Mistakes

A year ago I started writing a novel called Malt. It centered around a superhero, Maxwell Malt, who worked solely in a small town a couple of hours' drive from New York City (called Eastport, and apparently actually exists) without the use of actual superpowers, and living in terror of having his secret identity discovered. Other main characters were Wilfred Jenkins, a reporter seeking just that information about Max, and October and Ferret, two very weird surname-less sisters, one of whom Max was supposed to fall in love with. (How I intended to write this last after years of shunning romance, I have no idea.)

Malt eventually failed, for various reasons. First of all, it had no real plot. Wilfred was supposed to hunt down Max and his secret identity and whatnot, eventually finding out who he was, with the occasional bizarre event tossed in. At one point they were supposed to end up on a boat, at another in a taxi in New York City. Max was going to get drunk at an unspecified time. As previously mentioned, he was also supposed to fall in love with October. This is the entire outline of my planning.

The second issue was that I tried to write the universe without magic. The problem with this was that, if you have superheroes, even powerless ones, you have to have supervillains. Those usually require some form of magic. When I do rewrite Malt, although Max will still get by with purely human ability, the universe will have magic in such strength that it is incorporated into the government; in the same continuity will be another novel involving a government official and a professional magician/bodyguard, yet to be titled.

Finally, I was not very good at characterization. Max is painfully insecure. It's why he became a superhero, why he hides his identity, why he's terrified of being exposed (as he thinks of it). It dictates most of the decisions he makes--or at least, it should. Unfortunately, my characterization at the time was either terribly ham-handed or completely absent, and I'm not sure which instances read better. Wilfred's motivations, too, were unclear, and October was pretty much a weirdo to save me from assigning her any real character traits.

I do intend to rewrite Malt, once I've worked out what the plot actually is. Wilfred, October and Ferret may be entirely absent. I have no idea. But hopefully it'll be better than the first attempt.

Defining Philosophies

(To anyone who is confused: No, this is not my final.)

It is a given that most people, at some point in their lives, develop some kind of philosophy which guides their actions to some degree. Some people do this by borrowing their philosophy from others and never really changing it; this is often considered to display a lack of imagination, particularly if they parrot the ideas without understanding them. Some people start by borrowing a philosophy, but they then move bits around and add and delete things until they have their own set of values; this is pretty much what I've done, as do many adolescents, using their parents as a starting point. It is my opinion that the best kind of philosophy is one which has a basis in an existing idea, which you understand thoroughly, and which has been altered by your own changing perceptions.

Everyone starts out following their parents' line of thinking, like it or not. If your parents believe something, positive or negative, they are going to raise you on that belief because they are convinced that it is the right one. And, at least to begin with, you are going to share their conviction. This is something we know. Young children are impressionable, and the very foundation of their lives is the certainty that their parents know all. No matter how hard we try to teach free thought--whatever it may be--we have to accept that a five-year-old is not going to start formulating her own opinions about nuclear weapons or what have you. She is going to believe what her parents tell her. It's a survival-instinct-type thing which remains solid as long as the child is mainly in contact with her parents.

When school starts, things begin to change. The hypothetical child is exposed to the influence of many others and may be forced to question what her parents have said. During elementary school this is a gradual buildup of sorts. She starts out defending her parents' ideas at all costs, at least as soon as these things begin to matter; third grade is usually the dividing line in more than one sense. As time passes, two things can happen: the child can become ever more certain of what she has been taught, refusing to accept other viewpoints (I regret to say that this happened to me for a while); or her ideas will begin to change under the influence of her peers. Yes, peer pressure is often a cause of changing philosophies. A child's ideas do not change because she is a fierce individualist and refuses to conform, at least to begin with; they change because her peers show her that there are some merits to other points of view.

Next we have middle school, which is either hellish or fantastic by turns, and sometimes both. Obviously there are multiple ways the philosophy can go, because of the two directions the child's ideas may take in earlier years. Let's take as an example the one who has an iron certainty that her parents are right, since I have more experience in this. Our hypothetical preteen will now take her initial philosophy to extremes: I know what's right. Nobody understands. Now, I don't mean to discourage free thought--I approve of it in most forms--but being overzealously individual is just as bad as unquestioning conformity. A person cannot be successful if she automatically rejects anything she thinks is "too mainstream" or "a symbol of conformity". Oh, did she like these clothes or that band? Too bad; she can't accept them because--gasp--"normals" also like them. No, she must be unique in every possible way! Obviously, this does not work. At all. Ever. Not to over-emphasize the point or anything. The massively individualist philosophy rarely gets anyone anywhere.

The other option for middle school works best if you have already been opened up to others' ideas. Your philosophy will continue to grow and change, in some ways very much like a living creature. The acceptance of additions to your beliefs, however, is not necessarily entirely positive. It will allow you to develop yourself, true. The thing is, everyone has specific people whose ideas they listen to. If all your influences are racist, well. Pretty obvious where that'll go. If all your influences want to live in peace and harmony with nature (which is really, really difficult, by the way), then you're going to latch on to those same ideas. This continues the development of your personal philosophy, based on what your parents initially taught you and altered by your friends and your own changing views of the world. You're well on your way to having a fixed philosophy, one that works for you.

The final stage of the developing philosophy is when it solidifies into something definite. This can happen at any time, assuming the necessary preliminaries (detailed above) have been met. You may not know when it happens; all that is certain is that your values are no longer in flux. You know what philosophy you will live your life by. Some adolescents have already reached this point; some adults still haven't. There is no judgment to be passed on someone who takes a while to put their philosophy together; they might just be putting more thought into it than you did. Or they're indecisive. It doesn't matter. They will come to a decision eventually.

I don't know that my personal philosophy is settled, but this is what I've figured out so far: Everyone is free to their own opinions, as long as their opinions do not stifle those of others. Have your defining philosophy. It's okay if it's different from mine. Discuss it with me, whatever. But don't try to force me to agree with you; don't shout that everyone who disagrees is wrong. Reasoned debate is fine. I will not tolerate a war of opinions where one tries to subdue the other. That is not respect for society, and it does not help anyone.

So how's your philosophy coming along? And will it be helpful in the long run?

How Not to Write Vignettes

    Over the time that I’ve been posting on this blog, I’ve mostly put up writing which was, if not stupendous, then at least not horrendous. Recently my posts have been mostly those which are given as assignments. Several of the assigned posts could be improved somewhat, but the most poorly-written (in my opinion) is the vignette post.
    The instructions for this post were to write four to six vignettes, not necessarily about real events, as part of our in-class reading of The House On Mango Street. I am stunningly pathetic when it comes to writing about real life, or so I have often thought, so I proceeded to conjure up a character by the name of Madison and write about her instead. I enjoy medieval-ish settings because I read many, many fantasy novels, so that was the environment I devised. The imagined country was called Alnia, and was provided with a cast of a few characters who were not interesting enough to allow their absence of actual character. Don’t believe me? Read this: “[...] Addie said politely, because she's more worried about offending people than anyone should be.” This is all the characterization this character gets, and she’s the protagonist’s sister. Madison herself doesn’t get much to individualize her either, and she’s the first-person narrator. If you’ve read my blog recently, you know that I consider the mark of a good first-person writer to be characterizing narration; reading the vignette post will tell you that I am most definitely not a good first-person writer. I mean, look at this:

The thing about castles is that they do have secret passages, even if there aren't enough of them. Ours has three, and I know exactly where each of them is and where it goes and how to get the bricks out so you can see what's going on. I like all of them, of course, and I use them frequently, but my favourite is the twisty one that goes under the northeast tower and coils like a snake once or twice before slithering off to the stables.

Apart from the use of simile, which is contrived at best, what does this tell you about Madison? She likes secret passages, okay, but you know that because she just told you. What does the style of narration tell you about her? Absolutely nothing. Well, maybe it tells you she’s very precise, but that’s a trait which isn’t at all consistent in the narration. She uses simile, which could be an indication of character, if you were to look at it in the right light. Apart from that, not much. The same notable absence of character is everywhere in the vignettes, and I think I’ve figured out why: all of the vignettes, except the first one, are about other characters.
    The three vignettes following Madison’s complaint about castles have been given the eponymous titles of “Backwards Quellen”, “The Vest of Feliciano Montgard”, and “Jester’s Mule”. Each of these, as you may have guessed, centers around the titular character (the jester, in the case of the last, since the mule is just a mule) and Madison’s experience of them. This might not seem like a bad thing; it’s characterizing to see how a character reacts to others, isn’t it? Well, yes--but only if you know what you’re doing. I clearly do not, because Madison is as flat in these encounters as she is everywhere else. I focused much too much on developing the other characters (and how well I did there is up for debate), which meant that I wasn’t paying too much attention to making the narration interesting or at least connected to the character’s personality. Obviously this is a problem that needs solving if I ever hope to be a successful first-person writer--which I don’t, but for the sake of explanation we’ll pretend I do--so what’s the source of the problem? Once again, it can be traced to Madison’s character: she’s so flat and boring that even I’m not interested in writing her.
    In order to be able to write from a character’s point of view, whether in first or third person, the writer must find the character interesting. For me, this is usually not a problem, because it’s hard for me to even come up with a character who bores me to death. In the vignettes, though, I seem to have managed it. “Castles”, which consists of Madison whining about how much she hates the titular buildings, was the first thing I wrote from her point of view. I disliked the piece from the beginning, both because it could probably be written better and because the character came off as an ungrateful teenager with no other defining character traits:

The one we're in is a horrible thing, musty and full of old tapestry and without enough secret passages, which are the only good reason for living in a castle anyway. But we have to stay because it's ancestral, just like all that furniture in the southwest tower that we're not allowed to sit on, and if we moved out it would go to some cousin in the north. I tell my parents he can have it if he wants it, I don't care, but they never listen.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why write four vignettes about a character you can’t stand? The short answer: Because I lack foresight. But I suppose you’ll want a longer explanation than that.
    The thing is, I was still hesitant to write about my actual experiences, because I’ve had such failures with that in the past and because I can’t think of interesting memories on demand--I envy those of you who can. I didn’t want to have to come up with another character, because I was afraid that the new character would be just as thoroughly uninteresting as Madison. I suppose I could have used an existing character, but the one I was focused on at the time would have been difficult: I had only written about him third-person from the point of view of others, so I wasn’t far enough inside his head to write in the first person. I have a plethora of other characters at my command, but by the time I realized how hideously dull Madison was, it was too late to try to come up with life histories for them. That takes time, you know, and most of them were already involved in a plot, so I couldn’t just drop them in new settings at their current stage of development and watch what happened. In the end, I ended up writing about Madison because I couldn’t think of anything else to do; in other words, because I lack foresight.
    Fortunately, it’s easy to learn from a mistake as monstrous as this one. Never again will I write first-person from the point of view of a character I don’t like. If I do ever choose to write first-person, I’ll pay a lot more attention to what I’m doing. In the meantime, “Daughter of Alnia” will stand as a testament to the need for proper characterization.

Reading Too Much Into Narration

Currently I am reading I Am The Messenger, a novel by Markus Zusak. I have read only one other book of his, The Book Thief, which takes place in Nazi Germany and tells the story of a girl who steals books (and, at one point, helps hide a Jew in the cellar). Clearly the two books are significantly different: Messenger is a bout the strange turn Ed Kennedy's mediocre life takes when he finds the ace of diamonds in his mailbox and follows the instructions written on it. The books are equally well-written, but the style and tone differ greatly between them, although sometimes for obvious reasons. The Book Thief has considerable overtones of death because of the setting, particularly in the second half, and many of the later lighthearted moments are full of the knowledge that they could end at any time. Messenger is altogether a less serious book; it has several serious events, but the humour in this book is much more common than in the other. Additionally, more of the serious events in the latter book have positive effects.

The changes in style between the two books, however, are quite notable. When reading The Book Thief, I had thought that it was simply written in the author's usual way. The narration was littered with moments of grimness and reflection, and contained amounts of visual description considered standard for most literature. Messenger has a style inconsistent with that of the other book. Physical description is less specific; the appearances of characters and objects are explained in broad strokes, like Ed's house, which is a "shack", or his friend Ritchie, who has a "man-boyish face". Some characters, like Marv, don't get any physical description and little of any other kind expositionally, despite importance to the story. The largest block of description of a person, apart from Ed's outline of his own character, is this:

"Audrey always sits opposite me, no matter where we play [cards]. She has yellow hair, wiry legs, the most beautiful crooked smile in the world, and lovely hips, and she watches a lot of movies." (15)

Compare that to The Book Thief's Liesel Meminger on her arrival on Himmel Street:

"Upon her arrival, you could still see the bite marks of snow on her hands and the frosty blood on her fingers. Everything about her was undernourished. Wirelike shins. Coat hanger arms. She did not produce it easily, but when it came, she had a starving smile.
Her hair was a close enough brand of German blond, but she had dangerous eyes. Dark brown. You didn't really want brown eyes in Germany around that time. Perhaps she received them from her father, but she had no way of knowing, as she couldn't remember him." (31)

Quite a contrast. The reason for this may seem unclear at first, because the narrator of The Book Thief is rarely present at events and easily forgotten. Both books are written in the first person; The Book Thief is narrated by Death himself, Messenger by Ed. Before I continue, I must tell you that I have read many first-person books where the style of narration was standard for the author, not specific to the character--or multiple books by one person where the author always chose the same kind of person to narrate. Zusak's books are different. They are told by very different people, recording the impressions of the character rather than the author--and, most importantly, characterize greatly with a thing as simple as how a person is described. Death, with good reason, sees a lot of things with the overtones of doom that serve as a constant undercurrent to his book. He does a lot of thinking in general, reflects on events and implications with great frequency and depth, and this is the way he talks about everything. Ed, on the other hand, doesn't really look deeply into things. Most of his description is surface impressions; the most in-depth description is of Audrey, who he later admits he's in (unreciprocated) love with, and even his discussion of his own character is fairly superficial. He accepts that his life is mediocre and unremarkable, he assumes that this will not change in the future, and he lives his life accordingly. He is, usually, a passive kind of person.

Of course, at this point I am only halfway into the book, and I do not know that this state of affairs will continue. Ed's life becomes much more interesting when the first ace shows up in the mail, disrupting his pleasantly average existence. Perhaps as the book continues and he follows the instructions on all the aces, his observations of his surroundings will gain more depth. But even without certainty of this happening, it remains clear that Zusak tailors his writing to the views of his characters to a greater degree than is usually seen.

A Reflection

    As you may have guessed, considering that this itself is on my blog, this year’s English assignments have been submitted through said blog. Originally I had intended to write random posts as topics came to mind, interspersed with a few of my collected story beginnings, but throughout the first quarter the majority of my posts have been “Unfinished Writing”. I think this is because I have recently had a continuous stream of ideas. In looking over my blog posts, I have found interesting variations in the inspiration for these beginnings, as well as a very different tone from the highly structured essays I have also written.
    My story beginnings are not, as you may expect, inspired by any mysterious and deep part of my soul. I doubt many writers really have one of those. The ideas for most of them came out of nowhere, a thought I had at lunch, or something I read recently, perhaps. Sometimes they originate from characters, which in turn may spring from anywhere. But I think the most common origin is simply when I hear or think of a phrase that intrigues me. Take, for example, The Time of the Plus:

The Time of the Plus: The time in Metronium when all the clocks stop, new buildings suddenly appear where none were before, the Sternix reappear, and the Plus herself comes into power. Once well-known among Metronians, this legend has faded from the minds of all but a few.

This story began when my father said something about “The time of the plus is here”, although I no longer remember the exact phrasing. I do know that there was never any specific meaning to it, and so I began to wonder: What if the Plus were a very powerful person? What if the Time of the Plus were the time in which that person becomes even more powerful? Maybe the Plus is a legend, and maybe there could be clocks in it… So you see, my stories are often just embellishments of other people’s interesting turn of phrase.
    Then there are the stories that begin with a character. The prime example of this is Malt, the novel-in-progress, an excerpt of which I posted on my blog. An excerpt of an excerpt, if you will:

Who was Maxwell Malt?
Oh, everyone had heard of him, of course. You weren’t much of anybody in Eastport if you’d never heard of Maxwell Malt. Some called him a magician, others the superhero of the day, and still others the “people’s hero”, whatever that meant. He had done amazing things. He had saved the city and its surrounding area from bizarre villains countless times, including, once, an army of giant animate teddy bears. Everyone knew it. Most people had witnessed his heroism firsthand. And yet the question still circulated the streets daily.
Who was Maxwell Malt?

Malt is, essentially, about Max and the resolution of some of his identity issues; the story is driven entirely by the character, because he is so vivid in my mind. Maxwell Malt appeared in his entirety in a very strange dream I had involving, yes, an army of giant animate teddy bears. The character was so complete from his first appearance that I knew he had a story in need of telling. To get there, I combined the mysterious air that surrounds everything in dreams with the fact that most superheroes have a secret identity, and this strangeness was the result.
    One of the reasons I feel comfortable posting my weird stories on my blog is that it’s an easily moderated medium. I am often afraid to show my writing to people because I worry that it isn’t any good, and no one likes to be criticized. On a blog, however, all anyone can do is post a comment, and those comments I find offensive or don’t care for can be deleted quite easily. So far I haven’t had to do this, which helps to improve my opinion of this whole blogging thing. Without the blog, I might never have exposed my writing to others, and thus never have gotten feedback of any kind (though, admittedly, my current comments are all from Mr Sutherland). Those comments that have been posted have improved my own opinion of my writing, which is always a good thing in my opinion.
    There is one very big difference between the blog post assignments and other, more structured papers I have written: assignments submitted through the blog are looser. Without a rigid structure, it is easier for a writer’s voice to get through, and people are more comfortable saying what they think. My one truly aimless post is a testament to this:

I think about a lot of weird things in my spare time. I swear this isn't my fault; when my mind is allowed to wander, it comes back with the strangest ideas. But one that I have continuously analyzed and wondered about is this: Is reality defined by a person's perception of it?

If I were to write a structured essay about my tendencies toward existential crisis, it would sound much less like I do when engaged in conversation, and that would make it more difficult for me to get my point across. In fact, in a structured essay I might not choose this subject at all, because of the possible problems with being understood. Also (and I in no way speak for everyone), when writing along very specific guidelines, I tend to come across as excessively stiff and formal. Usually my writing style mirrors the way I speak, and it sounds much more natural. Perhaps this is an improvement, perhaps not.
    As for my goals for my future writing, I need to get better about revising things. My “official” method of writing is stream-of-consciousness scribbling or typing, later to be gone over and all its badly-written parts cut out. Or, at least, I intend to go over it. I often forget about revision and put my first-draft story up on my blog for the world to see. Afterward, of course, I reread it and find it to be severely lacking in some area or other. For example, the first two paragraphs of this story:

There were hundreds of different clans and provinces and other self-governing colonies of dragons in Attria, some of which were constantly at war or just disagreement; others pretended that certain colonies didn’t exist for the sake of peace. Dragons are not, by nature, cooperative with those unlike them, resulting in a tangle of boundary lines to confuse even the most accomplished of cartographers. The colonies were not receptive to new dragons emigrating from other colonies, and their leaders rarely had any kind of meeting because of the everlasting tensions between them.
But Draigfest was different. Draigfest happened in the very center of the valley, where no colony claimed territory, and it was a festival, or possibly a convention, for those dragons that weren’t really concerned one way or another with the misdeeds of their neighbours’ ancestors and were curious about the other colonies. Some, over the years, had even built up long-distance friendships with other dragons.

I believe there are all of three pronouns between those two paragraphs. This is a result of not revising the story; had I done so, I would have realised that the word “dragon” is repeated a tedious number of times. This sort of thing happens far more often than I would like. If I could get better about revision, my writing would definitely improve and no one would have to read the gibberish my mind spews on autopilot. And speaking of revision, reviews from others would probably also be quite helpful; I know of several people who will give me honest criticism and whose suggestions have improved my work in the past. After all, every decent writer needs an editor—and I hope to be more than merely decent.