivity and happiness is so relentless that there’s no room for any other emotions.

But if readers don’t mind this, The Great Eight might work for them. As for me, I liked the figure skating inside stories and some of the advice, but I can't recommend it wholeheartedly.

Groups in fantasy

I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, and fantasy offers plenty of opportunities to indulge that. Most of the stories I’ve enjoyed – or written – involve people having to work together, even if the protagonist comes up with a plan by himself or strikes the final blow.

One appeal of groups is how different they can be.

The Gestalt

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I recently read a Transformers fanfic that illustrates this perfectly, but it works with humanoid characters as well.

People often behave differently in groups than they do alone, so it’s only a small step from there to have them physically or mentally altered to the point where they work together smoothly once the group comes together. Well, maybe not that small a step. But in a fantasy, why not?

Part of the fun of writing the Glores in my manuscript Redemption is how dangerous they are in packs. Individual characteristics are temporarily sublimated as they function as a single unit (albeit one with several sets of sharp teeth).

The Fellowship

In more traditional fantasies, the different skills and personalities of the people in the group contribute to its success. Watership Down is a great example of that – you have Blackberry the thinker, Bigwig the fighter, Fiver the mystic, and Hazel the leader who holds the group together.

Part of the fun, of course, is the friction within the group. Jealousy, past rivalries, sexual tension, competing ambitions, almost anything goes. The more conflict there is, though, the more the group needs a good reason to stay together. If the protagonist is extremely powerful on his own, and the other people in the group resent that, why do they stay with him? If they don’t believe the foreseer’s visions-o’-doom, why do they put up with her?

So, what might not work when it comes to groups in fantasy?

One-of-a-kind

This is a cliché of traditional fantasy – the group, modelled too closely on Tolkien’s work, which includes an elf, a dwarf, a halfling and two or more humans, one of whom is the leader. The difference is that Tolkien gave the characters of different races good reasons for joining the Fellowship, whereas many other writers don’t show why a dwarf would leave his dwarf community and join such a heterogenous group.

Another problem group is where the different types of professions or weaponry are too evenly distributed – for instance, one swordsman, one archer, one magician, one thief. That’s probably going to come off as an imitation of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

All-of-a-kind

I once read a book about a mercenary company where all except one of the mercs was a fighter. This might still have worked if they had had very different habits, quirks, flaws and so on, because that would have helped differentiate them.

The more emphasis there is on the characters conforming to a certain norm, whether that norm is the standards of a mercenary company or Scipio Africanus’s army, the more the characters need to be fleshed out. The men of the Night Watch, in A Song of Ice and Fire, are a good example of this.

The only exception to this is when you want to place more emphasis on the characters as a team than as individuals – though that can make it more difficult for the readers to connect with them. And the more distinctive they are as characters, the more conflict there will be within the group.

Sacrifice

“Fly, you fools!” -- Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

The sacrifice of a likeable character is a great way to twist the reader’s heartstrings. When I first watched Operation Daybreak, a film about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, I kept hoping and hoping that the Czech paratroopers would somehow escape from the Nazis closing in on them. When I realized that they had given their lives for their mission, it brought tears to my eyes.

Readers expect happy endings, but to a certain extent they also expect realism. Sacrificing a heroic and admirable character is a great way to set them up for the one, but give them the other instead. Provided it’s done well.

So when does this not work?

1. The character is undeveloped.

I once watched a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode called “Sacrifice of Angels”. I was looking forward to it, since it was the climax of a seven-episode arc and would feature a fierce battle. The title also suggested that someone would die, and I was hoping for something along the lines of Spock’s climactic sacrifice in The Wrath of Khan.

Instead, a minor character was killed while she was talking to her father. And personality-wise, she was nice, loyal and good at art, without any unusual quirks or flaws that might have made her memorable.

The whole point of a sacrifice is to make the readers care about the character stepping up to the scaffold. Even a death has no impact if the readers haven’t formed a connection of some sort to the character.

2. The character has options other than sacrificing themselves.

If the character can solve the problem by doing something other than dying, the readers will expect them to try the other option first (provided the character is a reasonable and non-suicidal person).

That’s one reason I love the “Gethsemane” scene in Jesus Christ Superstar. When Jesus insists on knowing why it’s so necessary for him to die, he receives a vision showing the impact of his sacrifice. After that, he’s more or less reconciled to it, because he realizes that it's the only way for him to achieve God’s aims.

3. The sacrifice wasn’t really a sacrifice.

This is when the character comes back to life afterwards. Some stories which do this disguise it by the character coming back in another form – reincarnation, for instance, or being put into an animal’s body – but it still weakens the sacrifice. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe gets away with this, but that’s partly because it’s written for children and partly because it’s a Christian allegory.

4. The character fails.

The only circumstances under which I’d accept the characters failing in what they set out to do, as well as dying, would be if that’s the way it happened in real life – for instance, Scott’s attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole.

Otherwise, readers want some vindication. Even if the character doesn’t know it, and dies without ever being aware of whether they’ve succeeded, the readers need to know it. Nothing’s more depressing than reading a story that takes a turn for the nihilistic and says that the character’s sacrifice was useless.

However, there’s no reason to have the character – moments before their execution – experience a vision or see an event which shows them everything’s going to be fine. This can come off as either too much of a coincidence or as the author taking pity on the character.

Sacrifice, like porcelain, needs to be handled with care for best effect.

Another use for dialogue

If I’m planning a scene and want to see how an interaction between characters would unfold, I write their dialogue in script form.

Stas: Like this?
Jarec: Like that, except minus stage directions.
Stas: But sometimes those are necessary. Or funny.
Jarec: Funny?
Stas: Sure. [Exit, pursued by a bear]

The advantage of this is that it strips away all the description, tones of voice, facial expressions, actions and everything else on which weak dialogue can lean. The conversation, discussion or argument between characters has to carry the scene.

I write the dialogue quickly to get the raw material out before my internal editor can analyze it too much. That also imitates the fast-paced nature of real speech. Plus, I use modern language if that will convey my meaning more easily.

Stas: I’m a microbiologist in a medieval fantasy. It doesn’t get much more modern than that, you know.
Jarec: This is becoming a bit too meta.

If there’s a problem in the story, such as the characters trying to decide how to break into a prison, I might also have them discuss it and come up with suggestions. Usually, though, the script provides a realistic development and denouement to the interaction, and then I can use it as the framework to write the scene.

Stas: Can we go back to the story now?
Jarec: Where’s a bear when you need one?

Five bizarre book titles

1. Romance Goes Tenting

Link

This is a Mills & Boon novel published in 1956, when I’m sure “tenting” meant something sweet and innocent.


2. How Green were the Nazis?

Link

Uh… they recycled human skin into lampshades?


3. Death by Ploot Ploot

Link

I’ll just quote one of the reviews: “Ploot Ploot has no plot plot.”


4. Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, learns to say “No” to Drugs

Link

What an inspiring heroin. I mean heroine.


5. How to make love while conscious

Link

What’s the sequel, How to make love while alive?

Why not begin with dialogue?

I’d read on more than one site that beginning a story with dialogue might turn off agents and was therefore not a good idea. No particular reason was given for why this was a turnoff, so I accepted it and just made a mental note to start in some other way.

Then I read a story beginning with a seven-line conversation, which didn't intrigue me. The writer had asked for critiques, though, which meant I had to think about why the conversation didn’t work – and for comparison purposes, I found a story starting with dialogue which did work.

So, why are writers warned off beginning with dialogue?

1. Talking head syndrome

Close your eyes and turn on the television, making sure you get a show rather than a news broadcast or documentary. Can you follow the plot simply through dialogue?

I imagine that reading a conversation between two unknown people is often as fun as not-watching TV, trying to tell what’s going on without visual clues. Very often such conversations look like this:

“We can’t tell anyone.”
“But that was a kid--”
“I don’t care. You want us to end up in there too?”

Is this a conversation between a couple, siblings, friends, strangers on a train? It’s words in a vaccum, talk in white space. The writer could fill in more details through the dialogue, but then we run into another problem…

2. As you know, Bob

“We can’t tell anyone what we saw Grandma Peters doing.”
“But that was a kid she lured with one of her homemade blueberry pies.”
“I don’t care. You want us to end up in there too? It’s not all blueberry, you know.”

The characters are telling each other what they already know. And the conflict doesn’t work too well either…

3. Dramatic personae

Since the dialogue alone has to hold the reader’s attention, some writers try to make it as gripping as possible. However, this can backfire if the dialogue is crammed with conflict and emotion, since the reader hasn’t had a chance to connect with the characters and experience whatever they experience.

It feels intrusive to begin a story with characters screaming at each other or confessing their love to each other. If there’s not even a minimal connection to the characters before they start talking about their divorce or the sniper across the street, the readers will be watching the scene from a detached distance. The conflict will be told to them rather than shown.

On the other hand, there are exceptions to every rule. And the one which came to mind right away was Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”.

”George, I wish you’d look at the nursery.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then.”
“I just want you to look at it, or call a psychologist in to look at it.”

The first sentence establishes who’s speaking to who. “I wish you’d look at this” is something most likely said within the context of a marriage, rather than a romance or a friendship. And since it starts with a name, we know the husband is George, meaning that this is probably a conversation between humans in the present or near future (since Bradbury writes science fiction, readers can’t take that for granted).

Also, there’s a problem with the nursery. “George, I wish you’d look at the kitchen” would not have had the same impact, the same uneasy little sense of children-in-jeopardy. Though as the story goes on to show, nothing could be further from the truth.

So the first sentence also sets up the conflict, but does that in a subtle way, so that the reader can learn about the problem along with the characters. Starting with, “Oh my God, George! The children are in danger!” would not have worked so well. By the time the dialogue gets to the request for a psychologist – meaning that whatever’s wrong with the nursery, it’s not easily fixed – I’m hooked.

Finally, this is a stripped-down, minimalist start to the story. That parallels the nursery, which is featureless and blank-walled when someone first enters it.

Picking up on the emotions and wishes of the person, though, the nursery walls quickly produce different three-dimensional scenes, complete with temperature and smells and sound, to make its occupants feel as though they’re in another place and time – hence the title, “The Veldt”. Likewise, the intriguing conversation at the start quickly unfolds into Bradbury’s beautifully descriptive prose, which uses the senses of smell and touch better than any writer I’ve ever read.

I’m still going to begin my stories with something besides dialogue, but it’s good to see how that can work when done well.

Names in fantasy

A few thoughts on names in fantasy stories, in no particular order…

1. The same first and/or last letters to denote names from the same culture

Can work if used carefully and sparingly – and if it seems realistic that everyone in a particular race or society uses the same format in naming their children. It works in the real world when different suffixes denote gender (e.g. Roman names, Japanese names), which is a good reason to stick to a formula.

One problem, though, is that readers sometimes find it difficult to tell characters apart if their names begin with the same letter. And if the names are short on top of that, or end with the same letter as well, this can give them a sameness that doesn’t help. The Vulcans of Star Trek are perhaps the best example of this with names such as Surak, Sybok, Sarek, etc.

2. Cliched names

Some names are cliched from the get-go. When I first started writing fantasy, I had a character called Fox. And yes, he had red hair, however did you guess? I eventually realized that he was about the hundredth character to labor under that particular moniker, and if I revisit that story, he’ll get a name change.

“Raven” and “Hawk” are similar names which are overused in both fantasy and romance. It doesn’t help that people with those names tend to be bold or dashing or darkly lovely; you never get a baker called Hawk or a pregnant seamstress called Raven.

3. Actual names

This one is tricky, since there are actual names of all kinds, but it’s something to keep in mind. I recently read a Watt-Evans novel which had a minor character called Gita, and each time she was mentioned, I pictured an Indian woman in Ethshar. This impression could probably have been corrected if Gita had been fleshed out more. The Gita of the story would have created her own distinct impression in my mind then.

Things I’d like to see, or plan to do:

Both (or more) people in a marriage change their given names to show that they’re married.

Names based on a common theme – for instance, all the villagers or islanders take the names of flowers, gemstones, etc.

Names assigned to people by another land or culture. One thing I liked about Alien Nation was that that the Tenctonese refugees were assigned new names by the US government, and although this was used as humor (Sandy Beach, Gayle Warning, etc), it’s actually a very realistic touch.

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On a personal note, I've asked to review The Great Eight by Scott Hamilton, an Olympic gold medalist. The medal was in figure skating, the one sport I follow, so I'm looking forward to reading more about it.

Five types of half-human creatures

Specifically, creatures that have half a human body fused to half an animal’s body.

1. Centaurs

The most common of such types - see Piers Anthony’s Centaur Aisle for an example - though centaurs also played important roles in the Harry Potter books and the Chronicles of Narnia.

I’ve liked centaurs ever since I watched Disney’s Fantasia and saw the centaurs of various colors as well as the zebra fusions. More along those lines would be great. Humans joined to the bodies of stags, maybe?

2. Felinaurs

The felinaurs of Fighting Fantasy have a human’s torso fused to a lion’s lower body, but I found a picture of a cheetah cross as well. These haven’t seen much use in any of the fantasy I’ve read so far, but they’re intriguing, especially if they have a unique mentality or society to go with their appearances.

3. Xoroa

The Xoroa, also of Fighting Fantasy, have humanoid torsos fused to the lower bodies of giant ants. One reason I like them is that their physical alterations don’t stop at the waist; they have antennae instead of ears and cannot speak. Instead, they communicate with a clicking sound. They also live in a giant hive built around the only female, the Xoroa queen.

Insect and arachnid fusions turn up in other fantasies as well – the driders of Forgotten Realms , for instance, and Fighting Fantasy had human/scorpion crosses as well. Since there are so many types of invertebrate, this has nearly limitless potential. I’d love to see humans crossed with butterflies, scarab beetles, leeches or dragonflies.

4. Menfish

I’m borrowing the Mieville term here, because “mermaids” has been too Disneyfied to inspire any kind of serious, gritty fantasy for me. I think DragonLance had “sea elves”, but those were pretty, good creatures who turned up when they were needed and swam off when they weren’t.

But there’s so much more potential to this type of creature. Mermaids originally dragged shipwrecked sailors to drown. What if the mermaids were fused with piranhas, and the last thing such sailors saw was teeth, and lots of them? Stonefish, sharks, manta rays, barracudas, squid… there are a lot of creatures in the sea that either look deadly, or are deadly, or both. Don’t stop with half a fish when you can have half an anglerfish.

And also, how do mermaids reproduce? I’ve always wondered.

5. Avians

I couldn’t think of a better name for this type of creature, because I didn’t recall it being done in any fantasies other than the garuda of Mieville’s novels. Poul Anderson has a novel called War of the Wing Men, but this seems to be out of print, and other novels with bird fusions seem to settle for sticking wings on a human’s back, rather than creating an entirely new type of creature.

Which is a pity, because birds vary from ostriches to hummingbirds, from ospreys with eyes that adjust for light refraction in water to gulls that live in huge squabbling smelly colonies. And why stop at birds? I’d like to see a human/bat fusion. Or a human/pterodactyl.

Or, for that matter, any human/dinosaur cross. A human with a velociraptor’s lower legs and tail would be as cool as it was deadly.

What's Age Got to Do with It?

I read that Robin McGraw, at 55, wrote this book because her mother died prematurely after too many years of putting the needs of others before her own health. Since my mother died at 55, I decided to read this book.

What’s Age Got To Do With It? is a description of how Ms. McGraw (who’s married to Dr. Phil) keeps herself healthy and attractive at her age. She has an equally healthy mindset, and makes it clear that women of any age need to make time for themselves and their health even when taking care of a family.

This isn’t exactly groundbreaking information, but since many women do put their needs second to those of their family’s, reading this might make a difference for them. The book is organized into sections dealing with exercise, nutrition, hormones, makeup and so on, with anecdotes on each topic.

Ms. McGraw quotes several experts at length, and also describes the science behind processes like menopause. This is a nice contrast to the anecdotes, which at some points get a little too happy-families. Still, the stories which specifically focus on health are relevant, and I enjoyed the ones about makeovers gone wrong.

Unfortunately, since this is not a long book, it doesn’t go into some topics (such as spirituality) in depth. What readers often get instead is common knowledge, and the product placement reached the point where I started watching for the next brand-name cosmetic.

I’d recommend this book to women who want an overall look at health and beauty, accesorized with several pages advising them on exactly what to eat (taken from Dr Phil’s The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide). Ironically, my mother would have loved this – the mixture of health tips and celebrity-lifestyle would have worked for her. To me, though, it was a case of a book trying to be all things to all women, which rarely succeeds.

PublishAmerica’s latest offer

Emails went out to PA’s “thirty thousand happy authors” yesterday.

Dear Author,

Frame this: February is royalty month. Your next royalty statement is due in less than six weeks.

Receiving their royalty check is a high moment in every author's life, no matter the dollar amount. A moment worth framing.

Since PA sends out biannual royalty checks, and since their contracts hold authors for a minimum of 7 years, this means authors will have 14 moments worth framing during their time with PA.

We are offering to frame your next royalty check for you, in a distinguished, transparent 8x10 hard coated frame that "floats" the check between sheets of glass and plexiglass.

Because nothing says “distinguished” like plexiglass.

Note: you will still receive a negotiable version of your check that you can deposit, ensuring that the framed copy is a keepsake forever.

Thanks to the glass and plexiglass, you too can enjoy the PA version of the Precious Moments figurine through eternity. And beyond.

Reserve your framed check today. Price: $19.95, plus s&h.

For most authors, the frame would be worth more than the check (though as PA was quick to point out, it’s not the check you’re framing, it’s the magical moment). The same email stated, “Checks will be mailed February 28; statements regarding titles that sold zero copies will be forwarded by email.” I don’t suppose anyone will want to frame such a statement, though.

Threads about this sprang up on at least three discussion boards, and not even PA’s defenders seemed happy about it. The good news is that whether this offer is prompted by greed or desperation or both, it’s so blatant that it may alert at least a few new authors to what PA wants out of them. PA doesn’t charge for publication - which lures people in - but it charges for

1. Books (a 182-page paperback is priced at $24.95)

2. Shipping and handling ($4.99 for the first book, $2.99 for each additional book)

3. Advertising (PA’s auction, which has since been repeated)

4. Lack of advertising (after some authors found inappropriate advertising in their books, others wanted their books free of advertising. PA offered to make it so for $300)

5. A frame for each royalty check ($19.95 + s&h)

6. The return of rights (starting at $300)

I wonder what PA will try to sell to authors next. A frame for the dollar advance? Cover art? A special certificate saying “Congratulations, you are now a Published Author”? A frame for that? With PA, you never can tell.