So, I was thinking of making this week about three common animal-based ‘fears’ that seem to show up in fiction. It’s not too strange to know a person is scared of an animal, but these three seem to always get a bad rep. I’m not going to mention the other two even though I’m sure you can figure out one of them pretty easily. Just going right into our slithering ‘death machine’.
What is it about snakes that scare us? Even in mythology and religion, the serpent gets used as a villain. They show up very often as obstacles in dungeons and their poison is the dramatic death of choice. Many of us probably thought of quote: “Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.” Those two things might really be it if you think about it. Much of our animal-based fears could go back to our prehistoric instincts since we are animals ourselves. When it comes to snakes, there are two aspects that commonly that stand out in the mind of someone they terrify.
Snakes are very thin and can hide very easily. If there are snakes in your area, you watch out for them sleeping under the car or getting into the house. Some people are afraid of them coming up the sewer pipes and getting them on the toilet. In fact, I read an article about cobras in India getting into plumbing. Even for the big serpents, we have this idea that they can be in every shadow and are lurking. The thought of a one coiled behind a box isn’t far-fetched and it’s made worse when you consider the striking speed and the-
FANGS AND VENOM! This is probably the bigger source of fear than their ability to get into anything. It isn’t very surprising since humans don’t have a natural resistance to venom. Other animals with this problem make it a point to steer clear of venomous snakes too. It could be worse with us because of how our minds work. We imagine getting bitten and dying a horrible death. At the very least, we are scared, lose the limb, or are left with some debilitating reminder of the encounter.
All of this is entirely logical and should make us cautious about snakes. Yet, we get it wrong to many extents as well. One way is that we sometimes forget that not every snake is venomous. I’ve read stories where a person is bitten by a python and dies a painful death, which makes no sense. Pythons are a constrictor type, which means they wrap around and crush their prey. If they’re big enough to swallow a man then they could be a danger, but the real ones would be more inclined to leave a human alone. This is obviously done to take advantage of the fear and doesn’t really do any research. I can only see it working for a fantasy world since you can mess with the fauna. When your story is on Earth then you really need to be careful of the snake breed.
Another mistake people make when writing snakes is their aggression. First, realize that snakes don’t eat as often as warm-blooded animals. Smaller ones eat maybe twice a week and larger ones can even go a few weeks without food. That means an anaconda won’t really go around devouring an entire crew over the course of a few hours. Most snakes will only eat what they need and all other attacks stem from one thing: FEAR. Like all animals, they can be startled and strike out at anything they perceive as a threat. This seems to feed the idea of a lurking danger because they rest in the sun or shade a lot to regulate their body temperature. Running into a groggy or resting snake could be easier than one realizes, but it isn’t like humans are pleasant gems when we’re startled.
Now, this isn’t to say snakes can’t be aggressive. If they’re hungry then they act like one would expect of a starving predator. For example, the following GRAPHIC scene from Planet Earth 2:
So, what do you think about snakes? Do they scare you? Do you think they’re unfairly feared? Feel free to add to the info here because I don’t live in an area with snakes. So, I’d love to see some comments from people with experience.
So, I’ve run into a problem with WordPress. Specifically, I can’t access it on my phone. The app works, but the pages I follow and check don’t open there. They open in Safari, which keeps me as logged out. For example, I’d been trying all morning to check John W. Howell’s blog and it kept having me logged out. I would log in to get to my dashboard, but it still didn’t register that I was there. When I finally got home and on a desktop, I was logged in and got to like and comment.
This hampers me for the week because my son is home, which means I was going to depend on my phone to keep up with things. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo, so I might not be able to visit beyond early morning and late at night. I’ll probably be exhausted by the time I get home, so we’ll see what happens. This is really frustrating.
So, I’m sorry if I miss stuff. The murdered reblog button is already making things tough, but now I can’t do anything unless I’m at a computer. 2018 is really not going well because of this crap.
ADD ON- NOW IT WORKS!? I knew I should have saved that last bit of rum for a day when I really needed it. Bet it’ll stop working by the morning.
A child’s wonder
Etched into their face
When seeing the beasts
Outside the screen and page
Larger as life
Striking all the senses
As alive as the child
Who watches and waves
Amazed at the sight
Of beloved animals
In the flesh
Not really sure what to talk about as far as this past week. I’m looking at my list of goals and I don’t think I did very well. Biking wasn’t as consistent as I wanted. Still need to read over the War of Nytefall: Lost outline instead of a skim. Didn’t even touch Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Pizza never happened because I tried to put it off for a day with a light dinner and that didn’t happen. No April posts scheduled and no extra sleep gained. The only things that were accomplished was Longbow of Ichabod Brooks outlines getting done and my wife’s car coming back. The latter wasn’t until later in the week because of a small issue and I have to bring it in for an oil change today anyway. So, it isn’t like I get a reprieve from being the only driver.
Speaking of cars, mine isn’t doing too hot. It still gets me from one point to another, but we have a problem with the locks. Specifically, putting in the new door handle resulted in a part of the lock breaking. If we can’t fix it then it means only one door can be opened from the outside. Not to mention the inside of the doors are crumbling due to the car’s early life in Florida. Moisture is always building up in it too. Trade-in is pointless since it’s a 2000 or 2002. Going to have to get a new car somehow. Honestly, I’ve had this one since 2007 and it was used back then. The fact that it doesn’t give me any engine problems and hasn’t needed much work is a miracle. Oh yeah, there’s no way I can afford a new car. Ugh.
Can’t really think of anything else this week because it was all errands, resting, and trying to do the outlines. Doesn’t say much about me, especially since the previous weeks have all been chaos and disaster. Next week, my son has off, so I won’t be doing much in terms of writing. We’re starting with a big zoo trip and then most of the days have been claimed for various outings. Maybe I’ll take whatever free time I get to work on April posts, which will give me a leeway when I start writing the second War of Nytefall book after this coming week. I know I haven’t even published the first, but I need to churn out the first drafts to cover losing the summer. During that time, I can do some editing at night or work on the finale for Dawn Addison. This way, I won’t have to scramble once the fall hits. Besides, it’s fun getting into the new characters and stories.
Actually paused writing this to go over that outline because I wanted to talk about it to some extent. Not to mention I had to go to the bathroom and it’s easier to carry stapled papers than a laptop. One thing I’ve noticed about War of Nytefall: Lost is that it has a lot less Clyde than I expected. In fact, the action really follows this new character who is basically a beacon of chaos. This might be an interesting twist to the series since it demonstrates an unexpected aspect of the Dawn Fangs. Massive amounts of world-building here, so maybe it’s good that Clyde become more of a ‘passenger’ than an ‘influencer’ of events. While he is the main character, part of his story is how he struggles for control and learning to be more of a gang leader. This whole thing definitely throws him into the deep end of civilization leadership.
As far as the first book goes, I’m still on the fence about another editing run. Done two on my own, my wife has done two, and another person read it over. I have about a month or so before release time as long as things go smoothly. Another read through isn’t striking my fancy for some reason. Many would say this is now excuse, but I sense that I’m at a point where an editing run would result in changes for the sake of changes. That always causes messes. Well, I have a week to think about it.
Goals of the week?
April posts when possible.
Zoo trip
Movie day. Thinking ‘Peter Rabbit’
Lego Batman the Video Game time
Build a Lego set
Go over War of Nytefall: Lost outline
Read more Rurouni Kenshin
Try to get some extra sleep
(Anybody get their reblog button back? Mine is still gone.)
Gregorio Roman gets that picture because he’s the oldest of the characters and kind of shows his age. He’s a gnome who has stayed in his lair doing experiments to the point where his eyes have trouble with candlelight. There are tinted goggles that he uses, but even those give him a problem. As you can guess, he isn’t one of the action characters since he isn’t strong, appears frail, and has no interest in getting his hands dirty. In fact, he’s only one of two characters from the main cast who were never a tabletop RPG character. So, where did he come from?
All of my close friends at the time of the initial creation ended up having a character that they either played or was based on them. Well, everyone except one friend. He did have a character for one or two games, but it was a combat, muscle character that didn’t have anything else. I already had a few of those and this is a guy who, whether he realizes it or not, can be a rather versatile template. That still didn’t make it easy since I kept changing the character around until the following incidents combined:
I was designing the gnomes in more detail and this friend kept making jokes about them destroying things. He began sending me messages about summoning his gnome army to rule the world. This first led to me making him the inspiration for Voran the Gnome God, which made him ‘worse’. A few weeks later, I came back to War of Nytefall and made Gregorio Roman a gnomish inventor.
We were both into DBZ for a while and one of the jokes was that one of us would grow up to be Master Roshi. He’s an old man that is fairly strong, teaches Goku and Krillin when they’re kids, and is rather lecherous. It’s a common thing in anime/manga, but Master Roshi was the first one of these characters we ran into. He also introduced us to the nosebleed reaction when a character is aroused. Gregorio isn’t nearly as bad as Roshi, but he does ask the female characters for a lot of hugs. It’s as far as I wanted to go with the ‘dirty old man’ template.
Master Roshi
Our interest in discussing philosophy and life in general had created a lot of email chains. I liked the idea of this ancient vampire being wise without the arrogance that you normally see. Gregorio developed this sense of having seen the world and becoming a little bored with it. History hasn’t surprised him for so long that he left everything behind. This led to an occasional lack of social graces too.
This one is hard to explain because it either came from Futurama or Jewish grandparents. My friend and I love the show, but he’s not Jewish, so it’s probably the first one. Gregorio does this weird guilt trip and sarcasm thing at times even in the test scenes. It’s fairly amusing, especially when he does it to Clyde or Mab because neither of them take it well. Then again, he doesn’t really do it with any of the others yet. He’s polite with the noble characters and the others have this fear about going to his lair because of the stories. Most of those were spread by Clyde in order to give the old gnome his privacy.
Unlike the previous entries, I have no funny story with Gregorio because he was never in a game. The only tidbit I left out is what he means to the other characters. I’m going to let people have fun and guess, but I’ll put the answer in a future profile since he has a connection to another character.
Adding drama into your writing can be tough and many are leery about adding this due it skewing toward the negative. Yet, it’s fairly unavoidable if you sit down and consider what can be born from it. We may even add it without realizing what we’re doing. There are days I think we all have different views and definitions of drama. Some people consider it a genre while others call it a literary tool. So, are there any tips that can cross every genre and be seen as universal?
Drama tends to be seen as highly emotional, which means it can be the cornerstone of conflict. When a person or character goes through change, they have emotions that guide them just as much as thoughts. This is part of their growth, so we have to consider this in our writing. Without this type of drama, the characters become stagnant and never change. There might not even be a story at all because every event has at least a touch of drama.
It doesn’t always have to be negative. A definition of drama is ‘an exciting and emotional series of events’. That doesn’t mean it’s always bad. Sure, there can be some downturns, but the characters can remain optimistic or happy. We tend to relate drama to characters being put through some type of trauma or being pushed to the brink of sanity. Yet, it really doesn’t have to be that way if you stick to the mentioned definition.
You can still have humor when working with drama. There is a type of person who will crack jokes in the face of stress and despair. Others will do it when they’re happy. My point is that you can still have at least a basic level of comedy when drama is taking the spotlight. It’s risky though. You’ll have readers that don’t like this, but everybody has their own take on when the right time for humor is.
Male characters are allowed to cry too. Doesn’t matter if people see it as a sign of weakness. Crying is a natural response to physical and mental pain. The character’s equipment doesn’t change this, especially if he’s struck in the equipment. That could be either a dramatic or comedic event.
Drama doesn’t have to be the main plot point of a story. Sometimes, it works best as a subplot to give a specific character a stronger foundation. This is especially true for genres like fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Their focus can be more on the adventures in that world, which isn’t always drama. So, while the characters proceed along their path, these smaller, personal stories can help them evolve. It doesn’t even have to be for the main story, but to pose them as multi-dimensional characters. After all, those of us in the real world deal with our main job and personal dramas all the time.
There should be a payoff for drama since it can be very taxing on the author, characters, and readers. Going through an unexpected and emotional event with no closure can feel like a waste of time. You don’t have to have a clear idea of the finale of the drama when you start, but it needs to be there. This also has to make sense within the context of the story. Twists are fun and can earn praise, but they can backfire if there’s no foundation to make them plausible.
Never be ashamed of including drama within your story. These things happen in real life, so why should fiction be any different?
Back in 2013, I began blogging to promote Legends of Windemere and the ideas for blog posts came flowing. The monsters, characters, magic system, kingdoms, lore, and everything had yet to see the light of day. I introduced people to Windemere before they stepped into the books. Not only that, but I revealed the inspirations and behind-the-scenes for the whole thing. Talking about world-building is an easy topic to use for blogging because it’s so difficult and immense that there are so many nuances. After 5 years, I touched on a lot.
And that’s part of the problem.
War of Nytefall takes place in Windemere. It’s a couple hundreds years before Luke Callindor set out to become a hero, but the magic, monsters, and lore are pretty much the same. Since the story has a big focus on the evolution of Dawn Fang society, I can’t post much about that. There are only so many vampire topics you can do too. This leaves me struggling to find a way to bring attention to this series and get people talking. The world is old, but the series is new. That’s a conflict that I’m having trouble getting over. It resulted in my first topic list being more comedy than serious posts. This might get easier after the book is out and I have less to hide. Still, I’m finding myself struggling.
So, I’m going to open the floor to see what people think. How do you promote a new series in a world that has already had its core discussed at length for previous promotions? Is there anything people want to know about War of Nytefall? This is probably going to get harder and harder as I progress to series that take place after Legends of Windemere.
Legends of Windemere 