(Funny how this and last week’s poem are right next to each other in my folder. Guess there could be some hope, but we have to work on it. Clearly, I wrote this a long time ago when he was only 2 years old.)
He is the smiling face
That greets me
Every morning
He is the laughter
I hear down the hall
Before he comes in view
He is the gentle growling
As he wrestles
With his favorite toy
He is the stomping feet
Pounding kitchen floor
Being denied a snack
He is the helpful hands
That put clean clothes away
By hurling them to floor
He is the patter of feet
Upon the dirt and grass
As he tries to throw a ball
He is the open mouth
Waiting patiently
To be fed from my plate
He is the sleeping form
That I check on every night
Before I fall asleep
He is the curious sidekick
Who has crawled upon my lap
As I write these words
He is my son
Who arrived two years ago
And has become my life
(Originally posted on September 9, 2013. We really don’t pay much attention to the pets of heroes unless they overshadow the other characters. It’s not enough for them to be present and kind of active anymore. They almost have to carry a bulk of the plot in order to garner proper attention. I would kind of like a return to more subtlety with the hero pet concept.)
I watch a few Harry Potter movies this weekend while editing since I’ve seen them enough that they’re background noise. Something caught my attention this time. The familiars are there, but rarely come into play outside of a few events. I had the same problem with Stiletto in Beginning of a Hero because it was so difficult to include him in a lot of the action. As much as Luke Callindor said Stiletto wasn’t a pet, he was an animal that followed a ‘master’ around. I’m starting to wonder what the true purpose of a pet or animal companion is in a story.
I think many times pets are in there for flavor and a mascot type of thing. Maybe even marketing various merchandise to animal lovers. It’s that I see most pets get left behind halfway through stories and forgotten until they are suddenly involved in a grand event. I see this is typically their death or a brave rescue of their master. Pets might be more of a ‘out of nowhere’ character because readers tend to forget about them unless they are involved in several scenes or brought up a lot. Once forgotten, the pet can fade away or make a miraculous return to the reader’s mind.
Personally, I never pay attention to pets without personality. I use them at times in my stories, but I truly don’t think of them when I’m a reader. The exception I can think of is Tug the horse from Ranger’s Apprentice. A reason he stands out is that he has personality, attitude, and is involved in a lot of the events. He is treated like a main cast character instead of a secondary, which is not common among pet characters. Still, it’s rather difficult to make a pet a main character. This is something I’m going to think about and write up for Wednesday’s thought post. Maybe a fun list of ‘how to use and misuse pet characters’ and throw some humor into it.
So, what do you look for in the pets of characters? Do you even think of them?
(A favorite scene from The Mercenary Prince, which is available for 99 cents as an eBook.)
Screams erupt from the direction of the celebration and the half-elves see people rush by the mouth of the alley. They hurry to the street in time to see Timoran sail through the tavern’s wall, the house across the street, and a distant barn. An excited whooping brings their attention to a heavyset man in robes who is cowering behind a well. Next to him is Trinity, but the cobalt-skinned woman is drooling and barely conscious. As the champions hurry to join their friends, Nyx’s eyes turn gold and she sees a throbbing cord of aura running from her rival to a blinding figure inside the building. With every crash and shout, a pulse of energy ripples along the thread and causes the chaos elf to spasm. The champion cancels her spell as she follows Luke through the broken doorway and witnesses a scene that is out of her nightmares.
“There you are, my channeler,” Stephen coos before casually snapping Dariana’s arm. He hurls his sister through the ceiling and patiently waits for the sound of her slamming into the solid roof. “I meant to attack Dariana first, but the wild oaf smelled me coming. Guess I’ve been on the road for too long. He took a very powerful blow, so he might be dead. My sister . . . I still hear the heart fluttering. Excuse me for a second.”
With a roll of his wrist, Stephen summons the silver-haired woman to his hand. He is about to touch her forehead when Fizzle rams into his face. The impact sends the madman back a few steps and into an iron maiden made of frozen ale. Blood pooling on the floor beneath her mouth and bone sticking out of her arm, Sari makes a fist to close the spike-covered doors. They shut with enough force to sever Stephen’s outstretched arm, allowing Dariana to fall into the remains of a table. Feeling the immortal fight against her creation, the gypsy tries to get onto all fours and pump more of her magic into the iron maiden. Cracks form along the device’s surface and it explodes with a backlash that sends Sari sailing through the shuttered window. Her leg is snagged on the broken wood and she dangles an inch off the ground until Nyx hurries to haul her back into the building. The channeler tears a sleeve from her shirt to bind the seeping wound, her hands shaking from being so close to the man of her nightmares.
“I’ve never been attacked by beer before,” Stephen says with a laugh. The man takes the blow from Fizzle to his face and lunges forward to catch the drite’s neck in his teeth. He turns to his side and puts his head, along with the squirming dragon, through the bar to knock the creature out. “Tastes sweet and tangy. I might have to take him along and cook him when I find the time. Who do I have left?”
“Just me,” Luke replies as he steps in front of his fallen friends.
(Originally posted on August 16, 2013. This is different than a standard villain question and I guess this gears more towards stories aimed at children. Kind of a shame because I think adults deserve more comical bad guys.)
Now, we’ve seen villains with a sense of humor in comics (Joker), cartoons (Hades), and comedies (Dark Helmet). You can obviously have a villain with a sense of humor that is goofy, sarcastic, or twisted. They can still be effective too depending on the genre. Not all comedic villains are bumbling idiots that would fail even if the heroes hadn’t gotten involved. I always got that sense that He-Man didn’t really have to work hard to thwart Skeletor at times. Don’t even get me started on Cobra Commander in the cartoon.
Effectiveness is a major challenge if you’re writing a villain that is funny. Looking that three examples, you can see what some of the choices are:
Dark Helmet– From Spaceballs, Dark Helmet is powerful, but he’s rather accident prone and a goof. You lose a lot of effectiveness with him because funny stuff happens to him without his intent. This works in a comedy, but outside of a comedy, it makes for a weak main villain. A secondary villain could get away with it, but the main villain does need have some semblance of control.
Hades– Cunning and in control of the situation, this type of villain is like an evil Grouch Marx. Many times this is the egotistical planner that is manipulating everyone around him or her. The humor comes from his wit and sarcasm, which is difficult to write. Not everyone has this ability, so you really need to get feedback on this kind of villain or watch sarcastic comments. This type of humor can improve the character’s effectiveness because it is a sign of intelligence.
Joker– While Joker can be a catch-all at times, he is a twisted humor character. Victims with his smile, crazy traps, wild laugh, and murderous plots that you laugh at for some bizarre reason. It’s a delicate balance between crazy and effective here. Go too far and you have a raving psychotic that is merely disturbing. Don’t go far enough and you have a mildly humorous villain that seems to be phoning it in.
Personally, I like humorous villains that are effective. The goofy villain is great in comedies, but only comedies for me. A series story should have a seriously dangerous villain, but you can give them a sense of humor. Most people have that in some form and villains are people too. Unless they’re robots, aliens, animals, ghosts, zombies, possessed farm equipment, haunted house, lawyers, shparkly vampires, politicians, or a bio-engineered disease.
I feel a little foolish here. After going on about how I was going to get chapter 3 of Darwin & the Joy Path done this weekend, I realized on Thursday that I should probably focus on something else. I’m also writing this post on Thursday, so I have no idea what befell me on Friday. My allergies have been killing me and ‘colds’ have been flying through the school, so I could have been home sick for all I know at this point. It really doesn’t matter.
My focus for the weekend is going to be my son’s Halloween costume. All of the parts, except for the smile stickers, are here. I might need to get more yellow card stock and find pink fluff, but that shouldn’t be an issue. It’s entirely possible for me to finish the whole thing this weekend even with 1-2 Pokemon Go outings. This means I will have to sacrifice a weekend of writing, but I think it’s worth it. The alternative would be to attempt both and risk not having the costume ready. I can’t work in my room like last year too because this isn’t sewing. It’s iron on vinyl, spray paint, gorilla glue, and hot glue to put this thing together. Oh, I need some white fabric to make a decal and I can color it in using the fabric markers. Busy, busy, busy.
For anyone who thinks this is silly, I did a lot of thinking about this situation. My son is 16 and this could be the last Halloween costume he asks me to make. At the very least, next year will be that, which means I won’t be able to do this much longer. It was always fun and I loved seeing him show off his costume on Halloween and at the local anime convention in the spring. This whole thing is a reminder that he’s going to be grown up and not needing me as much in only a few years. I’ll have more time to do my own thing, but there will be a sense of loss for a bit. Parents need to let go to some extent, so I’m bracing myself.
I think I need a weekend away from a screen and doing something new too. This week was a lot of work and resting in front of the TV since my pollen allergies were killing me. I had to start every day with Claritin, nasal spray, Dayquil, and a hot shower to get my head to functional levels. Even then, I usually didn’t feel human until mid-afternoon and was exhausted soon after that. Kind of typical for this time of year, but I will admit this week was exceptionally brutal. Barely did any Pokemon due to appointments too, so that couldn’t have made it worse. Staying in the house and being productive after such a week will be good for my mental health.
Next week is going to be a little wild too. We have off on Tuesday and Wednesday for Rosh Hashana, so school will go quickly. I have my son for it and family is coming over, so I won’t be able to use any of that time for writing. That’s fine. Same goes for next weekend since I have my son, but I will probably have a little finishing work on the costume. That means, I will be able to confidently do more writing in 2 weeks. I might be able to squeeze a little in on Wednesday night after my son goes with his mom or even Thursday if I don’t feel like taking a walk after work. Playing it by ear, especially since work is going to be getting busier around the same time.
Without going into details, work has been different this year. The days will start going by faster when we are back at community work sites, but the vibe in the room is different as well. Each student is being faced with a new challenge and we’re assisting them all at the same time. Some days, I feel like I’m being a combo TA, cheerleader, teacher, therapist, butler, stress ball, and I’m sure there are other things. Somebody asked me how I stay calm when things are crazy and . . . I had no answer. Just kind of happens now with a few hiccups since I have my personal life stress keeping me at a mild boil at all times. Yeah, that arena isn’t improving.
I did come close to figuring out that thief guild story. I was leaning towards the ‘enemy’ group really being one person who summons other beings that they’ve tricked into contracts. The ‘hero’ side are the ones who got screwed over since they refused the contracts. I still want them to race each other for the legendary treasure vault, but I might add that there is a relic with the power to undo all of the contracts. I think I’m going to be going with 8 heroes with a 9th appearing in the second book/short story collection. I could drop one of the 8 into a supporting role as well. 7-9 heroes each with their one essential role sounds like it would work without much cluttering. War of Nytefall had around that amount and worked out.
Goals of the week:
Made major progress or complete Halloween costume.
Rest to recover from allergies.
Buy more Claritin.
Legos when I need a break.
Work on December blog posts.
Movie with son during holiday.
Try to write one section of Darwin & the Joy Path.
(Originally posted December 3, 2013. Couldn’t resist putting this one after the one about a sequel. This post had more meat to it since I was promoting Allure of the Gypsies for it’s debut.)
So, here I am sitting around during the first week of my book’s debut thinking about what to write. Yesterday, was the big debut and rushing around to submit to all my listed marketing sites. Then it struck me that a question I asked during Prodigy of Rainbow Tower‘s debut was never asked:
What do you look for in the third book of a series?
Some people might not realize how a third book differs from a second book or the finale of a trilogy. Obviously, you can’t give full closure like the ending of a trilogy, so that answers that difference. The trick comes in when comparing it to a sequel.
To be honest, part two can be cleaner than the third book. You have direct plotlines and foreshadowing to work off of. The world is still being explored and you can move out from the initial setting, so there’s still a freshness for the author to depend on. Same goes for the characters. They’re still in early development and the second book is where you can throw in a good amount of shake ups. Betrayals, deaths, failures, victories, and the whole bag of tricks to make that sequel even bigger than the first . . . then what?
Here’s where the third book will find a problem. It has two books to live up to while forging its own niche in the series. You can pull out some of the tricks from the second book, but too many and you doom the entire series. There’s a lot riding on this third book and it could easily end up larger than the previous ones. At this point, you may find some subplots are running their course and need to come to a conclusion. Introducing a new character and removing an old one can be helpful too. You need shock events without making them seem strained.
You also need to think more about the future of the series on this one. Think of the reader dating your series:
First book is the blind date where you’re getting to know each other. Might not be smooth, but you can put on a good enough show for a return.
Second book is the big second date where you give it your best and try to give the reader more of what they liked during the first book. Also, add stuff that they hinted they wanted.
Third book is the nerve-wracking date where you consider putting out. By ‘putting out’, I mean revealing the big story and grabbing hold of the reader for the true roller coaster.
I hope that analogy makes sense. So, what do people think about the third book of an on-going series?
Legends of Windemere 