Happy Year of the Wood Sheep (or goat?)

It's the end of the Fire cycle, and onto the Wooden cycle!

...and it's the year of the sheep! The lucky 8th animal of the zodiac calendar!

Sheep is one of Chinese favorite animals. Sheep's Chinese character is  Yang, not  Wei. The Chinese character of Luck  contains the . The pronunciation of  is Xiang, which is close to Yang . Therefore, Sheep becomes a lucky animal. The sound of  Yang is same to  Yang of Yin Yang.  Yang means the positive energy in the universe.

(and yes, I'm biased because I'm a sheep, even though I don't believe in luck -> no I don't believe in astrology either, but this is all in good fun)

Something you probably don't know about me is that I have a name seal/stamp with my name written (phonetically) in Chinese characters. Honestly, I can't even remember where/when I got it since I've had it so long, but I think I might have gotten it on a field trip when I was in elementary school. The other kids bought candy. I bought a name stamp. Yeah. I was weird back then too.

Wanna see?

You can see an example of it stamped on the small yellow sticky note. One of these days I should actually look up the characters and find out the meaning of characters...

(I can also write my name in Katakana Japanese characters -> my 1st grade teacher, Ms. Morioka, taught me. I can also write it in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Yeah, I'm nerdy like that.)


Oh, and since there's always the confusion of whether it's supposed to be goat/sheep/ram, here:

Actually, Chinese people are also not quite sure about that. In Chinese the word 羊 (yáng) is a generic term, and can refer to a sheep (绵羊), goat (山羊), ram/buck (公羊 male sheep or goat), 羚羊 (antelope), etc. There is a lack of clear definition on the zodiac "Goat" in Chinese history.

However, most Chinese people and experts on folklore believe that the Chinese zodiac animal is the Goat, not the Sheep, and they have some evidence to support their idea...

Firstly, the Chinese zodiac is an invention of the Han Nationality, and goats were widely raised by the Han people (unlike sheep), so the zodiac animal is more likely to refer to a goat.

Secondly, a Goat image often appears on Chinese zodiac stamps, New Year paper cuttings, and New Year paintings (not a sheep).

Thirdly, the Goat was one of the 12 bronze statues of the Chinese zodiac at the Old Summer Palace. Although its head was lost, its present reproduction according to historical records is the image of a goat.

But since sheep are cuter and goats are evil (seriously... they bite), I'm still going with sheep ;)

For a fun time waster you can go here and click on your animal to see your fortune for the coming year.

Foggy Flash Fiction Friday

It's been a while since I've written any flash fiction, but today felt like a good day to play.

Here's the first line, so come play along. You know I'm a total nut when it comes to fog, and with all the awesome foggy weather the last couple of weeks, I figured this line would be fitting.

The fog is claustrophobic.

Uncertainty/risk in terms of plot

I am a pantsing-type writer, so my characters always come first. Their choices change the course of the plot, which is why, for me as a writer, knowing a character’s field of focus is essential.

Which is why this particular post is going to feel like it bled over from yesterdays... plot & character are inseparable in my mind. I get writers block when I disconnect when a character, when I don’t know how they would react, what choice they would make, etc.

Probably, one of the main reasons I’m not very good at understanding structure is because I write this way.

The last post on character already talked a bit about plot, about how the character must have a believable set of experiences/knowledge by the time they hit the climax, and similarly, this post is going to waver between plot & character.

You can break plot down into character reactions/decisions. When a character is hit with something they are unprepared for (uncertainty), they’re going to react.

When a character is hit with something they are prepared for (risk), they are going to make a decision.

Now, I’m not guaranteeing that every time your character comes up again uncertainty they will fail and every time they come up again risk they will succeed. There are always outside influences that affect the outcome, good or bad.

Many of those outside influences will be like a trail of breadcrumbs through the story, insignificant on their own, but when the MC gets to the climax, they realize they’ve got an entire loaf of bread. (Note-to-self: hydras probably like bread, yes? What about pit-vipers?)

As writers, we are (or should be) masters at manipulation.

In ‘Who-dun-it’ novels, facts are the breadcrumbs. Essentially, a series of sensory data that the MC observes, then puts all those pieces together in a cohesive pattern. When the MC is clear on what happened, s/he fingers the butler as the killer.

We provide clues to the reader, not just observational data (which you can consider, for the purpose of my point, hard data. As in: facts), but with emotional and psychological filters through which that data is absorbed (as in, your character’s field of focus). They may notice a room full of things (the list of hard data) but will only focus on some of it (the field of focus).

You can provide all the facts in the world, you can tell a smoker the statistics of how many people die from cancer, if the data exists in the realm of ‘uncertainty’, they’re not going to stop smoking. They are going to believe they’re that 1% who will survive, so they pull themselves out of the trenches and run forward into machine-gun-fire.

To hook a reader, we have to transition ‘uncertainty’ into ‘risk’ We have to bring it into their personal field of focus, and the best way to do that is to make them care.

YES! Emotional manipulation!

But… how do we do that?

We mine our own experiences. We break our own hearts, we bleed on the page, we mourn the loss of a favourite pet.

Personally, I’m really sick of the phrase ‘save-the-cat’, but I’m going to use it anyways because it’s a general concept I think most people are familiar with. For those who aren’t, the general principle is to show an unlikable character doing something nice, like rescuing a vulnerable kitten who is alone in the rain -> to show they are only mean-and-prickly on the outside but are really a marshmallow on the inside.

Alternatively, there’s ‘kick-the-dog’, where a seemingly nice character is seen secretly being mean to someone else, therefore letting the reader/viewer know that that character is super evil.

It feels like bad/poorly done emotional manipulation... it's so obvious, I tend to roll my eyes.

I don’t like these terms because they simplify things into *good* and *evil*, but they are easy to work with/explain, and in terms of actual writing, you can get similar impact in a much subtler way.

Example: In TRoRS, Triss steals a bag of chips to share with N... not Triss' favourite flavour, N's favourite. Small acts of consideration, of putting another character first, are a lot more subtle, and a lot more realistic than literally saving a cat in the rain.

And characters don’t have to be likeable. Most of my characters... I seriously think I'm trying to make readers hate them (what's wrong with me?)

But think of the term anti-hero, or flawed main character. How many people like Spiderman and Batman more than Superman? Batman, especially, because even with all his fancy toys, he’s human, he’s mortal, he has no superpowers. He has to work harder than other superheros, and we kindof admire that.

(I don’t like “heros”. Heroes often make me angry when they justify horrible deeds because ‘they have no choice’ or are simply horrible people, but it's justified 'cause they are 'saving-the-world')

I am a huge fan of both Courtney Summers and Laurie Halse Anderson. These amazing authors (and others) write interesting and realistic characters, and it's their characters that made me want to write YA in the first place. If you’ve never read CS’s thoughts on “unlikable female characters”, read this and this and this.

There are reasons you keep turning the pages in CS’s books, not as obvious as a ‘save-the-cat’ thing, but there are moments where you understand the prickly, mean, selfish character… and that’s enough to keep reading.

Emotional manipulation. That’s how we let a reader see through the emotional/psychological lens of our characters. So what’s that all about?

Prepare to groan…

It’s in showing, not telling.

Essentially, it’s about letting the reader live in the character’s skin, letting them view the data through that character’s field of focus instead of simply summarizing what happened. When you summarize, there’s no emotional connection. When you live in the character’s skin, that’s where you experience the sights, smells, and emotions of the character.

And that’s how/why you care. Because you are gaining experience. That character’s life transitions from ‘uncertainty’ to ‘risk’. You learn the ability to plan/manage/understand the character's choices.

It’s no longer a statistic printed on a cigarette carton, it’s discovering your 6 year old daughter has asthma because of your smoking. Suddenly an uncertainty, something so unlikely to happen you don’t even think about it, becomes a risk. It enters your field of focus and becomes important.

You can't un-learn knowledge/experience.

Yeah, I know it seems like I’m wandering all over the place. Like trying to walk a beagle right? They’re constantly weaving all over the place, stopping short, and getting underfoot.

(also eating gross things on the ground… shiny tangent? where? /gives self minor whiplash...)

My point is:

Each plot point/progression has to have an emotional stake, something that matters to the character. To use another very common/familiar example, in ‘The Hunger Games,’ Katniss had no reason to volunteer to be tribute… but why did she?

She had all the facts, she knew whoever went would die, there was a statistical chance her sister could be chosen, but the thought never even occurred to her as being in the realm of possibility until her sister’s name was called and the idea, and the risk/outcome, entered her field of focus. It suddenly became important.

Then she had to make a decision.

And this is why I say that, for me, a character’s choice changes the course of the story, and to know what they would choose, first you have to know their field of focus. What constitutes risk and what constitutes uncertainty? What are their past knowledge, experience, and interests?

...and what about the characters around your MC?

And with that food-for-thought, I'll leave you. Have a good weekend, all!

/end nerdy-series-of-posts.

Uncertainty/risk in terms of character

We build up our own understanding of risk through experience: how we react to uncertainty/risk and how others react to uncertainty/risk.

So when we look at characters, what experiences do they have with risk/uncertainty, and how can we use our own experiences as writers?

Sorry for another Margaret Atwood quote, but: “Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.”

I’m not really a fan of dystopian books. Part of this is because I prefer personal/intimate character journeys rather than ‘save-the-world’ ones. I’m also not really a fan because dystopian world are often simplified to the point where a blind monkey could poke logic holes all over the place.

Note I said often, not always. I have read a few fabulous dystopian books.

Logic is my thing. It’s how I write (I could probably link 2 dozen+ posts about writing), how I read/edit/critique (and another 2 dozen here), and how I think (seriously, you’re already neck-deep in another nerdy-over-analytical-series-of-posts and you should know I'm prone to this type of behaviour).

Like my favourite writing-group-ism, the “Pizza Popsicle”, I drive everyone crazy with the number of times I ask “why” and "I can't quite imagine that."

And I think a huge part of this is I want to believe. I want to get so caught up in a character or world that I lose the impulse to ask “why” and just live in the story.

So bringing my point back around again (darn you, shiny tangents…)

The Margaret Atwood quote is about uncertainty/risk. If the lights went out, for those to whom that was an ‘uncertainty’ would have no way of managing/planning, and that situation would be a dystopia. For those to whom the lights going out was a ‘risk’, for them, because they have the ability to manage/plan, that situation could be their own utopia. 

Hey, what an awesome chance to whip out a shotgun and loot/pillage or kill that neighbour who always lets his dog poop on your lawn.

So, why am I talking about dystopian literature and Margaret Atwood when I promised a post about characters?

Well, because I think that can be the basis for how you position your main character within your world (and I’m not specifically meaning sci-fi/fantasy, I’m being inclusive of contemporary/our world/etc as well when I use this term).

Zombies attack. For your main character, is this situation ‘risk’ or ‘uncertainty’?

Your MC’s brother overdoses. Is this situation a ‘risk’ or an ‘uncertainty’?

Your magician got cursed and now his wand is a self-aware, snarky pit-viper (with its full latent magic).

Your orphan shark MC has just been adopted by a vegan parrot fish couple.

All of these characters in all of these situations could react in an innumerable number of ways depending on what their background is, but switching it from 'risk' to 'uncertainty' ups the stakes.

When you get to the climax and your magician is facing a demon-princess transmogrified into a giant hydra, and has to convince his wand-turned-pit-viper to help when it would rather slither into a cool, dank hole or sunbathe on a sunny rock, as a reader, I want to believe it when your magician pulls a badly whittled flute from his robes and hypnotizes that pit-viper into saving his ass…

…but if you haven’t lead me to believe it’s logical, that he can whittle a flute, that he has past experiences with hypnotizing snakes, or fighting giant hydras, I’m not going to believe it. Sure, he can flub up every one of those things along the way, but he has to gain experience in those areas.

The trick of convincing a reader into believing something as absurd as that (by the way, that pit-viper story idea is now copyrighted*… so no stealing) is possible.

No matter what you throw at your character, there has to be a balance between ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’.

Well, no, I’m going to amend that. I think the inciting incident can be an ‘uncertainty’, and other events/challenges in the story can also be 'uncertainties', but the climax has to be a ‘risk’. The character must have the experience to manage/plan to take down that giant hydra. He can’t suddenly just take off his shoe and throw it in the air in the hopes that the hydra will choke on it… if that hydra does choke, or the magician suddenly becomes enlightened (even though he has never meditated a day in his life) and can cast killer-destructo-spells without his pit-viper-wand, then I’m throwing your book across the room.

Okay, not really, because I’d probably be reading it on my Kindle.

There must be a logical progression/absorption of knowledge/experience.

And I’m not just talking about big stuff, I’m talking about little stuff too.

Y’know I will pick apart every word in every sentence (which is why I don’t do line edits). One thing I am particularly anal about is are *how* characters view the world. Metaphors/similes that are out of character, phrases ‘too old’ or ‘too young’, observations that are ‘too juvenile’ or ‘too self-aware’, I’m going to take those apart really fast.

A character in a sci-fi story is probably not going to compare a distant planet or technology to something common from Victorian England, just as a character who has grown up in the mountains isn’t going to describe things with visuals from, say, the ocean, or the plains. Your seventeen-year-old valley girl who grew up in the city and is into shopping and makeup won’t compare the sound of her heels to gunfire and the sound of her friends talking shouldn't be compared to barnyard animals. Those things are not in her field of focus.

People talk differently, depending on their background/experience, and so should characters.

And this is another way to think about/write an authentic voice, by knowing what your character’s field of focus is.

I’m not saying I an expert, I am in no way claiming I’m right or I never make mistakes, but this is one of the things I work towards (read: obsess over) in my own writing. Heck, my own taste in characters is pretty questionable...

(seriously... I'm not even going to bother linking because there are too many examples I could use here)

How your character understands the world and makes choices is based on their past experiences. 

You’ve heard the line, “To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

So what tool** is your character?

And what do the problems you (the writer) throw at them look like? Are they all nails (risk), or did you throw a few screws and a staple in there (uncertainty)?

If you're having a problem with tension, maybe your 'hammer' character has been given all 'nails' and every problem is too easily solved.

* Wouldn't that magician story make an awesome bedtime story?

** Hahaha, I totally called your character a tool! (can you tell I'm over-tired?)

Uncertainty/risk as a writer

The biggest reason I think uncertainty/risk is good for a writer to understand is that, in general, I think it's good to recognize larger patterns. We are a community of thinkers, and by stepping back, stripping away all the BS, and analyzing about how we think, how we make decisions, how we gather information, how we react, how we view reality, I think those are worthwhile pursuits, because they help us create more vivid and realistic characters and subtext.

Personally, for writers, risk/uncertainty enters our daily life, maybe in ways we don't think about.

For example, some agents post year-end query stats, which I always find really interesting to read. I’m going to make up some numbers, just to give you an idea of what I mean.

Agent A received 250 queries/week in 2014. Out of those 250 queries, s/he requested 5 manuscripts. That’s 1000 queries a month, 20 manuscripts to be read/considered. In a year, that’s 12,000 queries, 240 manuscripts to read/consider.

Out of those 240 manuscripts, Agent A takes on 3 new clients.

Do you want to do the math?

Just like wave after wave of Canadian soldiers getting gunned down, the success rate is dismally low, but every writer sends off a query letter convinced that they are going to be that 1% who survive.

Now, I’m not saying that to be discouraging.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

If we believe we’re going to fail, we will.

But I think it’s important to think about in terms of managing our expectations as writers. Writing is an extremely solitary state, and it can be really discouraging when others around us are succeeding -> but they are that 1%. By understanding the numbers, it puts into perspective how many other writers are in the exact same circumstance as our own. It transitions from ‘uncertainty’ to ‘risk’ when we have that awareness, when we allow it to enter our frame of focus.

Another writer I follow recently re-tweeted this article by Robin LaFevers, and the author Laini Taylor linked to a post about the blessings of not being happy all the time.

As a culture, we don’t like to talk about failure. We don’t like to be seen as losers, or whiners. It hurts our pride to be proven wrong. It’s the prevalence of this attitude that propagates stigmas around mental illness, infertility, addictions, etc. It's why people put up with abusive relationships or jobs they hate.

I myself am guilty of this. I try to only post about good things in my life, and not dwell on the bad. I often talk about my dyslexia, but it’s framed in such a way to focus on what I’ve learned, what I’m better at, or simply for humour to lighten the mood.

But for years and years I wouldn't admit to anyone that I had a learning disability because I thought people would think I was stupid. And I'm not. There's a reason I was able to hide it for 20+ years of my life.

I haven’t been blogging consistently for a while, partially due to the number of deaths/illnesses in my family, but partially because I separated with my soon-to-be-ex-husband a little over two years ago (yes, it is STILL not done...). It’s been a heavy/stressful couple of years, and often I don’t have the emotional/mental capacity to re-frame things in a good light or to see the humour in it.

I choose silence out of embarrassment, out of not wanting to look like a failure, or a whiner.

It’s out of fear.

And I’m not alone in that.

This is why we deal with uncertainty the way we do: we rationalize it or we blame others. It’s to protect our fragile ego, and all that does is propagate more uncertainty.

So, again, what does this have to do with writers? Well, as I said, we’ re pretty solitary, so we're already prone to the dangers of uncertainty. When we are hit with something bad, especially failure or rejection, what do we do?

Well, if we talked more as a community, shared more of our collective experiences, ‘uncertainty’ becomes ‘risk’. We would have the benefit of other people’s experiences, and knowing that we are not alone is a big deal in making something more manageable.

And I’m not just talking about our mental/emotional/psychological state, I’m talking about our writing.

I wrote a post last year about mining emotion from past experiences and recycling them in stories. Well, why not mine other people’s experiences as well? Wouldn’t having that range give us a wider perspective on what is and could be possible for characters, for plot?

Earnest Hemingway famously said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be our blood on the page. We can reimagine our own experiences/emotions, it doesn't have to be 'write what you know' in the literal sense. We can ask other people questions, especially about the hard stuff we don't usually talk about out of fear, so we can gain knowledge/experience from them.

Do you know how many people have thanked me, in comments or via email, for being so blunt in these posts about my struggles with dyslexia? I really have no idea... but a lot.

Something I felt ashamed of for years... talking about it has helped other people.

And it's changing my perspective on it. I still will never be proud of having a learning disability, but by not hiding it, by having that conversation, it puts into perspective how many other people are/have been dealing with similar things.

Maybe my experiences can be something I pass along, for others to use.

Margaret Atwood said, “Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error.”

Writing is about sharing experiences, especially in YA/MG stories. There’s a huge push for authentic characters, authentic *voice*, authentic reactions/actions. We want readers to connect to our characters, to our stories.

And for that to happen, there has to be an emotional connection. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone has to love your main character, but they have to be interested in them, they have to understand why a character chooses something and why they react to something else. 

If the character is “too dumb to live”, the reader will put down the book in anger/frustration.

We want to believe the character is real, that if a reader was placed in a similar circumstance, with similar knowledge/skills/experience that they might make similar choices.

Notice what I did there?

Next post will be about uncertainty/risk in terms of character.