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Things That Go Bump
I remember when I first started reading Kim Harrison‘s Hollows series. At first, I was put off by the idea of pixies.
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All I could think of were squeaky voices and Tinkerbell — but then Jenks turned out to be a trash-talking, dust-making badass who had a family of over 20 children and a heart to match. What made him so effective was the fact that Harrison made a four inch character into a three-dimensional dynamo. He has his flaws and his pride, and he is an integral addition to the cast of the Hollows.
I think even more than vampires or werewolves, some of the other creatures of urban fantasy are prone to cliches, from sparkly pixies in bluebells to fairies with butterfly wings in an array of purples. There are some creatures I would like to see more of, so here’s a few examples — and some ideas on how to keep them fresh and new!
Mmm...green goblin. Image via nerdcaliber.com
These guys saw a rise to prominence again with Harry Potter — as bankers no less! That is a perfect example of putting a spin on an old stereotype. While still warty and rather unattractive, J.K. Rowling made expected characteristics (greed, pride, tricksy-ness) into a respectable position as the owners of Gringott’s. While goblins are known for rather nasaly cackles and boniness, there are plenty of ways to make a goblin character interesting.
- A shy goblin with a stutter.
- A chubby goblin who steals Twinkies.
- A goblin with perfectly manicured nails who only wears designer clothes.
Awesome image by aselclub via twintaverns.wordpress.com
Dryads are the traditional tree spirits of Greek mythology,but they also exist in Celtic mysticism and neo-paganism. I haven’t seen any interesting dryads lately (although I try to write them into my trilogy!), but David Eddings wrote some fun ones. Instead of being trees themselves, his dryads were humanoid creatures who were tied to a specific tree but could mate with humans. They were also all female and very frisky — with a fondness for chocolate.
Dryads are often depicted as scantily-clad and anatomically correct females. Here’s some ideas for making them different.
- Make them androgynous, male, or asexual.
- Make them capricious or self-serving.
- A dryad who smokes — or even better, a dryad who owns a lumber company.
Disney made some good ones with these guys.
Visitors
While your visitors might not be little green men or aliens at all, a lot of fantasy involves visitors from the Otherworld — whether that be an extraterrestrial sort of Otherworld, another dimension, or fairyland.
In recent pop culture, Paul was a great play on aliens. Irreverent, outside the box, and goofy, Paul was a visitor who defied the bright lights and tractor beam stereotypes.
Otherworldly visitors tend to be greeted with awe and shiny things. What makes them fun is changing it up with elements of the creepy, the gritty, or the unexpected. They don’t have to be godlike to inspire awe. Instead, you could have:
- A Celtic sidhe who hates whisky and goes bonkers for technology.
- A succubus from hell who happens to be a virgin.
- An alien terrified that humans are going to invade his home planet.
There are plenty of ways to make the fantastical creatures of urban fantasy and sci-fi interesting and three dimensional. Here’s a fun little exercise to open up the imagination!
Pick your critter. I’ll use vampires because they’re handy. Imagine your first picture of this creature. For instance, in spite of the fact that they’ve moved away from this norm, I still see:
Male, pale, swirling cape. Prominent fangs. Beauty. Aura of mystery. Blood.
Now. Start switching these things — take the opposites.
Female, copper-skinned. Spandex. Tiny teeth and an awkward appearance. Reading a tabloid and sipping orange Fanta.
By articulating the stereotypes, it’s easy to combat them and create more interesting characters — or you could even show someone a stereotype and make them think you’re giving them a vampire only to have it be an ill-informed alien or an amnesiac who believes he’s the reincarnation of Vlad Tepes.
Great writing keeps you guessing and delights you with surprises — if you can do that, the markets matter less and less.
How do you create your fantasy creatures? What are your favorite standouts from current urban fantasy? What’s got you hot to trot right now? What do you want to see more of?
Related articles
- Mommy, Why do Vampires Sparkle? (emmiemears.com)
- Treading the Tightrope Between Worlds (emmiemears.com)
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Chillers, Thrillers, and Killers
What better way to spend Terror Tuesday than talking about the ones that make it all happen?
I just finished reading Writing the Breakout Novel and am in the middle of Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches right now, and it’s left me pondering what makes a strong antagonist.
When I think back over the literature that I read growing up, a lot of the Big Bads were really big. God big. Satan big. So how were they effective? How did David Eddings keep me reading for five books before he really introduced his Big Bad and we ever saw Torak’s melty face? I read a lot of epic fantasy, which always seems to have a lot of black and white (at least on the surface).
Think for a moment of the best, scariest, most disturbing antagonists you ever read/watched. Hold them in your mind, because we’re going to take them to our play pen.
Put them all in here! Let's see what they do!
In urban fantasy, the Big Bad is often an old scary vampire (Picary in the Hollows, the Mother in Anita Blake — or any other number of scary vamps in that world). While those can be effective, they need more than just the oogly-boogly factor to make them creep into your nightmares.
The Oogly-Boogly Factor
The Oogly-Boogly Factor is where that particular baddie lies on the spectrum of badness. What, you ask, is the spectrum of badness? Aha. Observe.
Spectrum of Badness
Here’s the key with the best Big Bads — they’ve been through the entire spectrum. When I think of the Big Bads I liked the most, the ones who stuck with me — these are the ones whose motives I understood, who may have even made me sympathetic to their cause at some point, and who have more depth to their character than just the Oogly-Boogly Factor.
You can plunk a character onto the Just Plain Evil part of the spectrum and call them a Big Bad from the get-go, but that won’t make them convincing. Sure, someone who kills at random is scary, but the methodical planning on serial killers is chilling.
Big Bads should also be stronger than the protagonist, at least initially. If the protagonist you’re rooting for can just smush them into smithereens before you can say yikes, that’s no fun at all. Boring. And that violates the basic rule of entertainment: don’t bore anybody.
Big Bads tap into our most primal fears. Something hiding in the dark. Something invading our safe places. Things that do what shouldn’t be done, make happen the things we dread the most. They make us children again, make us forget our adult sensibilities and make us want someone to tell us it’s not real.
Let’s look at a couple of my favorite Big Bads!
Image via Wikipedia
- Creeptastic Preacher Man
Caleb the Preacher, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
As many Big Bads as there were in that show, Caleb is one who has haunted me and who gives me chills each time I watch it. So where is he on the spectrum?
Caleb is full on Big Bad — we don’t see his progression during the show, but we do get glimpses of his back story.
Caleb’s primary characteristic is his misogyny. He calls women “dirty girls.” One interesting trait that he has is that he’s not hugely power hungry. He gets his power from the First Evil, but he bows to it willingly. He is murderous. One of the things that makes Caleb as terrifying as he is comes from the clothes he wears. Even if you’re not religious, his choice of outfit is disturbing. That collar is supposed to symbolize someone who is at least safe. Caleb makes it frightening. He uses religion in his rhetoric often, which adds another chilling layer to his persona. Here’s a quote that sums him up:
Now, it’s a simple story. Stop me if you’ve heard it. I have found and truly believe that there is nothing so bad it cannot be made better with a story. And this one’s got a happy ending. There once was a woman, and she was foul, like all women, for Adam’s rib was dirty—just like Adam himself—for what was he, but human. But this woman, she was filled with darkness, despair, and why? Because she did not know. She could not see. She didn’t know the good news, the glory that was coming. That’d be you. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. You show up, they’ll get in line. ‘Cause they followed her. And all they have to do is take one more step, and I’ll kill them all. See? I told you it had a happy ending.
Since we’re on the Buffy subject, let’s look at the development of a Big Bad — see the progression across the spectrum. Buffy fans probably know who I’m talking about…
Image via Wikipedia
- Creepy Willow
Willow Rosenberg, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
To get a feel for the humble origins of this Big Bad, it might be better to show a before picture:
Willow with...pigtails?
Willow starts out as a stereotypical smart, nerdy girl. She’s shy and awkward, she’s in love with her best friend Xander, and she is so self-effacing that you want to just hug her.
As the series progresses, Willow experiences heartbreak and begins to explore the world of magic, becoming a powerful witch. She often misuses magic for selfish reasons, which backfires more than once. This is where she is lured by the dark side a bit. When her first love cheats on her and leaves her, she meets Tara.
Tara brings out the power in Willow. Together, they hone their craft and fall in love. Tara is kind, wise, and gentle. When Willow spirals out of control, addicted to magic (enter Kinda Naughty range of spectrum), Tara cuts her off and breaks up with her. Willow is forced to learn to give up the magic if she wants to heal her relationship with Tara — and succeeds.
Enter Warren.
Warren is going after Buffy, but he’s a crap shot with his pistol, and he shoots Tara through the heart, spattering her blood across Willow’s shirt. Traumatic Event.
It doesn’t take long for Willow to go off the deep end in her anguish. Willow’s transformation is incredible, because she goes through every bit of the spectrum to become Dark Willow. When she gets there, she is full on Big Bad. She’s lost her most treasured love. She’s vengeful. And best of all, we sympathize with her. I cheered her on when she went after Warren.
For the writers out there, how do you make your Big Bads convincing? Do you actively ensure that they are in some way pitiable or sympathetic? Where do they fall on the spectrum, and how did they get there? Even if all of that doesn’t end up in the book, you should know.
As I rework my book, one thing I’m doing is strengthening my Big Bad, making him more frightening, considering his back story. Even though he is downright terrifying, he has reasons for being that way.
I want to hear your thoughts!
Who are your favorite antagonists? How do you feel good antagonists add to a story? If you’re a Buffy fan, how did you feel about Caleb? Willow?
Thank you for flying Terror Tuesday, do come back.
Related articles
- Why we love the Big Bad (christopherspenn.com)
- Monday Man: Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (emmiemears.com)
- Buttressing Your Protagonist, Part 2 (emmiemears.com)
- Monday Man: Spike (emmiemears.com)
- Treading the Tightrope Between Worlds (emmiemears.com)
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Find the Magic
I found myself pondering today. The sort of pondering that comes after a particularly strange dream, perhaps one in which I’m waiting tables but end up driving up a mountain and getting bitten by mosquitoes while talking to regulars who haven’t shaved their scruff in a while. That sort of pondering.
I came off that dream thinking about urban fantasy as opposed to regular high fantasy. Like ya do.
I imagine my pondering looked somewhat like this:
Think, think, thinking. Image via classicdisney.tumblr.com
I grew up reading both urban and epic fantasy, but the first worlds to really immerse me were the ones created by David Eddings. When I first attempted writing, I attempted epic fantasy. I was (and still am) infatuated with trilogies because of an unexplained and possibly neurotic fuzzy spot I have for the number three. This endeavor got about a hundred and fifty pages in, which is a decent attempt for a seventeen year old (shut up, Chris Paolini), and I decided that it was rather trite. So I went to college, started an epically crappy otherworld travel story that was an unabashed knockoff of Stephen Lawhead‘s Song of Albion trilogy, got quite depressed about it, and stopped.
Then I went off to Poland and ran smack into a young lady called Anna MacPherson. She lived in Edinburgh, but she’d grown up in foster care in Portland, Oregon with her brother. Her parents had left them some money when they were killed, but she didn’t know that until she went to college. She grew up protecting Robbie until he could take care of himself, and then she decided to see the world. So she went to Russia and Poland and landed in Scotland for a couple years. And she was about to get a terrifying phone call.
All of the sudden, I stumbled across someone magical.
She seemed rather ordinary, if resilient. But she followed me around until I started writing. I got fifty pages into her story before someone mentioned a woman named Sarah, and I realized that Anna’s story wasn’t the beginning. So I went back to the beginning, which became my first completed novel.
I found after many years of subtle conditioning from L.J. Smith and Ce’Nedra and Aunt Pol, I needed to write a story about women. I knew these women would be powerful, but they’d also have weaknesses. They’d sometimes be stubborn or terrified or angry. They’d sometimes make the wrong choices. But they’d eventually find where they were supposed to go, what they were supposed to do.
I could have perhaps done this through epic fantasy — I plan (whoa, action verb, whatcha doing there?) to eventually go back and finish up that trilogy I began in high school. I think it has a lot of potential. But the character who found me first was a rather soft-spoken young woman with trust issues and a protective nature. She happens to be a lost witch, among other things. But she’s really quite extraordinary.
She is who set me on my path to writing urban fantasy, because her story is a very human story told in the midst of some very superhuman happenings.
And that, gentle viewers, is where all kind of fantasy comes together. It’s the essential fact that they are stories about people who find themselves in strange circumstances, but those circumstances can often parallel reality, at least symbolically.
So I want to know: which stories have touched you? They can be your own, if you write your own. If not, which people popped out of the fantasy world to make a home in your life?
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All I Want For Christmas…
Okay, so I don’t celebrate Christmas in a religious sense. We already took down our tree to rearrange our living room for our brand new Kinect (thanks to Spouse’s parents for that one!), and we had Chinese for lunch. I’m also making a Harry Potter themed dinner for us from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook that Spouse got me for my birthday. Meat and potato pasties (I guess more of a mini-pie…), buttered Brussels sprouts, and glazed carrots with mini custard tarts for dessert.
We started opening presents last night over Skype with Spouse’s family, and then we ended up diving right into the rest of it instead of waiting. We forgot about stockings. All of that is just fine. I got some pretty spectacular gifts this year — a gift card to Massage Envy (Who’s planning a spa day? Emmie is!), the biggest book I’ve ever owned — Harry Potter Filmmaking Journey — and a book to rival that size, the guide for Skyrim. Spouse also got me a heap of books, one by the late David Eddings, and the two missing books of the Fear Street Saga I’ve been trying to replace for years. Also a Buffy omnibus and a hardcover edition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tales.
Did I ever mention I’m a big fat nerd?
Consider that mentioned.
I am a fortunate human.
Spouse also managed to find a steal of a deal on a gorgeous edition of Stieg Larson’s trilogy — cloth-bound hardcovers. I haven’t read them yet, but have been meaning to for some time. Suffice it to say I am quite spoiled this year. Spouse himself made out with a very expensive pair of headphones, a rather rare vinyl album, and a ukulele, which he has been talking about learning for some time now.
So we did the gift thang, in spite of a lack of the church thang, which is fine with us. We joke about SolstiChrismaKwanZukkah, and wished each other a happy solstice a few days ago. It’s been a quiet day. I have a whopping three days (the hourly equivalent of four, actually) off, and I intend to read, hop around and work up a sweat playing video games (whoever invented this is a bloody genius). And write. Of course.
Which brings me to my title.
All those things I got and bought for others this holiday season — I’d give and take it all back in a heartbeat if I could just somehow return my cousin to life, to his daughter and family who all miss him so bereftly. (I know that’s not a word, but I couldn’t find one that said what I wanted it to.) I can’t do that. That’s never been a possibility. So we slowly heal. We listen to Spouse play his ukulele. We call to hear the voices of those we love, to connect with them and remind them we’re still here. We’re still family, and even though there is a hole where Nate should be, we’re all forever bonded and changed by the memories of him that we share. We eat and hug one another. We allow ourselves to grieve when we need to. We celebrate the season as we can, regardless of which day it is.
That’s all I can do. That’s all I want for Christmas. A few precious days with my family before the dawn of a new year. The sun begins its slow return to the earth, to warm us with the hope of a coming spring.
Call someone you love today, someone you have lost touch with, someone you keep meaning to get back in touch with. Tell them you’re thinking of them, that they mean something to you. Laugh about the antics of your children or your cats. Reminisce. Reflect. Life is fragile, and winter can be dark. Remember what matters.
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Birthing the Baby Elephant
Baby Elephant, Take One.
(That reference will come clear a bit later.)
(I just erased about 150 words.)
I has a lot of thoughts, but the words escape me. This picture from Cheezburger.com helps!
I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to write about a certain quote, which I will share in a bit. And when I sat down to do it, my brain very helpfully turned into a humming blank.
I started writing a little about how people don’t necessarily accept the creative fields as legitimate unless we make millions doing it. Then I decided that came off as more ranty than I meant to be. Then my husband brought me a video from Conan of two people getting married who had never kissed before — and we both had a laugh at the extreme awkward. (You can see that rather sad moment here and have a laugh and a shudder for yourself. I am personally very glad my husband and I knew how to kiss on our wedding day.)
So here I am, almost two hundred words in, and I haven’t said anything at all. Shame on me.
I’m here though, writing. Why on earth am I here writing when I don’t know what to write about? (Woohoo! I found my nugget!) I’ll tell you.
It’s because that’s what I do. Even though I have very little time to do much of anything outside of work, I realized yesterday that if I were to stop updating this blog every day, I would be quite sad.
Me. If I abandoned all of you gentle viewers. Image via pavley.com
Something happens to me when I don’t write. It’s like the thriving, glowy bit that exists somewhere in my core begins to shrivel up like when you put an aluminum can in a fire. At first you can’t see the difference, but after a bit, the outside starts crumpling inward. The bright colors fade into ashen grays, and the metal begins to collapse in on itself until it’s nothing but an empty, thin shell of rubbish.
This is not to say that my writing all comes from a shiny soda can in my heart, but I believe you get the point.
The part that holds the words reacts in a sort of inverse relationship to that crinkling can. If I don’t write, all those words pour into an inner page. They get jammed on top of one another. They jostle each other. They press down too hard and pebble the backside of the page. Over and over it happens while my can is wrinkling and I’m going about “normal” life. Those word pile up until they cannot be contained anymore. It’s like the more of them that fill that page, the more they transmogrify it into a pulsing, breathing being that flexes its muscles as the millions of built up words in varying degrees of pen and pencil scroll across its skin — until it erupts out of me.
I’m supposed to write every day, you see. I could show you a shelf of journals I kept over the years. It was long ago I realized that I had to write. I needed to write. Those words needed to come out before I collapsed in on myself or exploded or did both at once.
That’s where Mr. David Eddings comes in. Because he said it so well, I’m not going to paraphrase his perfect words. I’m going to offer them to you with a scarlet ribbon trailing down the side of a white package, a package that holds a slight shimmer when you turn it this way or that. It’s for you to tug on that ribbon and peel back that gold-kissed paper and see what he has to say. So here it is. Go ahead. Take it.
This is what I was talking about earlier when I suggested most aspiring fantasists will lose heart fairly early on. I was in my mid-teens when I discovered that I was a writer. Notice that I didn’t say “wanted to be a writer.” “Want” has almost nothing to do with it. It’s either there or it isn’t. If you happen to be one, you’re stuck with it. You’ll write whether you get paid for it or not. You won’t be able to help yourself. When it’s going well, it’s like reaching up into heaven and pulling down fire. It’s better than any dope you can buy. When it’s not going well, it’s much like giving birth to a baby elephant.
That’s why it doesn’t matter if people think we have zero chances of success in these fields. It doesn’t matter if today was me spending an hour in labor to birth this baby elephant instead of pulling down fire from the sky. The fire will come back another time.
Until then, gentle viewers, be writers.
I of course couldn't end this without a picture of a baby elephant. See how adorable! Image via Wikipedia
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Second Childhood: A Moment of Literary Senility
Last week I stumbled across a very interesting blog called Broke and Bookish, which has a fun tradition of creating Top Ten lists each Tuesday on predetermined topics. The one for this week snared my attention, so I thought I would participate. I spend a lot of time thinking about the sorts of books that influence my writing, as well as the ones that lived right at hand during my childhood and adolescence, and this list describes those. Some are perhaps a bit embarrassing, but that’s quite all right. Perhaps you might even like to check some of them out if you haven’t read them yet — though I doubt you’ll track down all hundred plus BSC novels.
Top Ten (Or So) Childhood Faves
It goes without saying that I never once in my life have looked this sophisticated. Image via blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com
1. The Baby-Sitters Club, books 1-bazillion.
This series occupied many years of my childhood. I skipped over the Baby-Sitter’s Little Sister series, because even at age 7, I found it too juvenile. I loved the idea of young women starting a business and succeeding at it, and I read these books over and over again. I knew to always skip chapter 2, because it only described the club members (and I knew them well enough to recognize them if I passed one on the street). I longed to visit Stoneybrook and knew that all their phone numbers began with 555 long before I realized that was the go-to fictional number prefix.
I modeled my fashion sense after Claudia Kishi — on my 10th birthday, I wore (just picture this) a black leotard, black tights. Over that I wore a pair of knee-length white shorts and a pair of white socks. Black shoes. White plastic pearls. I also was known to create this outfit in red and yellow, which I called my “Ketchup and Mustard Motif.”
I was not very popular.
This is the copy I gave to my niece last year. Thanks, amazon.com!
2. Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia Wrede
Going with my trend of strong women, Princess Cimorene quickly became one of my first heroes. She wanted to fight with swords. She wanted to have adventures. She did not want to sit in a castle and embroider cushions, which sounded frightfully like a lifetime of hell to me as well. Instead, she volunteers to be a dragon’s princess, sends all her suitors away with a scoff, and saves the dragon king (who is female) from scheming wizards. What a glorious book! I might go read it again tonight.
Even the cover of this book evokes emotions I first felt 17 years ago.
3. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
I’m not quite sure if I’ve ever found a more pivotal book in my life. Some fiction reaches out and grabs hold of you, never really letting you go. The story of Jonas living his life in ignorance of color, animals, sunshine, and things we take for granted every day touched me in a way very few books ever have again. The Book Thief, which I mention often, wriggled into my heart in a very similar fashion. The realization of the ritual of “release” in the book and the sheer weight of one person bearing the memories of loss, war, famine, disease, and death — even tempered by love and kittens — was overwhelming to me, even as a child. If by some strange twist of serendipity, you have not read The Giver, I hereby give you leave to stop reading my blog, go to the library, and get it now.
This book taught me about switchblades! I got the image from
4. The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
If you grew up in the American school system, no doubt you came across this book ad nauseum during those formative years. I am pretty sure I was assigned this book no less than four years in a row, and I probably saw the movie about eight times, if not more. And yet for all that, it was one of my favorites. I could relate to Pony Boy, growing up poor and the struggles he coped with, if not the violence. I didn’t fully understand just how poor we were until I went to college, so I was perhaps spared that sledgehammer when I read the book. I will say that I pronounced the word “Soc” wrong in my head for several years until I read a book by L.J. Smith that spelled it out “Soshe.” I have a warm place in my heart for this novel.
I wanted that pendant. Still kinda do. Image via paperbackswap.com
5. R.L. Stine‘s Fear Street Saga
R.L. Stine. This man woke a love of horror in me. My mom used to stare at me in wonder as I would devour one of his Fear Street books immediately before going to bed. I remember the imagery of purple rotting flesh, of maggots and empty eye sockets, blood and vomit and monsters. Again, as with the BSC books, I mostly passed over Goosebumps, though I did read them a bit later. I fell in love with the historically themed Fear Street Saga, which showed how Fear Street got its name and its horror-charged atmosphere, starting with the witch hunts of Salem, where a falsely accused Sarah Goode ended up burned at the stake alongside her mother, when her father was the real witch. He cursed the Fier family in return, starting a blood feud that would span centuries and destroy both families.
These have all been re-released, but oh, how familiar is this cover?! Image via Wikipedia.
6. Anything Ramona that came from Beverly Cleary’s mind
Not only did I fall in love with Ramona’s antics, but we lived in Portland, Oregon at the time, and I was obsessed with the fact that I lived in Ramona’s city. Did you know Klickitat Street really exists? Yep. I’ve seen it.
I loved tales of Ramona and her urge to “boing” Susan’s long curls. I loved learning via Ramona that the idiom “for the present” had nothing to do with gifts. I didn’t understand why her calling Beezus “pizza face” was such a big deal. I learned a lot from this little pest.
I also learned that even twenty years ago, Algernon would have been a very unfortunate name for a baby.
I wanted my name to be Rowan. I still remember the imagery of her sinewy feet. I wanted my feet to look like I could run like the wind. Image via amazon.com.
7. L.J. Smith‘s Night World — pretty much anything by this woman.
If R.L. Stine was my guru for purple flesh, L.J. Smith was my goddess of vampires. This was years before Twilight, around the time of the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, but Daughters of Darkness was my first vampire novel.
Bam, snap. Love.
Her Night World series reigned supreme in my world. One of her characters was even from Montana (where I moved at age 11), though I remember getting annoyed that she was set in a non-existent county. Montana has 56 of them, and I thought she ought to have chosen a real one. I have waited almost 13 years (or more) for the release of Strange Fate, the conclusion to the series. If it doesn’t come out soon, I will cry.
So good. Image from book-covers.lucywho.com
8. Lynn Beach’s Phantom Valley
Are we there yet?! Three more. I read all of these books, from the chilling starter The Evil One to Curse of the Claw. They were chilling and terrifying, and I gobbled them up. Dolls that wanted you dead, mummy cats, youth-stealing witches, and mirrors that formed portals to other centuries — I couldn’t get enough.
These books have been out of print for some time, but I bought a few of them not long ago and am trying to flesh out my collection. They fed my love of the horror and thriller genre. Looking back, I really did love a scare at those young, tender ages. Probably explains why I’m such a weirdo.
Mmm. Druids. Image via paperbackswap.com
9. The Druid’s Tune
Almost there, phew! O.R. Melling can be credited for inciting a love of the type of fantasy where characters from our world end up plunked into another. Such is the case in this book, where two teens from modern America are sent to Ireland for the summer and end up transported into the time of Queen Maeve and Cuchulain, fighting over magical cattle. The book focuses on the mythological story of Tain Bo Cuailnge, and oh, did I ever wish for that kind of adventure to happen to me. I think I still get a little hopeful every time I wander a ring of standing stones.
Not to mention the fact that whenever that happens in books, the women end up with dashing suitors who find them otherworldly and charming. 
Read this series if you like fantasy at all.
10. David Eddings’s Belgariad and Malloreon
I don’t know how I missed this, but whilst searching for the image to go with this blurb, I discovered that David Eddings passed two years ago. I am suddenly quite devastated. He was my Tolkein, my Lewis. While I liked Narnia, I fell in love with Eddings’s world and characters. I grew up with Garion as he became a sorcerer and battled the Angaraks for the freedom of the West. This series is high fantasy with a dry, witty skepticism sprinkled throughout that is both refreshing and delightful.
I know Mr. Eddings was quite old, but this is heartbreaking. I don’t know how on earth I missed his death for two years. His writing style and wit will be deeply, deeply missed. He was one of the biggest contributors to my love of fantasy, and I’m rather shell-shocked to hear of his passing.
Well, that is a lengthy 10, gentle viewers. Bravo if you stayed with me till the end. There are probably a hundred other books that influenced me, from the Berenstein Bears to Laura Ingalls Wilder, from the Boxcar Children to Wayside School — so many books, so many beloved stories.
There is no doubt in my mind that books shape us. I believe my character has been wrought at the hands of authors and the characters they created for me to befriend as a rather lonely child moving from school to school every year or so. I credit the books on this list for helping me learn what I love to write, for always being there when I needed a friend, knowing that every cracked spine and dog-eared page is only a sign that, like the Velveteen Rabbit, my books have been brought to life with love.
This post can only be dedicated to David Eddings, master world-smith and purveyor of words. I am thankful for his life’s work.
Like this:
In Pursuit of Happiness
According to the preamble to the Constitution of the good old U.S. of A., this is one of those little inalienable rights that we are endowed with as human beens. And it’s this particular right that I am in the process of taking out for a spin.
I know that it doesn’t guarantee happiness, but if the right to pursue it is there, that’s good enough for me. (Random thought: how is it possible to guarantee this?)
What this means for me is that I am going to chase this little fledgling (actually full-fledged) dream of writing for a living. I don’t say “being a writer” because I am one of those — I just don’t get paid for it. Unless I am a horrible person and write at work when I should be doing other things…ahem.
Today I was thinking about my story. And the stories of others. There is a quote that says a story is life with the dull parts taken out. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, seeing as how plenty of stories have dull bits in them — and the idea of what is dull is subjective. However, I will say that I think a story has to be told as though it’s unfolding in front of you. Some authors manage to make it work in other ways, like telling it through letters or through dialogue — I’ve seen that work effectively in the past — but most of the time it needs to just play.
Even though 99% of novels are written in past tense, when they’re written well, it’s like you’re in the same room with the characters. You can smell their sweat and feel the shivers. If it’s told like you would tell a friend what you did yesterday, it won’t keep my attention. It lacks the flow, the tide that sucks you in. Such a flow is not something that is easy to accomplish, especially in a vomit draft.
A lot of times, when we write, we have a concept in our head and we write it down the way it makes sense to us. It’s in the editing process where we go in with a scalpel and cut into it until it makes sense to others. The best writing makes readers forget they’re reading — and this holds true with non-fiction as well as fiction.
This post is really not cohesive. For that, gentle viewers, I apologize.
Here’s a brief update on my writing progress before I attempt to cajole my body into sleeping:
(Ooh! “Sleeping” put me at exactly 500 words so far! How exciting.)
Today one of my characters got blown up. I kind of think she deserved it. She’s been in a snit this entire book. Regardless, I feel bad for her. She has a lot going on in her noggin. I just wish she’d stop acting like a 12-year-old hormone bomb and more like the badass lion she is. Seriously.
I am making some good progress. Elemental looks like it will wind up being about 100,000-120,000 words, which is right where I want/expect it to be. Primeval will probably get trimmed a bit, but its successor might be able to get away with being a bit longer. Right now I’m at roughly 85,000. I did the math on Primeval yesterday and found that as is, it’s about 440 book pages if you count it out assuming around 250 per page. That’s the length I’m going for. I’m not Jo Rowling…yet.
To round out this meandering sort of post, I just stumbled across a rather perfect metaphor thanks to a friend who posted a picture of a little dark cloud against an overcast sky. It reminded me very much of Winnie-the-Pooh, who decided one day to disguise himself as a little black rain cloud in his pursuit of honey, which happened to be at the top of a tall tree. He did so by rolling in some very black mud and holding tight to a balloon, hoping that the bees would not think he was threatening their livelihood.
Whilst floating above the earth, Pooh sang, “Oh, I’m just a little black rain cloud!” (The full lyrics to which can be found here) Needless to say, the bees were not fooled by this endeavor, and Pooh swiftly found himself plunging rear-end first into a gorse bush.
The moral of this story is this: We have the freedom to pursue our honey by whatever means we see fit. It may be at the top of a very tall tree, but if we’re not afraid of falling a few times and getting some gorse in our bums, we just might get there one day.
*In case you’re wondering which books these are, they are, respectively: David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series, which are phenomenal; and Daughters of Darkness, by LJ Smith, who was the woman responsible for hooking me on vampires about 15 years ago. The characters to which I’m referring here are Ce’Nedra and Mary-Lynnette.
