Kyllorac

I am of the opinion that all good stories contain elements of all four core types. As a result, no one type is more valid or better a way to tell a story than another. Each has its respective strengths and weaknesses. In addition, regardless of the fashion in which a story was planned out, the finished piece may belong to a different story type, and may even be an inseparable blend of more than one type.

The four core types of story are, in order of most to least common, theme-centric, plot-centric, character-centric, and world-centric.

Theme-centric (courtesy swenson)

The main focus of the story is the overarching theme. The goal of the story is to impart a lesson or message.

Conflict can be either internal or external; it varies based on the lesson/message. When done well, the conflict reinforces the overall theme; when done poorly, it results in a lost or broken Aesop.

Examples: Aesop’s fables; parables; allegories, such as The Pilgrim’s Progress

Plot-centric

The main focus of the story is the events that lead up to a resolution, or the effects arising from a specific cause/series of causes (“what happens” rather than “why it happens”). There is almost always a definite goal in mind from the start of the story.

Conflicts tend to be external. As a result, characterization tends to be flatter as characters’ actions take priority over their reasoning. When done well, the focus on actions works to characterize the characters; when done poorly, it results in inconsistent and/or uninteresting characters.

Examples: most myths, legends, and fairy tales

Character-centric

The main focus of the story is the character(s). Emphasis will be on characters’ motivations, thoughts, and how they develop over time (“why it happens” rather than “what happens”). The story/characters may not have a clear goal from the outset, else the goal may change.

Conflicts tend to be internal. As a result, consistently complex and dynamic characters are more common than in plot-centric stories. Depending on the degree of focus on the characters, very little plot-wise may occur; depending on how compelling the characters are, this underemphasis of plot may or may not turn away readers.

Examples: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; Dexter

World-centric

The main focus of the story is the world in/location at which the story takes place. One could almost consider the world/location itself to be a character in its own right. The goal is usually to introduce and familiarize the reader to the world/location the story is set in. The least common and perhaps most difficult story type to pull off successfully.

Conflicts tend to be external, if any. Impressive and/or enjoyable when done well, but engaging the reader tends to be more difficult as a world/location is less easy to relate to. Often relies heavily on the inclusion of compelling characters and/or plot to keep readers interested.

Examples: The Lord of the Rings trilogy; the Discworld series, especially The Color of Magic and Pyramids!

Comment [30]

[ETA] Examples have been added for the Types, Comment, and Advice sections. Also, the merits of each type of feedback have been fleshed out a bit. Hopefully, this article is more balanced.

So You’ve Gotten Some Feedback

…and you disagree with parts of it. Do you ignore it on the grounds that they don’t know your story as well as you, do you force yourself to accept and follow it because the audience knows best, or do you take all things with a grain of salt? If the last, how do you decide which parts of the feedback are valid and which are not?

First things first, you need to figure out which type of feedback you’ve received.

The Types of Feedback

For the purposes of this article, we’ll say that there are three main classes of feedback: critique, commentary, and advice. Of these three, critique is generally the most valuable as it combines the merits of both commentary and advice.

Advice — suggestions for improvement given by someone with equal or greater experience in the same field; may be generalized

Example:

“I’m often asked if writing classes are any help, and my immediate and enthusiastic answer is always, Yes! Writing classes are wonderful for the writers who teach them and can’t make ends meet without that supplementary income. They are also good places for unattached people to meet, talk about books and movies, have a few drinks and possibly hook up. But teach you to write? No. A writing class will not teach you to write.”

—Stephen King, “The Writing Life,” Washington Post Book World, October 1, 2006

Comment — a reader’s impressions of your writing; may not always include an explanation of why they feel that way

Example:

Wow. Just wow. The descriptions made everything so poignant and gave this story a surreal but concrete feel. Also, that you have the story told in present tense from the deserter’s PoV really makes everything so much more personal than if you’d used another tense or viewpoint.

Critique — a combination of both feedback and advice, it provides a reader’s impressions of your story and their suggestions on how you could improve it; should always include why the critiquer feels the way they feel about each element they point out and how it could be improved

Example:

It might be better if you make it clear right away that ___ is a ___. At the start of the chapter, I thought she was an outsider observing the ___ rather than being one of them herself.

Though the distinctions between these three types are not always absolute, in general, advice is concerned more with the technical aspects of writing (sentence structure, level of description employed, word choice, etc.), comment is geared towards enjoyment (“I liked/disliked this part,” “this was good/bad”), and critique is focused towards a critiquer’s impressions of the story and how they feel it could be improved. In all cases, credibility is key.

Credibility

So what is credibility, and how do you determine it? Very simply, credibility is the qualifications a person (in this case the reader) has to do something (give feedback). To establish credibility, take a look at what they’ve done.

Let’s say that you’ve posted a story on a popular fiction-hosting site that allows other users to leave feedback, and that you’ve received a review that you vehemently disagree with. First things first, before you send the reviewer a scathing reply in which you passionately defend every aspect you disagreed with them upon, take a second look at the review. Does the person follow the proper spelling, capitalization, and grammar conventions? Have they supported their opinions with examples from your story? Are they even talking about your story? If the answer to all three questions is “Yes,” then generally the person can be considered fairly credible. If, on the other hand, the answer to one or more of the questions is “No,” that person is not very credible at all, and you will usually be justified in disregarding their feedback. If you are unsure, taking a look at what the person has written is always a good idea; it stands to reason that if they are a competent writer, they are a credible reviewer.

Now that you’ve established the credibility of your audience, you can determine which parts of their feedback (if any) to heed.

Dealing with Feedback

Comment

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the commenter hated your story, and they made sure you knew exactly how much they hated it and why. Before you completely disregard their opinions as irrelevant and hateful, step back a little and examine their reasoning.

If the commenter has included well thought-out and valid reasons, and you can see where they’re coming from, you cannot reject the comments. Unless your intention was to rile up people, this is a blazing neon sign that you need to go back and fix things right now. If, on the other hand, the reasons the commenter included are stupid (e.g. “I didn’t like it because the main character was a girl”) or not included at all, feel free to dismiss their comments as complete BS unless — and this is a really big unless — they are just one of many who have disliked that element.

Example of a negative comment with reasons:

So, one sobfest later, mother and daughter are all lovey dovey with no trace of awkwardness? They’ve been on bad terms for two years. That kind of history doesn’t just go away with a tearful apology and a hug. It’s a step toward mending the relationship, but it’s not a insta-cure.

Example of a (hilariously) useless comment on This Story:

wow. you young scam artist, you. no, I will not help you with your homework, and I do not appreciate the fact that a fine and quite normal, serious story turned into a silly critique of a cartoon or whatever by the end. what, is Tweety a plastic toy of something? and the last sentence hearkens too close to South Park for my liking, son. all you need is to append “You bastard!” and you’ve got it.

The same basic principle applies for accepting/rejecting positive comments; positive feedback, however, is a bit easier to accept. :P Still, while fluffy love may make you feel WAFFy, if it lacks substance (why they liked it so much) it is essentially useless.

Example of a flattering (but ultimately useless) comment:

I found this poem hilarious. XD

Advice

The cardinal rule of advice-following is to always take it with a grain of salt. Always. The thing about advice is that, while it may work wonderfully for the person giving the advice, that same advice may not work or even apply for you.

When determining how valid advice is, take a look at where the person giving the advice stands relative to you. Are your writing styles similar? Do your stories revolve around similar themes/character types/plots? Does the advice-giver write/are they well read in that genre? Basically, it can be boiled down to one question: are they credible? Above all, remember that advice is just advice; it can act as a guideline for your improvement, but it is not the end-all be-all of writing, and it most certainly works best when individualized.

Keep in mind that some forms of advice are universal. These include spelling, grammar, word choice, etc. Basically, any competent writer is qualified to provide advice on the mechanical aspects of writing, and you would do well to follow that advice. In the case of specialized advice (e.g. personal work ethic, the handling of a particular trope, etc.), if it applies to you and your story personally, embrace it. If it does not, reject it without any regrets.

Critique

Let’s say that you’ve received the most scathing and thorough critique ever. The critiquer has apparently pointed out every single aspect of your story, dissected it, and found it all lacking. You can’t argue with their reasoning: it was scrupulously expounded upon. You can’t argue with their credentials: they really know what they’re talking about and have the experience to back it up. Are you obliged to accept this critique?

No.

“No?” you ask, likely bemused and incredulous. “But they have the experience, the credentials, the reasoning.”

True, but how many of the points they brought up are based on their own opinion? How many are dictating that you must do something this way because that’s the way they want to see it done? How much of the critique is based on personal bias against a particular genre, trope, archetype, etc.? If the answer is “a lot” or “most of it,” then that critique is not so much a critique as an “I know what’s best for you as a writer, so you must listen and do what I say” amalgamation of their own desires, outlooks, expectations, and experiences.

There’s nothing wrong with a person having and stating their strong opinions; it is when “might try” becomes “must do” concerning the subjective aspects of writing that a critique ceases being valid. Grammar and spelling aside (and even there, there’s variation), there is no absolute “right” or “wrong” way to write: only effective and not as effective, and these vary based on the intended audience. Critiquers are an audience, and any particular critiquer may not be part of your intended audience.

That said, critiques are still the most valuable form of feedback because they make you aware of how people perceive your writing, why they perceive it that way, and how you can make your writing more appealing to that portion of your audience. While a critique may be invaluable to your story in the short-run, a good critique is one that makes you think, “Oh wow! I never noticed that about my own writing!” or “I never thought about it that way,” or “That would be something interesting to write about.” A good critique expands your horizons, opening up possibilities for where you can take your writing in the future, and makes you more aware not only of where you currently stand, but where you could potentially go with your writing.

While advice can tell you how to write and give you the raw technicals (the mechanical), and comments can give you the motivation to continue writing (the emotional), good critiques make you more aware of your own writing and give you a nudge in the direction of self-awareness and development — in short, critiques help you learn about how you write and how you can harness the essence of writing.

Just as the act of writing is a very personal thing, so too is the value of a critique.

Taking Things Piecemeal

Just to be clear, simply because some feedback doesn’t fulfill all the requirements of being valuable does not mean that it is entirely worthless. So what if a commenter forgot to mention a why for this one element? If they’ve mentioned whys for all their other points, all those other points are still valid. In fact, you might find that, although that one particular point was not fully explained, you’re still considering it because all the other points were strongly supported. This is because the commenter has established themself to be credible. Even if you aren’t feeling convinced, it’s pretty petty to completely disregard someone’s opinions for a nitpicky reason. After all, even though they didn’t have to, they took time out of their day to give you this feedback.

In any case, the rule of thumb for accepting/rejecting feedback is this — evaluate each item of feedback individually with a mind for the overall. Take what is useful, leave what isn’t, and, above all, make sure it applies to you.

TL;DR

No type of feedback should be accepted or rejected blindly. Take only what works best for you.

P.S. — What are you doing writing if you’re too lazy to read? :P

Comment [15]

This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the humor types, however it is a good place to start (if I do say so myself; then again, I’m biased). Organized alphabetically for your convenience.

Black Humor

They’re doomed, and they know it. And yet, they can’t help but crack jokes at their own or other unfortunates’ expense.

Also known as Dark or Gallows humor.

One of the more tricky types of humor since it deals with very serious subject matters. Death, murder, rape, suicide, genocide, torture, horrible crimes against humanity: these are but a sampling of some of the subject matter black humor deals with. Just as with vulgar humor (see far below), black humor has a high rate of backfire.

Be prepared to be called a heartless, sick bastard if you choose to employ this form of humor to any great extent.

Good Ol’ Stupidity

is just plain stupid. So stupid, in fact, that it becomes hilarious. At least, that’s the theory.

A cat flailing around with its head caught in a milk jug for the third time that day? Stupid kitty; it’s still funny. A whole plane full of Russian paratroopers jumping from high altitudes without their parachutes because they believed the snow would cushion their fall? And it didn’t? A bit morbid, but it’s still hilarious (and fortunately untrue; you need not feel guilty about laughing now).

Very easy to overdose, much like Random humor. Some people have no tolerance for stupidity, so keep that in mind if you plan to use this humor type.

Great Misunderstanding, The

A staple of romantic comedies, though it can be applied to almost every genre, humor being a given. Very simple as far as the basic concept goes: Character A misunderstands Character B; hilarity ensues as they act based on the great misunderstanding. Just what the misunderstanding is and what sort of hilarity it leads to can be difficult to successfully work out, however.

Simply remember that if the misunderstanding is stupid and/or if it would be easily resolved by the characters just talking to each other (which they don’t for whatever dumb reason), the audience will be most displeased. Also, the ensuing hilarity must be directly related to the misunderstanding; it should never be random (see Random), though it can be a form of situational irony (see Irony). This isn’t to say that you can’t have random humor in a story which stars a Great Misunderstanding; the random humor should not, however, take over the story if The Great Misunderstanding is the main focus.

Incongruity

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong. That one little thing makes the whole thing ridiculous, so the audience can’t help but be tickled pink.

An example of this would be a psychopathic killer at home in his kitchen, frilly floral apron proudly donned, dutifully cooking a vegan dinner for his loving family. Spot the incongruities?

Can be used in the narrative itself to establish a humorous tone or in dialogue to the same effect. May utilize various forms of verbal irony (see below) in addition to plays on words (see Plays on Words).

Irony

There are three main types: dramatic, situational, and verbal.

Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the characters do not. This is a very common device in tragedies and romantic comedies.

Situational irony occurs when the opposite of what is expected (by the characters and/or the audience) occurs. This is not random, however. The audience (and/or the characters) should be able to go back and see why the unexpected occurred. After all, hindsight is 20/20.

Verbal is when what is said has a different meaning than its usual connotation. Sarcasm is a prime example of verbal irony. Understatement (see further below) is another.

Plays on Words

The English (well, really any) language is such fun thing to play with. Puns, idioms, euphemisms, innuendos, common turns of phrase, homophones, homonyms, synonyms, and more – any literary or poetic device can be used to elicit a laugh if used well.

Practically an essential for witty banter of any sort. A great aid in achieving a humorous tone in the narrative. Often leads to The Great Misunderstanding (see Great Misunderstanding, The).

Random Humor

is very random. That frog dropping out of the sky to land in Lady Marianne’s hair, upsetting her weekly tea party? Random. Hilarious? Probably, if executed well and not overdone.

The issue with almost every random humor piece I’ve read is that there is way too much random. The end result is an unfunny piece in which it appears that the author is constantly pulling dei ex machinis out of their you-know-where.

The randomness must be balanced with reality otherwise the audience will be completely unable to relate to the piece.

Schadenfreude

literally means to delight in another person’s misfortune. Admit it; we all do it.

The song “Schadenfreude” from the show “Avenue Q” explains the concept nicely and in a humorous manner (if you don’t mind the curse words).

Some examples of schadenfreude are people comically flailing their limbs as they try not to fall on ice, someone walking into a glass wall because they thought it was an open door, the school bully and assorted cronies being defeated by a small girl, etc. The list goes on and on.

Slapstick comedy is a form of schadenfreude.

Understatement

gets its own subcategory because I say so. Also because it’s the basis for much British humor.

Understatement is when you really simplify something, obscuring the extent to which it is (whatever it is). Some examples are calling a nuclear war “bad” or a twenty-foot-tall man “fairly tall.”

As evidenced by the American reaction to British humor (which is basically “WTF? o_O”), understatement can be very hit-or-miss. You might consider following it up with a deadpan “that was an understatement,” or something to that extent.

Vulgar Humor

is a very tricky business. On the one hand, it can be side-splittingly hilarious. On the other, it can be incredibly offensive. Use vulgar humor at your own risk, and do not use it frivolously.

“Avenue Q,” for example, utilizes utilizes vulgar humor a lot. Is the show offensive? To some people. Is it still funny? Yes, but not for everyone. Does “Avenue Q” rely solely upon vulgar humor to be funny? No, and neither should you.

Also known as Ribald and as Crude, Lewd, or Risqué humor.

Toilet (or Potty) humor is a more kid-friendly subset.

Comment [10]

Introduction

I do not like romance. I never have and probably never will. Stories about lust and passion and people sheathing their swords in other people’s scabbards have never appealed to me because they always focus on the physical side of relationships, even though there’s so much more to a good relationship than just excellent sex. I can easily sum up mainstream romance with one word: superficial.

Think about it. When was the last time you came across a romance-centric story that didn’t fixate on the physical side of things? What about a romance where the participants take time to build up their relationship so that it’s lasting and wholesome? What about a romance that has no sex involved? Can you name me one love story wherein one of the participants is irredeemably and undeniably ugly (Shrek doesn’t count for Shrek is a very handsome ogre).

When I first read Graceling by Kristin Cashore, I knew it would be a romance. The book was a birthday present from my best friend who is very into romance, and the cover blurb was pretty typical of regular fantasy romance fare. Even so, I decided to give Graceling a try, expecting the worst, and was very pleasantly surprised.

If more romance novels were like Graceling, I might actually enjoy the genre. And if more feminist-friendly fantasy had female protagonists as strong and as relatable as Katsa, I think I would be a very happy reader.

Premise

In the world of The Seven Kingdoms, there are people gifted with extraordinary powers who bear eyes of differing colors. These people are the Graced, and they are both feared and barely tolerated based on the usefulness of their Grace.

Katsa, our protagonist and niece to King Randa of the Middluns, possesses the Grace of killing. Even among the other Graced, she is feared, and the only reason Katsa has been allowed to live is because her uncle finds her Grace to be most useful at keeping his underlings in line. So long as she obeys her uncle and carries out his orders, Katsa is tolerated and allowed to live at court.

Because of her Grace, Katsa has lived in isolation for much of her life with only her cousin, Raffin; fight trainer, Oll; nurse, Helda; and the underlord Giddon close enough to be called friends. This all begins to change when the Lienid prince Greening Grandemalion, who prefers to be called Po, comes to Randa’s court, seeking his missing grandfather.

The Technical Aspects

The language used in Graceling is simple, straightforward, and easily accessible to the causal reader. You will find no purple prose or thesaurus abuse in these pages. The overall syntax and sentence structure, on the other hand, could use a bit of improvement. Cashore is a bit too fond of sentence fragments, and this results in an occasional feeling of choppiness, especially at the beginning of the book. In contrast, some of her other sentences can be quite long and a touch rambly, and I had to go back and reread a few of them a couple times. Both these complaints are easily overlooked once the story gets going, however.

Naming conventions, though not particularly original or unique, were consistent throughout. Details on the politics and geography of The Seven Kingdoms were scant and a bit simplistic, as were details on Graces. This lack of detail actually worked just fine for Graceling as none of the above were the main focus of the story. Still, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more exploration into Graces as they are a very interesting and unique concept, and Cashore has obviously put a lot of thought into their workings.

What really makes Graceling stand out, however, its characters. All the characters are distinct, and the main ones are both likeable and compelling in their own right. As Graceling follows Katsa, it is no surprise that she is most obviously the strongest and most developed character, though Po is just as equally developed and strong a character. Truthfully, the characters are what really carry the story from simplistic to worthwhile, though the minor characters (Leck and Randa in particular come to mind) are more caricatures than anything.

Overall, the pacing was excellent. Flashbacks and musings on the characters’ pasts, emotions, and motivations (primarily Katsa’s) were incorporated smoothly into the narrative without bringing the pacing to a screeching halt or feeling like infodumps/wangst sessions. The entire narrative was soundly grounded in Katsa’s point-of-view, and there were no sudden jumps to omniscient. In addition, there was very little, if any, filler, and the sequence of plot-important events progressed at just the right speed.

Main Themes

The main theme of Graceling is Katsa’s struggle to gain and maintain control over her own life. Although she is the best fighter at court, although her reputation as a killer is known throughout The Seven Kingdoms, Katsa lives at the whim of her uncle, King Randa, and cannot disobey him without the risk of losing her life and what little freedom she has. What makes Katsa unique among other female protagonists in the same vein is that she is not truly aware of her situation at the start of the story, that she comes to realize it over time, and that she has empathy for other women in her predicament. The last point in particular is noteworthy, simply for the sad fact that most “strong” and “independent” female protagonists in fantasy are often shallow, selfish shells of women who view other women as less than human.

It is Katsa’s realization that she has allowed Randa to control her for so many years which spurs her to cling tightly to her independence, to refuse to marry the man she loves, and to eventually open a school for women to learn self-defense rather than rely on the men around them for protection. In a world where women essentially become the property of the men the marry, where women are expected and encouraged to be wholly reliant on men for everything, Katsa’s actions are quite revolutionary, even if we, raised as we are in this modern world where women have been pushing for equality for generations, do not think so.

My Thoughts

After rereading Graceling for the purposes of this review, I’ve come to the conclusion that Graceling is one of those books that you need to read in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate; even so, Graceling manages to be quite enjoyable regardless of how you approach it. When I first read Graceling more than a year ago, I was expecting a fantasy romance, and fantasy romance is what I got, albeit one I enjoyed far more than I had been expecting. As I reread the book critically, however, I began noticing elements I missed or didn’t quite appreciated the first time around, such as the strong undercurrent of feminism. As I continued reading, my esteem for Cashore’s skill as an author kept growing; I have rarely come across a book with such a strong message of feminism that was not blatantly preachy about it. That the story itself and its characters naturally acted as a vehicle for the message is something quite remarkable in my mind. Whether or not the feminist message was intentional or incidental, Graceling remains one of the most feminist-friendly novels I have ever read.

In Closing

Graceling, though not without its flaws, is an excellent debut novel and is enjoyable on multiple levels, depending on your expectations. If you go in expecting a fantasy, you’ll find an adequate and well-paced, if not particularly original or elaborate, story. If you go in expecting a romance, you’ll find one that’s well-crafted, where both parties are equals, and where the physical side of the relationship is not the main focus. And if you go in hoping for a book for women written by a woman about a woman, you will not be disappointed. To nitpick at the flaws of this book is to do it and its author a disservice.

—-

Wow. This review turned out more glowing than I was expecting/intending. XD

Comment [13]

Each of us are individuals.

As such, each of us write differently. Our methods, motivations, styles, and speeds: they all vary from person to person. Common sense, right? Yet there are so many tips constantly bandied about that sometimes don’t apply to the writer being advised.

Some of us are wholly spontaneous writers; outlines are the death of our creativity, and schedules are nigh impossible. Some of us are planners; the more intricate the outline, the the better our writing, and the more likely we are to finish as planned. Some of us fall between the two, and sometimes it even varies from project to project.

Some of us write because we want recognition. Some of us write because we have so many stories we want to share. Some of us write because writing helps us sort out our emotions. Some of us write for no clear reason at all, except to write.

Some of us like description, perhaps a touch too much. Some of us like succinctness, sometimes to the point of lacking any description at all. Some of us like longer sentences, complex syntaxes and grammar, unusual words. Some of us prefer concision, simplicity of structure, words common and easily understood. Some of us rarely deviate in style, while some of us vary wildly between works, or even scenes.

Some of us write slowly. Some of us write quickly. Some of us write in bursts. Some of us write consistently.

So where do you fall on the spectrum? What motivates you to write? What are some tips you’ve heard that you’ve found particularly helpful, or detrimental? How do you go about writing? And, of course, why?

Comment [31]

^{Alt Title: Where Has All the Wonder Gone?}

Long before my father read me The Hobbit as a bedtime story, long before I ever read The Lord of the Rings, I was a fan of science fiction. The local public broadcast station used to show a four-hour marathon of Star Trek: The Original Series every day around noon, and considering it was one of only two channels I was allowed to watch as a wee little one, as far back as I can remember, from the time I could reliably operate a remote, I would tune in every noon to watch Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise explore the universe and encounter aliens.

To this day, the one scene where a shirtless Sulu goes fiendishly fencing through the corridors of the Enterprise remains forever engraved upon my mind as pure awesome.

From there, it was but a happy skip to the movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the entire book franchise. Any time there was any news of a new Star Trek something, I was on it like a Ferengi on a pyramid scheme.

I’m still waiting for a decent Star Trek series starring a captain who just happens to be a woman, by the way.

In any case, by then, my repertoire of watchable channels had expanded to include¹ Sci-Fi², TNN³, and USA⁴, and it was on one fateful day in 1994 that I watched my first episode of Babylon 5. It is such a shame that series never caught on with a wider audience because it is better than Star Trek. “Lightyears ahead of anything else on television!” indeed.

Stargate: SG1 followed shortly after and quickly added itself to the list of “Shows I shall follow to the very bitter end”. And I did.

Now, you can’t claim to be a sci-fi fan without mentioning Star Wars somewhere, and for a good while, I was a happy little Star Wars fan in spite of being a Trekkie at the same time⁵. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have read every single novel set in the Star Wars universe that was written before 2005, and that the only reason I stopped was because college tends to eat up all of one’s free reading time.

Which brings me to the written side of the sci-fi genre. There was a time when I practically lived in libraries. I had books stashed everywhere, even under my pillow, and every night, I and my finely-honed secret undetectable flashlighting skills⁶ would stay up into the wee hours of the morning reading. And read I did: Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Douglas Adams, K. A. Applegate⁷, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard⁸, Octavia E. Butler, Glen Cook, Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, Anne McCaffrey… the list goes on and on, and while not all of them were great or even good, most of them were enjoyable enough to keep me reading their works. And of them all, I would have to say that Asimov and Verne have remained the favorites, as far as science fiction goes.

Sadly, I don’t have the time to read as much or as widely as I would like, and as a result, I’ve only read one book that can be considered science fiction in the past three years.

It. Sucked.

Horribly.⁹

This brings me, after much long-winded rambling in which I establish my credentials as a fan of sci-fi, to the subject stated in the title.

I’ve noticed a trend for a couple of years now, especially among aspiring science fiction writers. Rather than set out to tell a story, every piece of science fiction they write must be Meaningful, a scathing Commentary About the Foibles of Current Society, else so chock full of technobabble that any plot or characterization that existed has been buried beneath the long-winded and entirely out-of-place explanations of every little *DETAIL* of the technology being employed. Which would be fine if you had a bunch of scientists, engineers, or technicians that have fangasming over every aspect of technology they encounter as established aspects of their character, but when you’ve got ordinary, non-technically-inclined characters and the narration doing the technology infodumping, we have a problem for rarely, if ever, is all the techdump scientifically accurate or plausible.

Perhaps I like my hard science fiction to be as hard as fiction can get without being real, but still, if one is going to go to such lengths as to techdump in practically every paragraph, the least one could do is ensure that they at least have a decent grasp of the principles of physics and biology, at the least. Or not try so hard to turn a story into something that it is not, namely, a work of hard sci-fi when it would work better and be all the stronger for being that much softer.

You see, in all the rush to incorporate all the technobabble, Meaning, and/or Commentary, most science fiction works neglect or outright sabotage the other elements essential for a truly engaging story, such as plot, characterization, premise, and/or tone/atmosphere. Most of the science fiction works I’ve encountered recently have been of the premise variety with very little substance outside it.

“This would be AWESOME!” goes the writer as he proudly displays his frankenstein of a premise, slavishly draped in the trappings of what science fiction “should be”.

“It would be, if the AWESOME were actually explored instead of buried under so many layers of technobabble,” says I.

The AWESOME has been lost in translation, you see, the wonder drowned out by bad technique and sabotaged by a lack of substance.

Then there’s the message science fiction in which the creator has a Message and it is Important and Must Be Heard. Their work has Meaning, or it Comments upon something most Profound about our society and/or the human condition.

“Look at me!” says these writers. “I’m so creative and clever in using a story as a vehicle for my Message!”

“Write a pamphlet,” says I. “It would make for better reading.”

Science fiction, to me, has always been a genre of wonder. As such, I tend to judge works by how much wonder (noun) they instil in me, or how much they make me wonder (verb). And it’s been so long, too, too long, since I’ve felt wonder or spent hours wondering about a story after reading it. And so I’m left asking myself, “Where has all the wonder gone?”

Where has it gone?

From what I can see, in the push to make sci-fi a credible genre, especially in the literary realm, in the push to make it more serious and scientific, the wondrous and speculative aspects have been left by the wayside.

When was the last time you encountered a work of sci-fi that made you laugh or made you cry? A work with characters that were alive and whose moral conundrums wrenched your heart because they were genuine and not just some convenient plot device or vehicle for a Message? When was the last time you encountered a work with a truly revolutionary premise? A work that made you marvel at the workings of the universe? A work that made you think and challenged your long- and strongly-held preconceptions?

When was the last time a work of science fiction made you truly wonder?

Despite all the possibilities that science fiction could explore, despite all the amazing discoveries made in recent years within the sciences, very little is being done with science fiction. I’m sick and tired of seeing dystopias; those ceased being effective or interesting more than a decade ago. I’m sick and tired of seeing social commentaries; they’re more often than not a thinly-veiled rant by the creator about silly things, or issues that have been beaten to death already. And I’m sick and tired of seeing pointless technobabble about yet another space-faring civilization that’s space-faring just because.

It’s maddeningly saddening how narrow science fiction as a genre has become nowadays, and it’s the main reason why Asimov and Verne remain (and likely will forever so) my all-time favorite science fiction authors. It’s also why I enjoyed (and still do) shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, Babylon 5, Stargate: SG1, Warehouse 13, Eureka, and Doctor Who. The wonder within and/or the wondering inspired by these shows is what makes them worth watching, and that all the shows have characters and a decent, actual story to them makes them all the more enjoyable and memorable.

I can only hope that writers of and readers within the genre realize this before all the wonder is lost.

_{This article wound up far more personal that I’d intended. XD}

Footnotes!

¹ With parental supervision.

² Now SyFy.

³ Now Spike.

⁴ Still USA.

⁵ “It is possible for a person to belong to both fandoms!” says the living proof. Never mind that said living proof would have likely been (violently) disowned by both fandoms had said living proof ever come out of the closet.

⁶ They’re more impressive if you consider that my room was pitch black and I had no nightlight. And that my parents liked to occasionally rip my covers off me in the middle of the night to make sure I wasn’t reading.

⁷ Animorphs was one of the few complete fiction series in my school library.

⁸ I’ve got a soft spot for pulp fiction. I refuse to apologize.

⁹ Review pending.

Comment [36]

You live in a country on the brink of war. The Aletsin, your ancestral enemy, have marshalled fresh forces with the aid of their newfound allies, the Namaer, who hail from a land across the endless sea.

The Namaer are a beastly people, you hear, brutish and strange. They are inhuman, possessing smouldering coals for eyes, flames for hair, and ash for skin. Their faces are shaped like those of a wolf, and their teeth are sharp like a cat’s. They wear no clothes. They paint themselves. They eat their dead.

And they are coming.

They attacked the town your brother was stationed in two days ago. Only his wife survived, battered and barely alive, her soon-to-be-born child no longer quick in her womb. The shepherd found her collapsed in the tall grass of an abandoned field, and all she would say was, “They killed my child.”

That is all she says now, a hoarse mantra she sings like a lullaby as she cries and holds her belly. “They killed my child, they killed my child.”

You try to put that image from your mind — it leads too easily into memories of death, of finding your brother’s corpse, recognizable only by the ring he wore — as you scan the horizon for signs of war from your place on the city walls. There is nothing to see but fields and pasture, cast in gold by the setting sun.

It may as well be gold to the Namaer whom rumors say search for a new homeland, forced to brave the endless sea when Nama fell to an angry mountain of fire. These rumors, always hushed, tell of how the Namaer went in peace to all the clans in all the lands to beg for a place to live until Nama could be restored, of how the Namaer were turned away by all, and most rudely by your own clan leader, the young Kamilundettet. They tell also of how Aletlussen then promised the Namaer king all of Kamitis in exchange for Namaer aid in the ancestral war, and of how the Namaer king first refused the offer until all the other clans had turned his people away.

These same rumors also tell of how the Namaer shoot fire from their hands, use clear stones to see, and fly on wings made from spiders.

Such is the way of rumors.

===

How This Works

Depending on the situation, you will have several options available. Leave a comment stating which option you choose, and at the end of a week (minimum), I will tally up the votes to decide which action the commander takes next and reveal the consequences.

If you feel inspired to include an nth option, feel free to do so; just be sure to include your choice of given option and reasoning for your proposed option. Depending on how good the reasoning is, I may just go with that nth option (votes be damned ;P).

Needless to say, this is an experiment.

The Factions (Thus Far)

Kamitis [The Great-Blooded People]

Leader: Kamilundettet [Future Leader, Sun of the Kamitis]

Kamilundettet became clan leader barely a year ago at the age of fourteen after the death of his esteemed grandfather, Kamilantekket. He is known by many to be bold and charismatic (though his advisors quietly lament his overbearing personality and brashness) and has yet to prove himself worthy of an honorable leader’s name.

Generations ago, the Kamitis came to occupy the fertile river valley on the southern half of the island of Dettelin. They are primarily farmers, herders, and weavers with the majority of the population living in walled towns or villages.

Aletsin [People of the Bountiful River]

Leader: Aletlussen [Great Star of the Alet]

Aletlussen has lead the Aletsin clan for almost a generation, and the many battles of his youth are a consistent favorite among the members of his clan. Though he is no longer able to take the field himself, Aletlussen’s youngest son, Aleten [Youth of the Alet], has proven to be proficient in warfare, to the extent that many in the clan favor Aleten over his elder brothers Aletluden [Young Light of the Alet] and Aletdin [Strength of the Alet].

The Aletsin settled the coastal areas of the island of Dettelin, subsisting primarily on fish and trade with other island clans, after the Kamitis displaced the Aletsin from the river valley. Most Aletsin live on their boats, with communal residences for extended stays on land.

Namaer [Children of the Fire Mountain]

Leader: King Tanamena

Not much is known of the Nama or their king aside from what the rumors say.

Basic Geography

Dettelin is one of a cluster of middling-size islands in the middle of a vast ocean. It has one river, fed by numerous streams, with the majority of streams being rainfed. Several hundred miles away lies Nama, another grouping of islands.

Until now, contact between Dettelin and Nama has been nonexistent, else long forgotten. As a result, the island clans have long believed the world to consist of only the islands they live on and an endless, empty expanse of water surrounding them.

Options

1. Continue your rumor-musing.

2. Snap out of it and resume horizon-watching.

3. Snap out of it and go back to HQ to sift through daily reports.

4. Snap out of it and get something to eat.

Comment [21]

Introduction

Save the Pearls Part One: Revealing Eden by Victoria Foyt takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where humanity has been forced underground by intense solar radiation, and where the majority of the surviving population possesses dark skin. With the dark-skinned majority comes a new social ranking based on race with those of African-American¹ descent (called Coals) at the top with Latinos (Tiger’s Eyes), Asians (Ambers), Caucasians (Pearls), and Albinos (Cottons) following in their respective rankings. It’s worth noting that Cottons are stated to be extinct near the start of the book.²

In short, reverse racism meets global warming.

To be quite honest, the only reason I picked this book up was because of the race-related drama surrounding this book and its promotion. The YouTube video and Foyt’s attitude towards those who criticized her portrayal of race are what ultimately cemented my resolve to shred the horribly flawed logic within this story. To make matters even more outrageous, Revealing Eden has garnered critical acclaim. And we’re not talking small-time local critical acclaim, but nationwide, from accredited critics, acclaim.

There are many issues with this book beyond just the treatment of race. These issues can be reduced to two main classes: failure to research, and failure to think things through. These issues are most obviously manifested in the forms of unrealistic portrayals of the effects of solar radiation, a failure to consider the implications of living underground, and the contradiction within the society’s very structure concerning repopulating humanity. These major issues in conjunction with one another take the portrayal of race in this book from “justified in-story” to “Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea?!”³

Basically, I’m willing to buy that Foyt did not intend to write a racist piece of work. What I will not buy is that the work itself is not racist. Because it is. Very.

Let’s start with the issue of albinos…

Curse of the Cottons

If Foyt had really wanted to deal with the issue of dark-skinned people oppressing light-skinned people, she need only have looked to Africa and the treatment of albinos there. Though I suppose dealing with that issue would have broken the Racism is Bad Aesop seeing as how albinos are not a separate race by any means.

Albinism is present across a broad range of species including plants, insects, amphibians, fish, crustaceans, reptiles, birds, and, of course, mammals. Parents that display no albinic traits can (and do seeing as how “true” albinism is a recessive trait, like blue eyes) produce albino offspring, like this African woman with her child. In addition, albinism is not an all-or-nothing thing. There are several different forms of albinism, and some forms are localized to a very small area (like the eyes in Waardenburg syndrome); people with localized or less severe forms of albinism are sometimes called albinoid, to distinguish them from “true” albinos.

In short, unless all carriers of all forms of albinism were killed or sterilized during the disastrous climate change, there is no reasonable way that albinos, or “Cottons”, to use the in-book racist term, would be extinct as “mating” is still left up to personal choice, compared to the results of a mandatory human breeding program which would breed out all undesirable traits, including albinism, while retaining the most useful ones.

Additionally, there is a case of an albino child being discovered and lynched right in Chapter 7, which just goes to show that albinism hasn’t been eliminated from the gene pool, which means that albino children may yet be born in the future, which, at the very least, points to the misunderstanding and misuse of the term “extinct”.

But I’m not inclined to feel generous about this point. Especially since “extinction” as a term refers to an entire sub-/species rather than a particular morph, and albinos are hardly a separate race or species⁴, or, to use the older usage, the death of an entire family and all its branching lines. And especially since Foyt described the lynched albino as having “pinkish” eyes; this indicates that she did no research whatsoever considering that even the most basic research would reveal that human albinos have either blue or violet eyes. Never red or anything approaching red. Definitely not pinkish.

Yeah.

In any case, the albino issue is just the tip of the iceberg, though it does highlight a lot of the issues within this book. Such as the basic premise of the society…

Some Society

The society. More than any other aspect of the book, this one has received the most heat and the most scrutiny, for racial reasons. While the racial aspects are a major issue, there are more serious underlying issues to this society that magnify the inherent racism to the point of being ridiculous. And so I shall start with those issues, approaching from a world-building perspective, rather than a racial one.

The most egregious of the underlying issues is that of the lack of thought put into living underground and how it would affect basic things like how people get the materials to make and maintain all the technology they have. The next-most egregious issue is the contradiction between the society’s stated goal (repopulate the planet) and actions. From these two issues, a lot of the more visible issues arise, such as girls being cut off from resources if unmated by the age of eighteen.

Society’s Super-Broken Biology

Going back to the albinos, it is stated in-book that all persons carrying the “albino gene” were subjected to mandatory sterilization. THIS MAKES NO SENSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF REPOPULATING THE PLANET. One of the things about albinism is that, although it does make the person more susceptible to cancers and other nasties due to direct sun exposure (which, considering everyone now lives underground is no longer an issue, but more on that later), albinos are no less intelligent or physically able than non-albino persons. Basically, by sterilizing all persons carrying the “albino gene”, you are not only eliminating the undesirable albino traits they’re carrying, but also all the desirable non-albino traits they could pass on, like intelligence, or resistance to disease, or even a higher fertility rate. Coupled with the fact that a mating between an albino carrier and a non-carrier would always result in non-albino offspring (barring freak mutations) and that the facilities apparently exist to efficiently test whether a person is a carrier of a particular genetic trait, and the sterilization of all albino gene carriers is simply stupid. Recessive genes are very easy to breed out of a population.

Basically, the focus of the society within the book is not so much the repopulation of the human species, as it is eugenics. And poorly-conducted eugenics at that considering their only solution was the sterilization of all carriers, compared to careful breeding out of the undesirable trait (which wasn’t all that undesirable considering everyone now lives underground). One only needs to look at dog breeding as a case of careful breeding eliminating undesirable genetic traits, such as hip displasia, while retaining and refining the desirable traits, such as build and coat color/texture/patterns. In short, the society sacrificed countless valuable genes in the name of eliminating a single non-life-threatening, non-crippling gene which was not really a singular gene to begin with seeing as how there are multiple types and causes of albinism. And limiting genetic diversity, especially within an already genetically-limited population, is a great way to invite extinction.

There is a lot more I could say on this point, but that would involve delving into the intricacies of population genetics, which I’m sure most of you would find confusing as hell, if not incredibly boring. The most important point is that genetic diversity within a population is Very Good, and limiting that genetic diversity in any way is generally a VERY Bad Idea. Also that genes have multiple forms (called alleles), and populations naturally regulate the frequency of the various alleles to maintain a stable and beneficial equilibrium for the population as a whole.

Now, although the albino issue itself is minor within the context of the book,⁵ it clearly highlights two core issues that plague this piece, namely, the complete lack of research, period, and the contradiction between the stated goal of the society (repopulate humanity) and the actuality (sterilization of large portions of the severely reduced population in order to remove one superficially undesirable trait).

The treatment of girls in the book also highlights these two issues, and those of you who watched the video will have noticed the emphasis on girls mating before the age of eighteen. In-story, the reasoning for this is that girls who are not mated by that age are not worth the resources required to keep them alive, presumably because they will not bear children.

…

Last I checked, human females reach sexual maturity around the age of eighteen, and bearing children before that age is extremely risky to both child and mother. Also, last I checked, human females typically remained fertile for roughly two decades after achieving sexual maturity.

As far as I know, this is common knowledge.

On top of that, in-book it is stated that men have until the age of twenty-four to mate before they are cut off. THIS MAKES NO BIOLOGICAL REPRODUCTIVE SENSE.

In the world of biological reproduction, the rate of reproduction (i.e. how quickly and how many offspring are produced) is regulated by the female side of the sexes. Female members of any species are more valuable than male members reproductive-wise, and part of this has to do with how much more expensive it is to produce eggs versus sperm, much less carry a child to term and give birth to it.

To illustrate, in a scenario of a population of five, if all five are of the same sex, the reproduction rate is zero. If one of the five is female, and assuming that only one offspring can be produced at a time per year, the rate would be 1/yr. Raise the number of females to two, and you have a rate of 2/yr. Raise the number of females up to three, and you have a rate of 3/yr due to the simple fact that one male can mate with multiple females. And so, logically, the configuration with the highest rate of reproduction would be one male, four females.

The society in Revealing Eden culls young, just-reached-sexual-maturity females in favor of retaining males. This is reproductively analogous to junking a car in in order to keep a bicycle.

And there’s more in the world of reproduction fail hijinks. Ohyes.

You would think that, in a society where repopulation is one of the stated goals, there would be a lot of encouragement towards having as many children as possible.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Not in the society of Revealing Eden. I’ll let the writing speak for itself:

Eden loved old tales about siblings. But one child was the allowable quota, if the mated couple produced enough uni-credits. —Chapter 3

Now, let me tell you all something, something you probably already know. People die. In order to maintain a population, the same number of babies has to be born as people who died. This translates to an average of at least two children per family, minimum. Now remember, people die, and in the world of Revealing Eden, they die young. What this means is that, in order to maintain the population, families are going to need to have, on average, more than three children. If we want to increase the population, however, families would have to be much, much larger, with possibly six children being the norm.

I can only conclude that the society’s ultimate goal is the extinction of the human species.

And that I need a break.

—

NEXT TIME ON REVEALING EDEN: A REVIEW OF RACE AND LOGIC

We’ll examine the ignored implications of living underground, some more science fails, the portrayal of race, and all sorts of unfortunate implications, not necessarily in that order.

With plenty of guest appearances from our favorite example, the albinos!

—

Image Sources

http://www.wonders-world.com/2010/07/15-amazing-albino-animals.html
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/06/weird-wild-pictures-albino-animals-revealed/
http://www.fishingfury.com/20080201/rare-albino-fish/

Footnotes

¹ There is a reason I say “African-American” specifically rather than “African descent”. Namely to do with all the descriptions of Coals corresponding to the stereotypical African American appearance rather than representing the variety in body types present between the different ethnic groups of Africa.

² Which, if you know anything about genetics, is but one of the many science fails in this book. But more on that later.

³ Foyt, considering she self-published.

⁴ More on this later.

⁵ It exists solely to show us that the love interest is not as heartless as he seems, the unfortunate implications of which I will address later.

Comment [40]

I probably should have laid out the framework of the underground society that Save the Pearls takes place in first-thing, but hindsight is always 20/20. In any case, here’s an outline of the underground society’s technology and other relevant bits in the book presented with minimal commentary. Except when I really can’t help myself.

Albinos

All albinos in the book are described as having pinkish eyes, even in dim lighting conditions when the red of the retina should not be visible. They are also all uniformly white of skin and hair, and children are taught to hate albinos as part of the curriculum. I wish I was joking.

The Heat

The Heat, which is responsible for the high mortality rates driving humanity to slow extinction, is implied to be an effect of solar radiation. However, Eden’s society is located underground. The ground happens to be a great insulator of all forms of radiation, including nuclear; this is the reason why cellphones and radios, which use a form of radiation known as radio waves, become useless underground. When you go into a tunnel that is sufficiently long/deep, your call is dropped because the radio waves cannot penetrate the dense earth/stone/whatever above you.

With that said, the symptoms of The Heat as described do not correspond with the effects of radiation sickness. They’re more in line with heatstroke, but considering that air conditioning does exist and is being used…

Technology

As I just mentioned, air conditioning is present and pervasive. Additionally, the society is presented as being technologically advanced, with all members being connected 24/7 to a holographic internet via brain implants. Holographic technology is also advanced enough to make images physically tangible and is supported by the ubiquitous usage of Mood Scents, chemicals released to boost general mood and/or immersion within a holographic scenario.

Transportation involves bullet train-like hovercrafts and shuttles (for the elite), with public transportation the only means of non-foot travel for the general masses. Lasers are the weapon of choice. Androids, as in humanoid machines capable of performing complex tasks, also exist and are used for tasks like monitoring quarantine chambers, analyzing the health of employees, and security. So why is there such an emphasis on human productivity…? And what about the power requirements?

It is also mentioned fairly regularly that everyone’s genome is on file. Things like genetic markers and alterations to the genome are noted as a matter of fact while Eden’s father specializes in inter-special genetic modification, with the rest of the staff of the industrial complex experienced with manipulating and monitoring genomic data. All this implies that both the knowledge and the means for genetically modifying organisms is readily available. So why didn’t they just modify the genomes of those carrying albinism?!

Drug Usage and Distribution

Recall those Mood Scents? They’re ubiquitous, in stark contrast to the strictly rationed food and water supplies. The other non-rationed commodity, for so long as you’re within the system, is a drug called oxy which is all-but stated to be the only reason anyone bothers living. Being cut off from one’s oxy supply is a practical death sentence (unless you’re a prostitute, apparently). Ethical considerations aside, one has to wonder where all these chemicals are coming from, considering the supposedly omnipresent scarcity of everything else…

—

Expect the outline for the aboveground society later, when I draw closer to it in the review.

Comment [50]

Alrighty folks! Seeing as how the Original Works section hasn’t been getting much love since I’ve created it (oops), I’m here to fix that with the fruits of my procrastination on the next part of the Revealing Eden review. And seeing as how II is pretty big on the criticism thing, I think it will be fun to give everyone something completely new to chew on.

So have at it! This is, of course, a first draft.

—

You never know when he will come. He’s silent like that lonely night his screams rose louder than the rush of flame devouring your secret world. He’s fickle like the winds that blow when no one else is around. Just you and him. But you had left.

He had always been a strange one. Talked of spells and magic like they were real. You thought he was just pulling everyone’s leg, thought it was a joke he played on everyone to get their attention. You were wrong, and you were right, but mostly wrong.

The only reason you befriended him was to get your mother off your back. She’d been pushing you to make new friends, be less “aloof”, go over to other children’s houses for play dates. You didn’t want to make new friends. You were still mad and sad and lost about the moving and leaving and no more visiting. But your mother was persistent, and you finally got fed up with her pestering and guilting and worrying, and so you told her you were friends with him because your mother always said that the people with the fewest friends needed friends the most and he had none.

And then your mom called his mom up to invite him over, or tried to because he had no mom. He had no dad either. Just a great uncle once removed, and the best thing your mom who always had something nice to say about people could say was that his great uncle once removed was very “eccentric”. She invited them both to dinner anyway.

His great uncle refused. Said your house was full of fakes. Your mom didn’t like that. Said you should be extra nice to him and his great uncle just because. She never explained why even though you asked. Just told you to be nice (or else).

He came up to you the next day at school and started talking at you about magic and spells like you’d been best friends forever and you believed in that stuff too. You didn’t really believe it, not just yet. But you pretended to.

You started going over to his house some days after school. Met his great uncle once removed whom he called Grunkle (like the creatures that protected people’s lawns, only not as bitey). Grunkle took a liking to you, gave you molasses cookies he baked himself and listened to your every word like you were an important adult. Sometimes told you about the battles he fought against monsters that drained people’s blood to take showers in and creatures that peeled off toenails to snack on them like chips. He always won and lost, won and lost, he said. Won the battle, lost his friends. Won the war, lost everything else.

Can’t win without losing something, Grunkle would say before he’d go quiet and stay quiet for the rest of your visit.

You asked your mom once about Grunkle and his stories. She got mad. Said that it wasn’t right for people to be telling children such horrible things. Got on the phone and yelled at Grunkle for a long time. Grunkle never told any more stories after that.

Even so, most days after school now you’d go and visit Grunkle and him and go on adventures in the woods behind his house. Some of them were even real adventures, like when you went to slay the snapping dragon and found it too pretty to hack to bits. One day, a Monday, he dragged you all the way to his house because Grunkle had made the greatest secret ever just for the two of you and he couldn’t wait to share it. It was a tree house perched above the snapping dragon’s den and he’d already filled it with crumbling pillows and tattered blankets and candles and cards.

He said it was your magic place, the strongest, most magical place in the whole wide world, and that anything either of you wished for in that place would come true (if you cast the spell right). You didn’t really believe it, not just yet. But you wanted to.

The first spell you cast together was The Spell of Eternal Friendship. Eight candles lit in a figure eight, and you sat facing the other in the opposite loop, left hand holding left, right hand holding right, hands crossing at the center. You asked him if the spell was really needed. He told you of course, and then you both recited the vow to remain friends for all eternity, no matter what. And that was it. The spell was complete, and your souls were bound together forever he said with a gap-toothed grin. Then you blew out the candles and went back to the house for molasses cookies and milk and to tell Grunkle about the success of the spell.

And the spell seemed to work perfectly, for a time. You were the best of friends all through the rest of grade school (which was only a year) and almost all the way through middle school. It was the summer before eighth grade that the things people had been saying about him for years finally got to you because they got to your mother first, and she was worrying and guilting and worrying and fretting about his unhealthy obsession with fantasy and magic. And as much as you wanted to believe in his magic and spells and his fantastic creatures and adventures, you knew those were things only little kids believed in, and you weren’t a little kid anymore. And neither was he.

You tried to explain this to him the one evening you snuck away to meet him, tried to explain that it was why your mother wouldn’t let you visit anymore. He refused to listen. You tried to get him to be serious about things for once, and he got angry. You got angrier. You were the one risking a whole year’s grounding, and he didn’t even care. It was your first real argument, and by the end of it, as far as you were concerned, you were no longer friends.

Your mom was waiting for you when you snuck back home and grounded you for the rest of the summer. And he never called. So when school started and he tried to talk to you, you ignored him and kept ignoring him, and suddenly you were part of the popular crowd and everyone wanted to be you. It was easy to forget him in all the attention your new friends brought to and demanded of you, and you had almost forgotten about him entirely when you heard about the fire in the woods behind his house and knew, just knew, that he’d been trying to cast a spell to bring your friendship back, only it had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

You don’t remember much after that, except for things falling apart. And they kept falling apart all the way through junior year when your mother finally married the reason your dad attempted murder.

The first time he came, you were out camping with your stepdad who insisted you call him “Dad” with what you were sure was a capital “D”. You hated it, hated him, and hated your mom for marrying again and for marrying him. You hated pretty much everything, including yourself. You could almost even hate him. Almost.

So when he appeared in the embers of your campfire, you threw a log at him.

He looked hurt, almost offended, and you were immediately sorry, but it was too late because he was gone, and you weren’t sure anymore if you’d just imagined him or not. You wanted it to have been real, more than you’d wanted anything else before, even as every iota of reason informed you that of course you’d imagined it because dead people simply do not appear in campfire embers, it’s just your brain seeing familiar forms where there are none. And so you kept it to yourself, a precious secret, and endured the rest of that horrid camping trip.

You never did take to calling your stepfather “Dad”.

The second time he came was Grunkle’s funeral. You’d taken to visiting after the fire and never stopped, and pretty soon you’d all-but moved in because your stepfather had all-but moved you out. But Grunkle was old and old people die and that’s what Grunkle did the year before you graduated. Before he did, he gave you the house and everything else because blood wasn’t the only thing that made family and the only other blood he had was a great niece and nephew he never saw. So you sat there in the family pew at the front of the church alone and staring at the box that held your now decaying Grunkle, and then you saw him in the candle flames ringing the casket looking sadder than you and happier too in a way that made no perfect sense. But then you were feeling sadhappy too and pretty soon you started laughing, laughing, laughing and your mother lead you out of the church because you couldn’t see from all the tears.

People began wondering if you’d turned out like Grunkle and him after that.

But you didn’t care and went on with your life, though you took to keeping candles lit in every room just in case, and it paid off because he came again and again, though you never knew when he would come.

He was fickle, fickle, fickle like the wind that no one else heard, but he’d always come when you needed him most, even when you didn’t know you most needed him then. Until one day he stopped coming and never came again. No matter how you cried for him, no matter how you called, cajoled, or prayed. He never came again.

And though you cared, you still went on with your life, though you never stopped keeping those candles lit even though people always shook their heads and warned you about how dangerous they were. It was always worth the risk. Always. Even now, with the flames dripping down around your head as the ceiling caves in.

You almost made it to the staircase. Almost. But you’d inhaled too much smoke while you were asleep, and now all you can do is choke and cry and fail to crawl. But it doesn’t matter because in a moment a beam comes crashing down from the ceiling and blocks the stairs. The heat of it sears your eyebrows away, but there’s nothing you can do except lie there and bury your face in your arms as the house burns apart around you. Soon what’s left of your hair and your clothes are aflame and you can’t even scream, can only squint through too-dry eyes at all the light. And then you see him standing right in front of you, in the embers of your life.

He looks straight at you and smiles.

Comment [13]

Welcome back to the next installment of Revealing Eden: A Review of Race and Logic. In a bid to preserve my sanity (and aid in my procrastination), I’ll be splitting off the science fails into a chapter-by-chapter spork because yes, they are that bad, and they must be seen in all their glory to be fully… appreciated.¹

Onto the review!

Society’s Sad Economic Errors

As I mentioned earlier in the review, the infrastructure of the underground society is poorly defined. All that’s really hinted at is that resources are extremely scarce, to the point where they are strictly rationed to the milligram. Food is dispensed as pills, water is dispensed on a daily basis, oxy and Mood Scents and Midnight Luster are indiscriminately dispensed, and pets are not only allowed but fed by the system. There is also mention several times of some form of currency, called uni-credits, though they’re only used apparently for the purchase of luxuries (like vintage dresses) and the legal right to conceive a single child. They also have androids with sophisticated enough AIs to act as security and medical personnel, laser showers, laser weapons, shuttles, jets, hover trains, holographic internet, 24/7 brain-implanted link to said holographic internet, air conditioning, and all sorts of electrical goodies…

Which begs the question, where are they getting all this from? Unfortunately, this issue is never addressed. We’re just expected to take the scarcity of things at face value to hit home the whole “world after global warming = no luxuries” thing upon which the class system is partially based.

I don’t know. Rationed pill food and water aside, such a highly tech-integrated society doesn’t sound all that bad. I mean, it’s not like all of everyone’s basic needs aren’t being met. Because they are. And then some. Even those of the lowest social class, the Pearls.

Which brings us to…

Rampant Racefail, Obliterated Ozone

If you’ll recall, the ozone layer has been completely obliterated, dramatically increasing the risk of skin cancer and radiation poisoning, a phenomenon currently known as The Heat. Nevermind that The Heat displays all the symptoms of heatstroke rather than cancer or radiation poisoning, or that over-exposure to solar radiation does not result in radiation poisoning, or that they live underground and have air conditioning – black people are naturally better-suited to surviving in this blisteringly sunny environment, and so of course you have racism, right?

Right???

One of the things that always irritates me as a biologist is this societal obsession (at least, where I live) with race as a means of classifying people. Simply put, race has no valid genetic basis.

Let me repeat that.

RACE HAS NO VALID GENETIC BASIS.

Race is a purely social construct, and while it is true that different ethnic groups display different traits, this is true of ethnic groups, not racial, and has more to do with members of that ethnicity sharing common ancestors, the ancestor populations being isolated from others (due to constraints of distance and travel), and the latitudes at which the populations historically lived. In other words, although two people may share the same skin color and fall under the same “race” superficially, they may come from entirely separate populations which have not mingled for thousands of years. Race is not an indicator of genetic divergence, especially when you consider that the Asian “race” has more genetic diversity between ethnic groups than Africans and Europeans, with Asians ranging in skin color from white, like the Bai people of China who take pride in their whiteness, to black, like the aboriginal Ati of the Philippines.

In other words, race is a horrible way to classify human morphs. It’s the human equivalent of classifying different dog breeds as separate species.

Racism is also not universal across all cultures as the concept of “race” as used in the modern Western culture is not universal.

With that said, Foyt’s portrayal of race is horrendous on so many levels, not least because the reason in-book for race as an institution to continue to exist is stupid. For one, the solar radiation excuse holds no water as everyone is currently living underground. Second, AIR CONDITIONING. Third, they have androids with sophisticated enough AIs to act effectively as security and medical personnel. Fourth, the underground society is supposedly made up of people from all sorts of different cultures (though apparently they don’t mingle outside of the mandatory monthly dance due to high racial tensions…).

In other words, there are absolutely no reasons why any stratified class structure should exist.

Combine the above with stereotype after stereotype. Coals, as I mentioned in Part 1, are portrayed as African American stereotypes. All Ambers are stereotypically Chinese. Tiger’s Eyes are stereotypically Mexican (at least, the one Tiger’s Eye we see). Cottons are all stereotypically pale in every way with impossibly pink eyes and only exist to make the love interest appear compassionate. And then there’s the names.

Coal, Tiger’s Eye, Amber, Pearl, Cotton – the one thing they have in common is that they are all explicitly stated to be racial slurs in-book. Unfortunate racial implications aside (considering how Coal and various variations have been used as actual racial slurs for a range of groups in the past), we have a very obvious inequality in the slurs themselves. Three of the slurs are precious stones, one is a fiber I’m sure we would all sorely miss if it were lost from our lives (especially in the underwear department) that is associated with comfort and softness of the best kind, and one is a notoriously dirty source of fuel that many currently see as outmoded.

While one could try to argue the whole far future world so shift in terminology thing, the fact remains that Foyt wrote this book in part as an answer to modern racism. As such, the use of such unbalanced terms combined with the stereotypes are a MAJOR issue because they actually work in tandem to reinforce current and historical racist tendencies despite Foyt’s stated intention to turn racism on its head. Black people are lazy, petty, bestial, and big. White people are the pinnacle of beauty with their paleness, extremely intelligent, brave, independent, and loving.

In addition, the names aren’t even consistent. Three precious stones, a fiber, and a rock. There’s just enough consistency to make the other two stick out as misfits, but not enough variety to make sense. They also aren’t particularly descriptive of the racial skin tones, particularly Amber and Tiger’s Eye. What would have made more sense is a naming theme that was completely consistent (Coal, Rust, Sulfur, Gypsum, Talc) or completely inconsistent. Better would have been the complete omission of singular slurs as racial slurs are quite complex and never limited to just one, singular term.

Actually, cutting out the whole racism angle would greatly improve the book as the racism serves no point to the story except to facilitate Eden’s self-discovery.²

Oh yeah. There are Aztecs, too.

Except they’re not Aztec. Or are they?

The tribe used in the book are stated to be the Huaorani, a people (and not a singular tribe, which is how they are treated in the book) who are linguistically and culturally distinct from other surrounding cultures in their native Ecuador. Those of you who paid attention during History class should recall that the Aztec Empire spanned most of what is now southern and central Mexico, and that many Mexicans proudly claim descent from the ruling Aztecs (who called themselves Mexica). Those of you who paid attention during Geography class should recall that Ecuador is in South America, next to Peru, which means it is nowhere near any area of historic Aztec influence, and on a completely different continent.

The Huaorani traditionally have been a semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherer people; they traditionally did not build permanent structures or settlements. The Aztecs were farmers and conquerors, and to this day, some of their pyramids still stand with others acting as the foundations for modern settlements (i.e. Mexico City). The Aztecs had a strongly stratified society and believed in a pantheon of deities; the Huaorani have no formal leadership and hold an animistic view of the world. The Aztecs crafted elaborate calendars and looked to predict events in the far future; the Huaorani concept of time is strongly oriented to the present.

There are many more differences, but these are just some of the more obvious ones a brief glance at Wikipedia supplies. And yet the two cultures are apparently used interchangeably.²

A glance at a map would have also been a good idea, considering the Amazon River is mentioned multiple times even though it doesn’t actually flow through Ecuador.

Now, I could go into more detail about the racial issues in this book, but the topic has been covered quite thoroughly in this review by Margaret Bates, with this article providing plenty of examples from the text of the treatment of the Huaorani.

I’m going to leave it at that, if you all don’t mind; my face cannot survive much more of the frequent planting it’s been experiencing recently from reviewing this book.

That said, I did promise a section on Unfortunate Implications…

The Unfortunates, Unfortunately

Perhaps the most unfortunate source of Unfortunate Implications is Eden herself.

In addition to being intensely racist (which was only partially intended by Foyt), Eden as a character is extremely misogynistic, describing all her female rivals as bitches, with other women being indifferent (i.e., uncaring bitch), callous (i.e., unfeeling bitch), or nonexistent. The only women described favorably are Eden’s dead mother (who spends most of the book dismissed as a sentimental fool) and a native woman named Maria who acts as a surrogate mother to Eden from the moment she’s brought to the surface world. So, basically, the only good women are married, motherly women that are not black, do not want to be black, and do not oppose Eden.

Additionally, Eden has the emotional awareness and maturity of a three-year-old. She cannot tell the difference between lust and love, pretends to be the love interest’s dead lover in order to learn his deepest, darkest secrets, constantly places herself in life-threatening situations just to spite and incense the love interest, consistently misjudges people when reality is too inconvenient, and yo-yos between emotions like a bipolar who knows they’re bipolar but deliberately avoids taking their meds in order to scare people. Our heroine and vehicle for our Aesop, everyone.

The love interest, Bramford, is perhaps the most compassionate and reasonable character in the entire book. He is haunted by the mistakes of his past, even as he deeply loves the result. He works diligently to protect his employees and their families, giving the Pearl widow of a tragically dead pilot in his employ a cushy job as his personal stewardess, bringing Eden and her father to the surface to save their lives, and cutting off all ties to his bodyguard and half-brother who would otherwise be targeted by the main terrorist organization in the underground society. He, in stark contrast to Eden, displays respect for the Huaorani and Aztec’s cultures and traditions rather than dismissing them out of hand, and is truly colorblind.

Unfortunately, as a direct consequence of Eden’s actions earlier on, Bramford is transformed into a freakish half-beast, and his beastliness is glorified by the other “good” characters and pursued sexually by Eden. Additionally, while Bramford is presented as a genuinely compassionate person, this presentation comes at the cost of the lynching of an albino child, systematically stupid racism, an anvil of an Aesop about corporate greed destroying the very resources it seeks to exploit, the appropriation and mangling of Huaorani and Aztec belief systems by way of a myth of a Jaguar Man who will restore balance to the world (guess who that is), Bramford regularly consuming a potion reserved for the strict use of tribal shamans that makes him mentally unstable like woah, the demonization of his first wife, and the extreme (sometimes violent) measures Bramford takes to ensure his son’s safety. It’s also revealed that Bramford still loves his first wife deeply, even after her betrayal, and that he essentially sees Eden as his first wife, especially considering they look like identical twins. Additionally, Bramford strongly pressures Eden into transforming into a creature just like him, and even tries to force the transformation upon his young son (out of the belief that it’s the only way his son can survive to adulthood, but still).

Basically, the every element within the book can be boiled down to three functions: it enables Eden to undergo a journey of “self-discovery”,⁴ makes Bramford look like a good guy, or does both at the same time.

Even the racism.

That’s it.

Come, Conclusion!

A lot of the issues with this book could have been avoided with proper research and taking the time to think through the implications of such a society, i.e. the pressures that caused it to form in that particular way, the consequences of living underground, where they get the materials for all the drugs, etc. Foyt engaged in neither. That she did not research or think through the implications is inexcusable, but even more inexcusable are the ways in which she not only promotes but defends her work.

This book is racist. There is no valid defense that can claim otherwise without being inherently racist itself.

And I say this as someone who is not one of those “members within the African-American community who have not read the book”. Looking at you, Foyt.

Further Reading

http://rosepetals1984.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/review-revealing-eden/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/racism-revealing-eden-and-stgrb_b_1739219.html
http://dermatographia.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/goodreads-and-bullies-or-its-worse-to-call-someone-racist-than-to-be-racist/
http://racebending.livejournal.com/326120.html

Footnotes

¹ Especially the anaconda fight. Just thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

² More on that later.

³ Which really pissed me off on a personal level. One of my first loves was the study of mythologies and cultures, and to see such a rampant disrespect for the cultures and belief systems of both the Aztec and the Huaorani, especially when coupled with the racism that pervades every paragraph of the narrative, just made me incredibly sad and angry. I can only conclude that, like the racism, the ethnocentrism the disrespectful treatment of the Aztec and Huaorani cultures reveals was unintentional, but no less terrible for it. Nothing can excuse the cultural appropriation Foyt employed thoughout.²

⁴ If it can even be called that. Recall the bipolar comment? It was not an exaggeration, and it extended to her ability to reason. Eden’s thought and emotional processes can be best described as a series of games of shark jumping with the shark occasionally getting in a bite. Or three. And then a big-lipped alligator pays a visit every once in a while just to throw things for an extra loop. Or two. And a new game is commenced with the start of each new paragraph/page/chapter, with the occasional detour through the Wonkatania.

Comment [12]

On this night, I endeavored to deliberately watch bad movies. The first movie on the list: Ong Bak 3, written and directed by Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai. Tony Jaa actually plays the leading role in this as well, which is the main draw of the whole Ong Bak trilogy since all the stunts performed on-screen are real. No wires or tricks or anything except a bunch of skilled, sweaty stunt men performing crazy feats of martial combat for your viewing pleasure.

I was actually surprised at how not-bad Ong Bak 3 was. From the reviews, I was expecting no plot at all, just scene after scene of loosely strung together fights. Instead, Ong Bak 3 turned out to be a more meditative and contemplative movie about the nature of power, especially as displayed in the form of martial arts. It also didn’t hurt that the cinematography was really pretty.

That said, one of the most common complaints (and reasons for the low ratings) was the lack of plot, with an equal lack of fight scenes. Now, while Ong Bak 3 has it’s fair share of martial showdowns, most of the movie is spent not fighting. For someone who only watched Ong Bak 3 for the action parts, it’s a major disappointment of an action movie, and without any plot reasons to excuse the lack of action.

The thing is, there is a plot, and it’s not bad as far as plots go, though it is quite basic and simplistic. Make no mistake: Ong Bak 3’s plot is not a draw on it’s own, but it really makes the movie more than just your regular brawling action flick where the lone hero faces off against entire armies in quick succession. It is an internally consistent action flick where the lone hero faces off against an entire army without actually facing off against the entire army.

Before I go any further, I’d like to say that I have not watched Ong Bak or Ong Bak 2. However, Ong Bak 3 refered to a lot of prior events in the other two movies via flashback, and those flashbacks made the basic backstory pretty clear. The movie was also a bit on the nonlinear side, with lots of events occurring simultaneously or in the past.

Now, onto the plot!

The Long Version

Ong Bak 3 is the story of a man named Tien who is out to avenge his father’s death. However, at the start of the film, he is already captured, and despite his rather spectacular attempt to escape, Tien is subdued and the punishment resumes. The King orders all of Tien’s bones to be broken, and they are.

This is all done onscreen, so if you’re the squeamish type, you might want to skip the entire opening sequences.

Once all of Tien’s bones have been broken, the he’s strung up in public and left there. During the night, a rescue attempt is made that fails miserably when this character called The Crow interferes and kills off the would-be rescuers. The King offers to reward The Crow, who refuses and tells The King he can remove the curse the previous king cast on him when The King murdered him.

The king is too proud to accept, and The Crow leaves to continue cursing the people and making everyone in this one village ill with his dark supernatural powers.

The King orders Tien to be executed, but a messenger rushes in with an order from a higher king, ordering Tien to be given to him. The King has no choice to comply, and one of his ministers points out that there’s a traitor in their midst, and that he’s sent out assassins after Tien and his royal rescuers.

The King then goes off and has a curse-caused hallucination-induced panic attack and kills one of his ministers, and we jump back to Tien who has been brought to that one village that everyone was being cursed in. Turns out it’s his home village or something and his childhood dancer friend is there to tend to his wounds. But then the assassins attack and kill the royal rescuers, but get killed in the process, which is convenient because no one in the village can fight.

A Buddhist priest takes over healing Tien and mentions how his spirit cannot return to his body because of past life’s bad karma, so the entire village bands together to donate gold and build a statue to appease everyone Tien offended in his past life, while his dancer friend dances until she cannot stand. Tien miraculously gets better, though he is severely crippled.

Ashamed of his inability to even walk straight after being the strongest warrior in pretty much all of Thailand, Tien drags himself to a nearby cliff and tries to jump, only his crazy friend distracts him long enough for the Buddhist priest to talk some sense into Tien and impart some profound lessons about life. The Buddhist priest tells Tien that what he needs now is meditation and contemplation, so Tien drags himself out into an abandoned jungle temple and goes through the painful process of rehabilitating himself both physically and mentally.

A large chunk of the movie a training montage of Tien struggling to rehabilitate himself. He eventually does with the help of his childhood dancer friend, now lover, who teaches him dances, which Tien learns rehabilitate both body and mind.

Meanwhile, The King continues to gradually go crazy as the curse hounds him, until he finally swallows his pride and seeks out The Crow. The Crow has the previous king’s body in his throne room, and basically tells The King that he wants everything The King has, and that The Crow is going to take it all because The King does not deserve the power he has.

There is another big fight scene with The Crow punching people through thick stone walls, collapsing the roof of his palace, and finally decapitating The King, whose disembodied head curses The Crow for a few good minutes afterwards. The Crow is like, “whatever” and goes on to take over the kingdom, becoming an evil despot who enslaves the people and topples elephants to drink their blood.

Meanwhile, back with Tien, he’s doing his daily meditating and physical conditioning regime when his crazy friend brings a soldier to visit, only the soldier also brought friends along and they’re all out to kill Tien. Tien does some fancy dancing footwork and subdues all the soldiers with a little bit of help from his crazy friend, and all is well until Tien spots the smoke drifting through the trees. He runs back to the village and finds it completely burned down, with everyone either missing or dead. A whole bunch of soldiers come out of nowhere and attack him, and he subdues all of them without any weapons because weapons only help perpetuate violence.

Tien finds the Buddhist priest and has a chat about the evils of the world and how to avoid them, and then the Buddhist priest gives Tien his staff and wishes him on his merry way.

We next see Tien standing on the same statue-thing he was chained to at the start of the film, challenging The Crow. The Crow is all “HAHA I can put out the sun!” and he does, which causes everyone except the mind-controlled soldiers to cower in the lack of light. Tien’s dancer lover is brought to The Crow and her throat slit, at which point Tien loses it and attacks all the soldiers in a battle scene that involves him ripping a man’s throat out with his teeth, punching armor off one guy, punching out that same guy’s heart, a catapulting statue-thing, and a whole lot of elephants. In the end though, The Crow is all “you soldiers suck” and tosses a spear right through Tien’s heart after a line about how he feeds on the vengeance in Tien’s heart.

And then Tien travels back in time to the moment before he locked eyes with The Crow, resolves to not go all kill-happy, and proceeds to make the sun shine again. This breaks The Crow’s power so that now he is nothing more than a very evil man and knocks out everyone under The Crow’s mind control. The Crow and Tien then have a showdown where Tien completely dominates The Crow with his slick dance moves, right up until Tien tosses The Crow onto a giant stone flowerpot. One reversal later, The Crow has a spear which he tosses at Tien, and there is a long moment of blood dripping down the spear, but surprise! Tien caught the weapon before it hit his throat and the blood is only from his hands.

Tien and The Crow keep battling it out until Tien has The Crow suspended over the edge of the throne platform. The Crow is all “I CAN FLY!!!”, only he can’t anymore because broken powers, and so he wriggles out of Tien’s hold, lands on top of the elephant he had toppled for blood-drinking purposes, then slides off onto the elephant’s broken tusk, and dies after puking up a whole ton of blood.

The people rejoice and Tien, his lover, his crazy friend, and the rest of the village go back to thank the golden statue for changing Tien’s karma, and Tien goes back to diligently practicing his dance arts.

The end.

The Short Version

A man out for revenge for his father’s death learns the hard way that vengeance only perpetuates the cycle of violence. He sets out to end the cycle of violence and succeeds. The end.

Side Notes

• Magic is real.
• The Crow has crazy tattoos.
• Disembodied heads can talk for minutes without lungs attached.
• Apparently Tian’s dead dad wasn’t really his dad, and he killed his actual dad because of the king, or something.
• I thought The Crow was a woman at first because of the voice effects. The awesome eye liner didn’t help.
• The one thing really going for the movie is the internal consistency. No element of the movie is added in just-because, and even the crazy friend has a narrative function outside of being just stupid comic relief. Each piece works with the others to reinforce the main theme of Ong Bak 3, including the didn’t-really-happen fight scene with the elephants.
• The didn’t-really-happen fight scene with the elephants would’ve been fine even if it didn’t serve a narrative function.
• My favorite parts of the movie were actually the training montages and the dance scenes with Tian’s lover. Shirtless Tony Jaa is very easy on the eyes, and both of them have excellent form, especially in the slowest parts.
• If I ever get the chance to watch the other two movies for free, I am watching them.

Comment [3]

Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to say that everything in this article is of my own personal opinion. The views expressed in this article are not representative of everyone here at Impish Idea. As always, you, the reader, are fully entitled to respectfully disagree.

With that said:

We writers are an odd breed — while the rest of the world has moved on from creating imaginary worlds and people, we writers employ these elements on a regular basis. In fact, we take pride in our careful crafting of these flights of fancy, putting ourselves through a veritable hell to share them with the rest of the world. And as if spending inordinate amounts of time on fictional entities was not enough, the standard we all judge ourselves against is reality, the antithesis of imagination.

“Is this believable?” is the question most paramount in all our minds. After all, if a story is too far removed from accepted reality, the readers cannot relate and therefore reject the story as a pile of incoherent dribble. But so long as there is a familiar or relatable element of the story, such as a character or plot sequence, or an element that hearkens back to reality, the readers can accept even the most absurd things, such as wingless flying lizards, as a matter of course. For you see, as writers, our goal is to make that which is inherently fictional a reality, and, if we are diligent in our craft, we succeed.

But what is reality? What is real? Both definitions hinge on objectivity, but how can there be true objectivity when our perceptions of reality are inherently subjective? For instance, two people look at a rock — to one, the rock is simply a rock, metamorphic in composition, geologically interesting, but otherwise unworthy of note. To the other, the rock is a beautiful object, the way the light refracts off the crystalline inclusions poetry in color, something to be captured in a depiction and treasured forever. Of these two perceptions, which is the real one?

Objective reality dictates that the rock exists as both parties observe that there is a rock. But what if the rock isn’t really a rock? What if, for the sake of argument, the rock is actually the granite-based carapace of a turtle-like creature? Unless the creature emerges from its shell and begins to move, both observers will continue to perceive the carapace as a rock, and that rock will remain part of their perceived reality. And so we must conclude that the reality we are all familiar with, the reality we strive to emulate, is simply a collection of the things we have experienced; by extension, that which we experience is reality to us.

As writers, we constantly harness this perceived reality. Every time a reader peruses our writing, every time they experience the contents thereof and find it believable, what we have written becomes real to them. And even after we are long dead, even after our lives are lost to the passing of time, every time a person reads one of our works, every time a person enjoys them, we live on, becoming real to the readers as well.

Each time we writers write a story, we toe the tricky line between reality and fantasy. Are we crazy? Perhaps, though it’s a craziness the world treasures, for without us writers, not only the world of literature but life itself would be drab and monotonous indeed.

Comment [11]

^{What They Are and How to Avoid Them in Your Own Writing}

Ah, the dreaded infodump, the bane of every writer’s (and reader’s) existence. So easy to write; so tedious to read; so difficult to weed out.

But what exactly is an infodump?

Depending on whom you ask, the gamut of definitions is quite extensive, ranging from “huge blocks of text that describe stupid shit” to “any copious concentration of description”.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll be defining infodumps as sections of text that detach a reader from the work in question through depicting things that are (1) not immediately relevant to the story or characters, (2) grouped together into easily-discernible sections, and (3) destroy or otherwise hinder the flow of the story, be it through a sudden leap in ideas or shift in the narrative tone, pacing, and/or style.

To rephrase, infodumps make it difficult for a reader to remain immersed in a story, be it through tedium, frustration, inconsistency, etc.

Infodumps come in several main flavors — description, exposition, opinion, and stylistic — but are all united in the fact that they result from an excessive concentration of said flavoring.

Description

Description dumps are perhaps the most common type of infodump out there, and so are what immediately comes to mind for most people when they hear the word “infodump”. The most egregious examples of description dumps are scenery porn and character descriptions.

Example:

Inaina looked in the mirror. Her hair, which was luxuriant in its soft and smooth texture, hung around her face, framing it like a white, curly hood that partially hid her eyes like a mostly opaque and mysterious veil. Her deeply tanned skin stood out in stark contrast to the paleness of her hair, which brought out the plum color of her lips and beady eyes, once she brushed her hair out of the way. The dress she wore today was green, which clashed horribly with her complexion, and was ugly with how overwrought the embroidery, all gold and black and blue dragons in bruised and torturous poses, and frilly it was, with chiffon scrunched up into tight and heavily starched waves…

You get the picture.

Description dumps can also occur when the author attempts to describe every aspect of an action, such as a fighter’s shifting of stances; sensation, such as what magic feels like; or method, such as listing every action a magician performs in casting a spell.

Exposition

The next most common type of infodump is the exposition dump. These more often than not read like history books, only drier, and often arise from the author’s fear that, if they don’t explain everything, the reader won’t appreciate the story. A specific subset of the exposition dump is the techdump, which explicates technological details and is prevalent in science fiction.

Example:

They selected one of the hydrocarbon-powered ground transports from the queue which waited outside the airport. The fee was small enough that it was not paid electronically, but using portable dollar tokens. The driver conducted his car unit into the city; though he drove only at 100 km/hr, it felt much faster since they were only a meter from the concrete road surface. — “Flight” or “If all stories were written like science fiction stories” by Mark Rosenfelder

Another ubiquitous form of the exposition dump is the “As You Know, Bob” conversation in which two or more characters engage in an obviously contrived exchange whose sole purpose is to impart information to the readers.

Exposition dumps are notorious for how long and boring they tend to be, and though they’re most often used to impart vital information concerning the plot (in comparison to the more often superfluous nature of description dumps), they tend to pack too much information into too small a space, which leaves no room for the entertainment value.

Opinion

All hail the surprise soapbox!

You’re happily reading along when, without warning, there’s a rant set before your eyes, and as you read through it, all you can think is “Where the HELL did this come from?”

They can be short; they can be long and rambling; they can be contained within character dialogue or within the narration itself — what all opinion dumps have in common is that (1) they’re strongly opinionated, and (2) they just don’t feel like they belong in the story. As a result, taking the context surrounding opinion dumps into account is a bit more important than other forms of infodump in determining whether they’re egregious or not; they can be quite entertaining when done deliberately, especially when reinforcing characterization.

Example:

The cell phone plague now preoccupied humans on the island of Mospheira, a plague making them walk into traffic while in conversation that preempted their awareness of their surroundings; a compulsion that suddenly rendered them incapable of ignoring a phone call in the presence of actual people they should be dealing with. — Conspirator by C. J. Cherryh, p. 33, 2009 Hardcover

This lovely passage has been brought to you, in context, second-hand as the badly-framed opinion of a rarely-seen brother who, in context, is rather ignorant of the alien race’s customs and society in a rather inexplicable aside concerning the issue of introducing faster means of communication than letter-sending to said alien race who, in context, is so vastly different from humanity in the societal sense due to biology as a non-political reason to avoid instantaneous communications in a debate that is, in context, purely political at this point.

If that sentence there didn’t confuse you, then I have failed to impart my sheer bemusement at coming across this rather unexpectedly opinionated (and rather irrelevant) passage that is never touched upon again.

Stylistic

Stylistic dumps are not technically a type of infodump and tend only to be seen as such when read by those outside the intended audience. Period pieces and much genre fiction, when read by someone unfamiliar with the stylistic tropes associated with them, are often accused of being horribly infodumpy, much to the bemusement of readers who enjoy the style.

More than any type of infodump, the context and deliberateness is important in determining whether a stylistic infodump is problematic or not; it’s the difference between 18th century novels and their pastiches versus the work of an inexperienced writer.

Just as with anything, too much style leads to clunky prose, even where certain styles are expected. In most cases, this excess of style is manifested through one of the other three infodump types, though there are times when the writer’s style itself is the problem, especially if it is quite distinct.

Gregory Maguire, for instance, has a style I simply cannot stand. His word choice, syntax, and story structuring just plain annoy me with how clunky, rigid, and contrived they are, and there is no escaping his style should you read one of his works.

Combating Infodumps in General

So now that we know what infodumps are, how do we avoid them in our own writing?

1. Don’t stress about them in the first draft.

Weeding out infodumps is a job for the editing and rewriting stages; don’t allow your fear of writing them to prevent you from actually finishing the story.

2. Examine the density of information in each section.

The reason why infodumps are so noticeable is because they concentrate a lot of information into substantial chunks of text. Breaking this information up and interspersing it with actions and dialogue helps space out this information into more manageable pieces.

3. Examine the relevance of the information in each section.

Another reason why infodumps tend to be so noticeable is that the information contained within them (especially in the case of exposition and description dumps) is not immediately relevant to the story. So much word count is devoted to the information that it drowns out the immediate action, which stretches out the pacing like the clock stretches out the last minute of torture before the class bell rings, until the readers forget what it was that was going on that was interesting. And then they begin to skim.

So ask yourself, “Is this immediately relevant?” If so, keep it, but remember to space it out. If not, omit it, but do not completely delete it; you’ll find that your prose looks rather bland once all the extra information is removed, and you’ll want to save those extra details to add back in for flavoring, where appropriate.

Next, ask yourself, “Is this relevant later on?” If so, be sure to add it back in someplace natural and unobtrusive; you don’t want to be heavy-handed with your foreshadowing, after all.

Lastly, ask yourself, “Does it help establish the character and/or setting?” If so, it’s some pretty important flavoring that you don’t want to leave out. As always, be sure to space it out and place it appropriately.

4. Utilize vivid and precise language.

Why use a ton of weak words when a few strong ones will suffice? Using vivid and precise language cuts down on the word count spent dispensing information, which makes for a more streamlined reading experience. The less bulky your prose, the more accessible it is; the more accessible your prose, the more engaging it is; and the more engaging your prose, the more interested your readers will be in the information you share with them.

In addition, employing more vivid and precise language showcases your skill with the language, which inclines your readers to be more forgiving if you should happen to infodump.

Just be careful not to use language so precise, your readers are constantly sent running for a dictionary.

5. Establish a rhythm.

If you incorporate infodumps deliberately, perhaps due to stylistic conventions, do your best to establish a rhythm. Readers will enjoy prose that sounds and feels pretty, even though it may be horribly infodumpy under normal circumstances. Having a solid rhythm ensures that your writing, though densely packed with information, will still flow nicely, helping keep your readers immersed in the story instead of kicking them out of it with an abrupt change in pacing.

Comment [13]

^{And Why You Aren’t Crazy If You Listen}

There are some of the opinion that authors create characters and stories. As such, authors exert complete control over every action their characters take, every thought their characters think, every emotion their characters feel. Characters are merely puppets, and the author, their puppeteer.

Others are of the opinion that characters, although created by the author, are capable of developing without conscious input from the author. This manifests in characters acting in unplanned ways that, while completely in-character, change the direction and nature of the entire scene, if not also the rest of the story. Characters are, in this case, more like sketches, with the author as the artist filling in details, pen stroke by painstaking pen stroke, and taking advantage of slips of the hand or unintentional patterns in the lines of ink to elaborate upon the image.

Yet others are of the opinion that characters take a life of their own, with the author merely a point of genesis or a vehicle to convey the characters’ story. These characters, though restricted in influence to the author’s mind, are no less alive than you or I, and as such, these characters have thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs of their own and are capable of taking independent action within the story. Characters, in this case, are more like active forces of the imagination — Muses, if you will — than passive creations of the author.

Of these schools of opinion, there is much disparaging of the third by the first, with the most common argument being “Authors create characters; characters are not real; therefore, characters cannot act independently of the author.” Members of the first school can often be found commenting that members of the third school “need help”, are “seriously mental”, and are “in dire need of a reality check”.

As a member of the third school of opinion, I resent those comments.

Now, I wasn’t always a member of the third school. As a young little Kyll just discovering the joys of wordsmithing, I fell firmly into the fold of the second school. As I learned more about the craft of writing, delved deeper into the inner workings of the art itself, and began discovering and cementing my own voice, I found myself drifting farther and farther from the idea that characters were simply conscious creations. Characters became less a vehicle for plot and themes, and more a vehicle for exploration — of the conscious and subconscious, the physical and metaphysical, the objective and subjective. I learned of archetypes and shadows, of the history of storytelling, and as I began incorporating these things into my own stories, into forming the characters, my characters began to come alive in ways that past characters never did.

There was an essence to these characters that their predecessors lacked, and it was this essence that gave them life, made them stick in a readers’ mind for a long time after, even if their only mention in the story was a single sentence of description, like a passing image of an old man birdwatching from his usual window.

In an effort to identify this essence, to harness it deliberately rather than accidentally, I delved further and further into the study of archetypes and shadows, of the relationship between the conscious and sub-, of the mystical and the rational, until one day, Melaris was born.

Mel: You make it sound as if I simply pranced fully-formed into your mind one day.

Kyll: Well, no. I did set out to create a character that was my polar opposite in practically everything personality-wise. I never expected to get you, though.

Mel: No one expects an alchemist-turned-diplomat.

Kyll: I suppose not. But it was a happy surprise.

Thirry: As happy a surprise as me?

Mel: Whose story is the pet project?

Thirry: Mine.

Mel: There lies your answer.

Thirry: Now, Mel, do I detect some bitterness there? Oh, but I forgot! You’re always bitter.

Kyll: You two realize you’ve both completely derailed the seriousness of this article.

Mel: You are the one allowing us.

Thirry: He has a point. Besides, the Editorial section exists for a reason.

Kyll: Yes, but now I’ve completely lost track of where I was going with this.

Mel: You were informing the audience about the first characters to come alive for you.

Kyll: Right. As I was saying, Melaris was born. He was bitter, pessimistic, vindictive, and callous.

Thirry: Are we really talking polar opposites here?

Kyll: When he first came to me, yes. I was a very cheerful, optimistic, forgiving, bleeding-hearted individual before life decided to get messy, you know.

Thirry: …really. I still think there’s no real difference between you and Melaris.

Mel: Hardly. I am not sadistic.

Kyll: And I am a realist. Difference.

Mel: I have every right to be a pessimist! The backstory you created for me sucks.

Thirry: So does mine! What is it with you and tragic pasts?

Kyll: Emotional conflict is good for the soul!

Mel: Of whom? The readers?

Thirry: I’m pretty sure tragic backstories are a cheap trick to garner reader sympathy.

Kyll: Only when they are treated lightly and their ramifications glossed over.

Mel: Well, neither of us can claim either. We both tend to dwell on them to death.

Thirry: Literally. At least you have a more tolerable future to look forward to.

Mel: Really? I fail to see how having my entire estate, research, and assets burned, my ability to practice my trade destroyed, and being kidnapped by anti-imperialist rebels, forever ruining my position in the King’s court, all within the first non-journal chapter of my story leaves much to look forward to.

Thirry: At least you didn’t have your eventually-lethal stabbing written as a comedy.

Mel: In all fairness, your reaction to the whole stabbing affair was quite humorous.

Thirry: Coming from a man who thinks leaving a full and fetid chamberpot out in the open for scavengers is hilarious.

Kyll: Boys! Play nice. We are off-topic yet again.

Mel: And whose fault is that?

Thirry: Yours, obviously.

Mel: How is it m—!

Thirry: Not yours, unless you’re going to start claiming that you can influence the physical world at will now.

Mel: . . .

Thirry: . . .

Kyll: There is a point in here… if I could just find it.

Right. Well. While those two are busy having a staring contest with one another, I suppose I should explain how the two of them came to be.

Melaris (whose last name I have misplaced), as briefly mentioned before, started out as an experiment to see if I could successfully create a character who was my polar opposite in personality. The experiment was a resounding success, though his story never got past Chapter 9 due to various things, like gaping plotholes and overly-simplistic religious and political systems, hindering the story’s progression. Of the rather large planned cast of characters, there were only two that really came alive: Melaris, and his mentor, Vinn. I plan on eventually completing Mel’s story one day, after Thirry’s story is completed.

Speaking of Thirry, I started working on his story roughly a year after I put Mel’s aside. His story started out as a drabble parodying the excessive descriptions attributed to the heroes by the villains they slew. Although Thirry died at the end of the original drabble, he refused to stay dead, and honestly, he was too fun a character to just kill off in 300ish words. Six years and a massive tone shift later, despite my long history of story commitment issues, I’m still working on Thirry’s story. Where Mel’s story only had two characters with a spark of life, practically all the viewpoint characters (of which there are ~15) in Thirry’s story possess that elusive spark of life, in addition to various supporting and side characters.

Thirry’s full name is Thirilight Ardyer, though this is subject to change due to the name no longer fitting within the revised naming scheme.

Thirry: You keep saying that, and yet my name has yet to change.

Kyll: Yes, well, I’m rather attached. Your name was the original inspiration for the drabble and, by extension, the novel.

Thirry: But it’s inconsistent.

Kyll: I know.

Mel: My name is not inconsistent.

Thirry: We’re not talking about your name, O Melancholy Iris.

Mel: You say that as if having a flower-based name is embarrassing.

Thirry: It’s girly.

Mel: Not in my world. In any case, I happen to quite like my name.

Thirry: Whatever you say, O Florid One.

Mel: Thank you for acquiescing to my verbal superiority, O Shiny One.

Thirry: Alas, your skills at paying heed to conversation are sorely lacking.

Kyll: And here we go again… I’ll spare you all the overly-polite insults.

In any case, in both cases, writing their respective stories became more of a conversation between myself and the characters. Rather than ask myself what a plausible course of action for a character of such background would be, I found myself more and more asking the characters directly and getting some rather unexpected, yet internally-consistent, responses. There were even times when my characters, without any prompting, would tell me details of their lives, such as likes and dislikes, past relationships, and long-held dreams. My stories shifted more firmly into the realm of being character-, rather than plot- or theme-, driven, and it became much easier and quicker to establish a distinct character within the first few lines of dialogue. The more autonomous my characters became, the stronger they became as characters on the page.

I’ve often been asked how it is I create such realistic and distinct characters with so few words, and how other writers can create such as well. Honestly, my only advice is to let the characters in your head be themselves; they’ll do most of the work for you. Ask them questions, ferret out their motivations, and above all, listen to what the characters themselves want to say, rather than what you want them to say.

I can’t say for sure where my characters come from, but I know they are real to me in the sense that I can interact with them at will. I also know that, if I can capture their essences on the page well enough, my characters can become real to each of my readers. Perhaps they won’t be the exact same in my readers’ minds as in my own, but they will exist to my readers, if only for a brief time.

And that effect is something the first two schools of opinion would be hard pressed to easily create.

Just as the different types of story each have their respective strengths, weaknesses, and uses, so too do the different schools of characterization. What works works, and there’s no merit in demeriting any of the views, as crazy as they may seem.

After all, aren’t all writers of fiction a little bit crazy to begin with?

Comment [66]

Guys, the dating scene sucks in my area. I’ve almost given up hope that I can find the perfect man to make me a woman in every meaningful way. wink wink I mean, with sexy hunks like Edward Cullen and Patch Cipriano to populate my most intimate fantasies of what it’s like to be in a relationship where I finally get to lose my virginity in the most steamy and perfect way possible, the “men” in my area just can’t compare.

I mean, sure, they’ll open doors for me, but that’s the minimum level of courtesy expected around these here parts; and sure, they’ll pay attention to all my wants and needs, spending a lot more money on me than they can afford, but that’s just how things are when you’re as gorgeous as I am; and of course they’ll meet my dad and ask him first before taking me out somewhere on a date, because that’s what proper gentlemen do, you know. But they’re really bad about the whole watching me all night long while I sleep thing (stupid “I need sleep too” excuse), and the being assertive to the point where they can sweep me off my feet despite my violent protests thing (Is it really too much to ask that most guys be better than me at martial arts?), and the taking stock of my mood and where I am in my menstrual cycle and everything by getting a good whiff of me thing (which I can’t believe so many people have trouble with because menstrual blood reeks of hormones and bloody bloodiness).

I mean, a vampire or a werewolf or an angel would know. But not the guys I know. They’re only human.

Then again, this is reality we’re talking about, and I’m human too, even if I am a super special snowflake, so it’s not like I can blame them for being human. That would be ridiculous. Not to mention, anti-my-own-species-ist which, considering my rather strong instinct to propagate my own species, would be rather crazy, to boot.

And so I turn to the internet to find my perfect man, since the men in my immediate vicinity just aren’t cutting it, and you guys here at II seem to be pretty cool. I foresee you being far more likely to have among your ranks one whom I could call my perfect man.

So here’s a test. Hit me up if you make it all the way through, and I’ll happily hit you back.

But no cheating. I will find out, and I will be most displeased. Like, “I will end the entire rest of the world because my own world has ended and everyone dies” displeased.

1. Are you hot?

If yes, proceed to #2.
If no, go away.

2. Are you scintillatingly hot?

If yes, proceed to #3.
If no, join my harem of eye candy.

3. Are you the hottest man to ever walk the Earth hot?

If yes, begone you liar. Everyone knows Mr. Darcy is the hottest man to ever walk the Earth ever.
If no, post pics and proceed to #4.

4. Are you decisive?

Then you’ll know what to do.
Otherwise, bugger off.

5. To the point you make decisions for other people?

Because decision-making is so difficult for those lesser wills.
Like yours.

6. And would make all my decisions for me?

Because I can’t be worrying my pretty little head over silly things like money, now can I.
Except you care too much to infringe upon my basic human right to choice, period. And I’m not buying it, Mr. Nice Guy.

7. Including what I eat?

Because one of us needs to watch my weight.
You wimp.

8. And when precisely I answer the call of nature?

If yes, ew… you sick freak.
If no, thank you for respecting my privacy. Proceed to the next question.

9. Did you respect my privacy because you were squeamish?

If yes, at least you’re honest, but my man needs to have guts of mythril and not be grossed out by anything. I do have a sister though.
If no, aw… how sweet.

10. Because you have Convictions?

I like a man with Convictions. Do continue.
Otherwise, grow a spine, dude.

11. Do these Convictions tie into world domination?

Aren’t we ambitious. Do tell me more.
What’s the matter? Proceed to #15.

12. Do I get to be the Queen of All I Survey?

#14
#15

13. And we wouldn’t have enough time together?

You’re just making me fall in love with you now, but you’re not there yet…
And I’m over you just like that.

14. Does this include your heart?

Thanks! Now if you’d just lie down on this stone altar over here, I’ll start sharpening my dagger…
Sensible. To #16.

15. Too much paperwork?

I feel you. Head to #13.
Get thee to #17.

16. Still following me?

Keep following.
You poor, lost soul. I almost take pity upon you. But not enough to actually deign to seriously associate myself with your person.

17. Not enough patience to deal with idiots?

You’re going to need to acquire lots if you want to be with me. Until then, so long.
You need more ambition, mister. How can I know you won’t just be The Lump, even (especially) in bed? I can’t. So bye.

17. Ha?

Ha! We progress.
. . . ? You need to work on your communication skills.

19. WHY NOT?

Because #10.
Because #17.

18. Still following me?

Good boy.
Good boy.

21. Which number did I not skip in order?

You will be quizzed. Until then, #22.
Failure.

22.

23. Does your beauty compare to mine?

If yes, sorry. I can’t have anyone outshining me. Not even the love of my life. It was nice knowing you. Not.
I’ll help you through your self esteem issues if you help me through mine. Off you go to twenty-four.

25. Do you see the obvious?

There is hope for you yet.
Now stop lying.

26. Are you a beast?

Sorry. Not into bestiality.
I suppose I can accept metaphorical bestiality.

27. Can you turn me on?

If yes, it would behoove you to remember in the future that I am not a machine. Now die.
Well, you’re useless.

28. Feed me?

That’s not food.
That’s not food.

29. The two tons of manganese orationis clams? [translation required]

YES! YOU ARE MINE! TRUE LOVE WITH MY PERFECT MAN AT LAST!!!
Or not.

#30. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HATE YOU FOREVER YOU SICK CHARLATAN!

—

OMG! I now have my perfect ma— waitasec. What do you mean no man honestly passed my test?! Internet, how DARE you get my hopes all up and FAIL ME?!INTERROBANGMOAR

Now I’ll have to destroy the world. Nothing worthwhile could possibly exist in this world where I cannot find True Love with my Perfect Man.

Mayan Apocalypse, I make thee REAL!!!

Comment [13]

Or, alternatively: Why Poetry Should Be Grammatically Correct

Poetry: such an expressive, free form, unbound by the rules of mundane grammar, right? The poet can alter the structure, syntax, punctuation, and even the spelling to suit his whim, correct? Not quite.

There is a commonly held belief that writing poetry means one can toss the rules of grammar and spelling out the window. This is only partially true. One of the hallmarks of poetry is its sheer flexibility and freedom of form. However, and this is a big “however”, standardized grammar and spellings exist for a reason: to make communication possible.

Imagine, if you will, a world with no set rules for written language. Every single word has multiple spellings that vary based upon the writer. Sentence structures and syntax are often drastically different from person to person, with words dropped out at whim and strange words interspersed willy-nilly. But it’s freedom of expression, so all is fine since all the writers are doing is expressing themselves, right? Perhaps, but freedom of expression can only be taken so far. If you take this freedom too far, you become incoherent and incomprehensible; it can no longer be said that you are expressing yourself as no one can understand you.

The simple fact of the matter is this: language exists for clear communication. If you abuse the language to a point where your ideas cease being clearly communicable, you are doing something wrong. By breaking the conventions of grammar for shallow reasons such as carelessness or a desire to appear poetic, you are making your poem less coherent and comprehensible. Which, assuming you wrote the poem to share with others, defeats the whole purpose of writing the poem in the first place.

Now, this is not to say that all poetry must always be punctuated. As mentioned before, it is partially true that poetry does not always have to adhere to the conventions of spelling and grammar, and there are cases where following these standards would actually harm the poem. So when is it acceptable to break from language conventions?

There is one case where this is permissible, and that case is when breaking convention clarifies the meaning of your poem.

This is not a common occurrence, but it does happen occasionally. However, and this is another big however, you must, as a writer, have a complete mastery of all aspects of grammar and formatting before you can claim that breaking convention is most beneficial for your poem. Very simply, before you can break the rules without repercussions, you must know them inside and out. Only then will you become acquainted with the exceptions and the loopholes of the language, an acquaintance you can exploit to further enhance your poetry (and all other forms of writing).

Until you master all the aspects of grammar, however, please punctuate your poetry properly, and spell words correctly, and generally adhere to the conventions of grammar. It will make your poetry easier to understand.

Comment [13]