Archive for the ‘Reflections’ Category

Stop Being Overdramatic!

Posted: December 12, 2013 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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I’m hearing a lot of comments on political news shows about how certain programs the government is doing or how certain actions being taken are being considered as slavery/apartheid/the Holocaust/genocide/etc. by certain people. I’ve just got one thing to say: quit the melodrama! Obamacare is not apartheid or slavery, abortion is not the Holocaust, shaking hands with Raul Castro is not the same as shaking hands with Adolf Hitler!

You see, there are certain groups here in America–African Americans, South African immigrants, Jews, etc.–who get really upset every time their national/ethnic/religious persecutions and injustices are used flippantly in political speech. It belittles the tragedy, makes it seems trivial. I mean, take slavery for example. It seems absurd if I compare myself to a slave if I complain about my homework every day, doesn’t it? How about being told to go to bed by your parents? Does that make you a slave? No it does not!

And actually, not only are these statements trivializing the tragedies in question, they are terribly inaccurate. Obamacare is not forcing people to work in horrid conditions and receive little or no benefits for it and are actually mistreated by overseers. Nor is Obamacare forcing people who are not enrolled in its programs to live in separate areas of towns or even of the country and putting strict legal restrictions on interactions between those enrolled and those not enrolled in the program. And unless abortion has become the state-sponsored deportation of fetuses to ghettos or work camps where they are subjected to conditions meant to either kill off or turn them into human beasts while my back was turned, I think it’s a little much to start comparing your local Planned Parenthood clinic to Auschwitz!

Of course, you’re free to disagree with me. That’s the lovely part of America: we can all have our own opinions, and as long as they don’t lead to violence, becoming socially ostracized, or aren’t a symptom of some mental illness,  we can express them as we wish and expect little or no backlash. However, I urge you to be cognizant of your words when you make a comparison between something you disagree with and a terrible tragedy or an unspeakable act. You may offend somebody with such an interpretation of events or a comparison. And if you don’t care who you offend in making these statements–my, how callous can you get!

And if my point hasn’t gotten across how gross these comparisons are, let my friend Dr. Sheldon Cooper show you how ridiculous these comparisons are.


Get the picture?

Oh, no comments that are offensive or trying to convince me that Obama is out to get Americans or whatever. I don’t want to hear it and I’ll delete those comments should they show up here. I’m just saying, be careful what comparisons you’re using, because many find them upsetting and terribly inaccurate.

Being Time Conscientious In Fiction

Posted: December 9, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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One thing I struggled with early on in my attempts to become a professional writer was time, or more accurately, keeping tack of it. In my earliest stories, whether it be about lycanthropic pirates or a Harry Potter-esque story of witches, keeping track of how much time has passed was not high on my to-do list. I was more concerned with making a novel that would sell millions of copies, win me legions of adoring fans, and regularly get adapted into blockbuster hits. Why should I pay attention to how quickly a year can pass or how it’s noon on one page and then sunset on the next when I have to decide who I want to play my female protagonist and if she’s going to be my girlfriend?

But I got older, and around the time I started writing my earliest vampire stories, I started to become more aware of the passage of time in those stories. I think it first occurred to me that it seemed weird that my characters were still in school around late June. From then on I tried to keep the passage of time consistent in the stories I wrote, and as I got much older and realized there were too many vampire novels out there at the moment for me to make a name for myself with those sorts of stories, I started to put dates and even the passage of hours in my outlines, which would later end up in the early drafts of the stories I wrote.

And no one else is more aware of time than the guys and gals who write the Doctor’s adventures.

If you examine other authors who are extemely popular, you’ll notice how they try to keep the reader as well as themselves aware of the passage of time without annoying the reader with it. For example, JK Rowling structured her entire Harry Potter series around the school year in Britain. Stephen King’s It switches between 1958 and 1985 and King makes sure to note how June passes on into July and July into August during the 1958 sections. And Jean Auel’s famous Children of Earth series is very particular of marking the passing of seasons and years.

All in all, I think keeping tack of the passage of time in my stories has very much improved them, and in some of these stories  I need to be cognizant of how much time has passed in order to tell the story correctly. For example, my WIP Laura Horn takes place during the week leading up to the 2017 Presidential Inauguration. I went online to find advance calendar dates for that January, and only then did I write out the plot in my outline for the story. In addition, I have several ideas for stories that need to be very time conscientious while writing them. One takes place during World War II, meaning I’ll have to be very careful of the dates of certain events in order to tell the story correctly. And I have a science-fantasy story involving time travel that will require me to be very careful about the dates I use, should I ever get around to writing it.

The only thing I wish I was better at was keeping track of dates by making a timeline. However, doing a timeline at the outline stage isn’t always helpful because so much can change between the outline stage and in the actual writing of the story. Perhaps I can find some sort of middle ground in future stories. I might ask my writing group on Facebook if they have any tips on doing timelines.

And speaking of Facebook, I just want to remind people that I have a Facbook page and a Twitter feed, where I post on stuff that I don’t always post about on my blog. If you’re interested in checking either out, please do so.

How important is marking the passage of time in your stories? What do you do to keep track of time?

Why Again Did We Let Zimmerman Go?

Posted: November 26, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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Remember George Zimmerman? The guy who shot Trayvon Martin? Guess what he’s done now: he’s threatened his girlfriend with a shotgun and threw her out of the house when she tried to dial 911. When the police searched his car, they found an AR-15, a shotgun, and three handguns. He’s been let free on a $9,000 bond, and he’s entered a plea of not guilty. And this isn’t his first brush with the law since he was let off this summer: he’s been pulled over three times for speeding and assaulted his wife (yeah, he’s still married). The only reason he wasn’t arrested with the last one was because of lack of evidence.

Now, back during the Trayvon Martin trial, those who supported Zimmerman were saying that he was defending himself, that Trayvon was high and unstable and dangerous. They ignored that he had a history of violence before the Martin incident, and they might just try to ignore this situation altogether. But I’m going to repeat what I said back then: that George Zimmerman attacked an unarmed teen and killed him, and got away with it because of lack of witnesses, including the victim who understandably couldn’t speak, and because of a law that makes no sense to me. Yeah, I don’t support Stand Your Ground laws. They basically say I can go into a public setting with a gun, start a fight with any random passerby, and shoot them if I feel threatened.

But the point is, Zimmerman’s proven that he’s more likely to instigate an incident than defend himself. This is his second assault since his acquittal. It’s only the first with enough evidence to actually go to trial. So I’m just going to be the first to say this: Zimmerman should’ve been convicted back in July, because he assaulted Trayvon and killed him. But he didn’t, and then he attacked his wife and girlfriend. Either of those assaults could’ve been avoided, just like Trayvon’s death could’ve easily been avoided, but we allowed them to happen.

I just hope that this time around, Zimmerman gets convicted, because honestly if he keeps getting off like this, his head’s only going to get bigger and he’ll think he’s invincible to prosecution and punishment. And I really don’t want to see the carnage a man like that can leave behind when he believes he’s unstoppable.

Let the trial begin!

The 5 Beauties of Horror

Posted: November 24, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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The final article in my series of the various common themes (aka “beauties”) found in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. What started as a discussion in class led to these three posts: The 7 Beauties of Science Fiction, The 7 Beauties of Fantasy, and now the 5 Beauties of Horror.

Now, as to why there are only five beauties in horror, I have an explanation for that: simply, horror often crosses genre. When it features supernatural creatures or monsters from another planet or realm, it’s horror crossing over into fantasy or science fiction. When the story features more human monsters and less of a supernatural aspect, it tends to cross over into the suspense and thriller genres. In that sense, it’s very difficult to get into pure horror, because that’s so difficult to define. So instead, I opted to go into some general themes you find in all forms of horror, no matter what genre they cross over into.

If you have any ideas on how these could be expanded, please let me know. I’d love your opinion on these beauties, since I came up with them on my own (not a lot of horror fans in my science-fiction lit class sadly, or at least not any fans who are as into it as I am).

1. The antagonist–the starting point of the story. Often you can define a horror story by its antagonist. because that’s often what comes first in planning a story and what you use to describe the story: “it’s a story about a murderous ghost”, “it’s a vampire novel”, “there’s a serial killer terrorizing this small farming town”, etc. And in this capacity, I’d like to mention that the antagonist can count as something else if there’s no real human antagonist. For example, in my short story “Addict”, there wasn’t a human or demon up against the narrator. Instead his own addictions were the antagonists of the story. So the antagonist would be more like the evil in the story that wants to do the characters harm or is already doing them harm, I guess.

2. Characters and setting. Usually after I’ve come up with the villain of a story, I start to create the other characters and the setting. The latter can also be a character, such as a haunted house or a forest (if you have trouble believing me on that watch the first season of American Horror Story to see what I’m talking about). I ask myself, who are the characters? Why are they opposite or beside the antagonist? Where is this all happening? What is each character like? All important questions that the author goes into in creating the story.

3. Conflict–there’s going to be one. If there’s a vampire in town, there’s either a vampire hunter or some townsfolk who are going to try and kill the vampire. If someone’s girlfriend has been kidnapped, expect someone’s going to try and get her back. If there’s an evil ghost trying to claim the lives of a family, there might be an exorcist or a paranormal investigator or a really angry mom trying to keep the kids safe from whatever is menacing her family. That conflict is the driving point of the story, and it sets up for the next beauty.

4. Fear. This one seems obvious, but it needs stating anyway. In a horror story, the point is to get the reader or viewer scared silly by telling a story and using the various elements within to terrify. Whether it’s a feeling of being watched, of something out fo the corner of our eyes, of something jumping out, or something just damn strange that we can’t put our fingers on, the whole point of the story is to scare, to create that fear, and it’s up to the storyteller to figure out how to do that and do it well. Otherwise the storyteller has to rely on silly gimmicks like sex or too much blood or watching teens get drunk, stoned, and naked.

5. Rules–there is an MO to what’s happening. Vampires can’t walk in the sun, the killer only goes after people who enter his father’s old prison, the ghost tries to take the souls of children from their parents. There are rules to how the antagonist operates and how it can be taken down. And for the most part, those rules are concrete, or else the story makes no sense and the reader/viewer will lose interest due to disorientation and confusion.

I hope you found these helpful. And once again, if you have any suggestions on how to improve this list, let me know. I do better on this sort of stuff in a group setting sometimes.

The 7 Beauties of Fantasy

Posted: November 22, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
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This is the second in my series of blog posts exploring the general guidelines or common themes that appear in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (click here to read The 7 Beauties of Science-Fiction). This whole series started in my science-fiction/fantasy literature class this past Wednesday, when we examined the 7 Beauties of Science-Fiction, we also came up with an original list for the 7 Beauties of Fantasy, and I on my own came up with 5 Beauties of Horror. I thought a series of blog posts sharing and examining these various beauties would be helpful and fun to write, especially when you consider how often the three genres intertwine and overlap.

Now without further ado, here are the 7 Beauties of Fantasy, seven themes or motifs that are found in most fantasy stories, as the examples I pick will show.

1. Character–someone through whose eyes we see this mysterious world. Every fantasy story has at least one focal character, someone through whom the world we’ve been introduced is explained and explored. These sort of characters usually end up becoming heroes of some sort and we end up identifying with them very deeply in the course of the story. Examples include Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo in the Lord of the Rings canon, Eragon in the Inheritance Cycle, and Nick Burkhardt in Grimm.

2. Setting and culture–the magical, mysterious world our character explores. If it’s a fantasy novel, there’s almost a 99% garauntee that the world is nothing like the world we live in, and there’s a 100% certainty that something will need to be explained to us. Be it Middle-Earth, Narnia, or Harry Potter’s Wizarding world, there’s a whole realm to explore, with its own cultures, nations, societies, geographies, floras and faunas, and so much more. It’s up to the author, through the narrator’s eyes, that we find out as much as we need to about it.

3. Novums and Neologisms–technology/tools and words/phrases exclusive to the world we are in. Just like in science-fiction, the world of the story in fantasy has words or devices that are exclusive to that world and that we don’t understand entirely. Be it the Invisibility Cloak and Apparation, or the gedwey ignasia and Eldunari, they make no sense in the context of the real world but they make plenty of sense in the context of a fantasy realm.

4. Adventure(s)–you will go on one. Can you think of a single fantasy novel that doesn’t involve some sort of quest or journey or something along those lines? Neither can I. It seems every fantasy story is predicated on the main character going off to save a princess from a dragon or to toss the One Ring into the boiling flames of Mount Doom or find the genie she’s engaged to but who has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. Along the way the character fights enormous perils, learns valuable lessons, and grows as a character until he or she becomes the hero or heroine we all long to be on some level.

5. There are things that can’t be explained rationally. How does magic work? Why can a dragon fly when its body is too big for its wings to reasonably lift it off the ground? How come unicorns have magic in their horns? In a science-fiction novel, television show or movie, everything is based on science, and in theory everything can be explained scientificially. Not so with a fantasy story, which are not based on science but on mysterious forces and strange new worlds to explore and are limited only by the author’s own imagination. So don’t ask how come a sword from a water maiden is more powerful than your average sword or how magic can respond to a blood sacrifice, because you’re not likely to find the answer unless the author wants you to.

6. Familiarity–the characters don’t wake up one morning going “what the heck?” The world of the character is the one they gew up in. They know it like the back of their hand, and it would take much to surprise them in this world. In other words, unless they’re a little baby the world isn’t one they are unfamiliar with. It’s the one they know like the real world is the world we know. Not only that, but the world is somewhat familiar to us. You could channel-flip to HBO and might think you’re watching a special on the War of the Roses or on the Norman invasion, and not realize you’re watching Game of Thrones.

7. Internal history–there’s a history to this fantasyland. This is similar to the “historical extrapolation” beauty in science-fiction, but very different. Sci-fi is what could be possible with our world, so the history is the same for the most part. In fantasy though, the world has a very different history than ours. Different nations, different wars, different cultures, different creatures. This world we are visiting through the story likely has its own history that has its own unique players and events. And probably the one person who knows the full extent of that history is the author of the story his/herself (or sometimes not even then: half the time I’m not sure the writers of Once Upon a Time know where there story is going, let alone the entire history of each and every character).

No matter what, fantasy is always a strange and new exploration of new territory. It’s fun to look into and it’s fun to inhabit. And in some cases, it can even become a phenomena lasting years after the new world has entered ours. Knowing how to examine and analyze such places don’t detract from the story, but they make them all the more fun, all the more beautiful.

At least, I think so. Hope you liked the post and be on the lookout for the 5 Beauties of Horror, coming soon.

The 7 Beauties of Science Fiction

Posted: November 20, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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In his book The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, Istvan Csicery-Ronay Jr. explains some of the most common themes of science fiction. He did this in order to examine how these themes could apply and impact our lives as we navigate a world that relies increasingly on technology and information. However, they also make great guidelines for examining science fiction and for writing your own stories that take place somewhere far off in time and space.

We went over these seven beauties early in the semester in my SF/Fantasy literature course, but today we went over them again. It was an optional class today that focused more on fantasy than science-fiction, and we came up with our own seven beauties of fantasy because the two genres overlap and are entwined in so many way. After class, I came up with my own list the horror, but could only come up with five beauties. Oh well.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a trilogy of posts that focused on the different beauties for each genre, because they are related genres and because they overlap in so many ways, so it’s interesting to examine some of the mores and common themes of these three genres. First, I’d like to start with the seven beauties of science fiction, because that’s what I learned first and it’s from these that my class created the seven beauties of fantasy, and I created the five beauties of horror.

With each beauty, I give a definition and an example, some from books and movies I’ve read/watched, some from my own work, and some that I’ve just heard about. If you have any examples, please let me know. I may just add them into the list.

1. Neologisms–new words or phrases that are exclusive to the world of the story. Every term that refers to something that only exists in that world, that’s a neologism. Consider the term twanking from the short story Mr. Boy, or warp in Star Trek. Those terms are a part of the story, and outside the story don’t have any relevance (unless, for the latter term, you’re a theoretical physicist trying to figure out how to warp something from one end of the room to the other).

2. Novums–technology or inventions that exist only in the story of the world. Take the ansible from Ender’s Game, or the lightsaber, or the TARDIS. These are technologies years ahead of us, only existing in stories and as imitations we see sometimes at comic book conventions. One can consider the flying saucer a novum, because as far as we know, real flying saucers don’t exist.

3. Historical extrapolation–referring to events that happened in the past in order to explain the world as it is now. You know how in Episode IV of Star Wars Obi-Wan explains how the Empire rose and the Jedi Order was destroyed thanks to Darth Vader? That’s historical extrapolation. It’s referring to events not always seen in the actual story to explain how the world we are in came to be. Other examples include how the first invasion of the Buggers in Ender’s Game creates Ender’s world and the aliens coming to Japan during the Meiji era in GinTama.

4. Oxymoron–implausibility or absurdities that only work in the story. An example of this would be crossing a human with a housefly to get a man-fly or radiation causing the dead to rise, like in the original Night of the Living Dead. Another way to look at this would be the idea that the human species develops in other regions of the universe at the same time, and when all the species come together, they find out they are all similar. It’s not likely, is it? Yet we see it in science-fiction and we don’t question it.

5. Scientific Impertinence–when laws that are deemed “unbreakable” by science are broken. Travelling at light-speed without expanding your mass to incredible sizes or traveling through time and space all in the course of a second without any aftershocks or side-effects might count as this. Scientifically, they can’t happen, but they do in these stories.

6. Sublime chronotopes– the space/time of the story. A science-fiction story is our world with added elements of scientific nature. Therefore, Star Trek and everything in its franchise are technically taking place in this world, but in the future and on other planets or in the void of space. Therefore, defining the sublime chronotopes of a story is defining its time and space relative to yours.

7. Parable–what’s the story about? Most sci-fi stories, we will find, is a parable that explores a certain issue. District 9 is about apartheid and racism. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? explores what it means to be human. 2001: A Space Odyssey is about mankind’s dependence on technology. And A.I. Artificial Intelligence explores what could happen if robots and humans learned to bond with each other.

Whether you agree or disagree with these 7 Beauties of Science Fiction, they are useful in exploring the genre. And sometimes you can even use them as a tool in the endless debates that seem to come from popular franchises and stories.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have the 7 Beauties of Fantasy and the 5 Beauties of Horror up soon.

What do you think of the 7 Beauties listed here? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Do you have any examples?

Race Is An Illusion

Posted: November 12, 2013 in Journalism, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Social Activism, Writing
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Today I logged onto the Huffington Post to check the latest in the news, and I saw a story where a white supremacist found out on a talk show that he’s only 86% white. The rest is 14% sub-Saharan African, which is apparently home to some of the darkest-skinned people on the planet. If I’ve done this correctly, I’ve embedded a video from NewsBreaker onto this post. If not, here’s a link to the article itself.

Shocking, right? And kind of funny, too. According to Cobb, even one drop of black clood makes you black. So sadly, he wouldn’t be allowed in his own “enclave”, were it to actually be set up.

But as much as this Cobb guy and other people who proclaim the (insert race here) race is superior, I’ve got news for them. I’ve learned something recently in my sociology class that I thought was mind-blowing. Apparently “race” as we understand it is a social construction, not a biological thing. It’s something we create in our minds to help us humans categorize, because apparently we love categorizing things.

In biology though, there’s actually little difference between humans of different races. There’s more differences between two penguins of the same species than there are between a black guy and a white guy. And the more scientists look for a biological basis about race, the more they find evidence to the contrary. Even things like melanin content, which determines skin color, and differences in susceptibility to certain diseases, something documented in the various races we’ve created, are determined by a number of traits that all humans share and could occur in people around the world at any time.

Even more mind-boggling is that definitions of race aren’t static: in Brazil, there are around 500 different races, while in the US there are about four or five. And races can changed. Someone from Mexico could be Spanish or Native American, and nobody could see the difference. President Obama could consider himself white if he wanted to, considering his parentage, but he’s black by choice. And not only are the races we define ourselves by subject to change where you go, the traits associated with races can change too:

He not only broke records, he broke down erroneous beliefs.

Before the 1936 Olympics, Americans assumed that because blacks, Native Americans, and Chinese mostly lived in poverty, they were degenerate and inferior in both mind and body (these beliefs never took into account socioeconomic situation, lack of education, or discrimination, even when statisticians published “findings” supporting these beliefs). However, after Jesse Owens took home the gold, race enthusiasts changed their beliefs in order to jibe with Owens’ success at the Olympics. They changed their attitudes to say that because African-Americans had been physically honed for strength and speed while in slavery, their physical abilities were superior, while their brains were inferior to the white man’s brain. I don’t know if Neil deGrasse Tyson plays sports, but that last part is definitely false, and it just shows how fluid beliefs about race are. And just as not all whites are smart or athletically superior, neither are all blacks, Asians, or Native Americans either of those or anything else. Everybody’s different, even as we’re all the same.

And finally, even on the genetic level there’s little to differentiate us from people of different races. If I were to get my blood typed and compare it to others in a worldwide database (and I’m actually looking into doing that, by the way), statistically speaking I’d be just as genetically similar to a Yoruban man as I would be to a Japanese woman or a child in the Amazonian rainforests. So on almost every level, race is not actually biological, but really just a product of our minds.

Reborn City

So why am I writing all this, besides to make fun of the Cobbs guy’s beliefs and possibly blow a few minds? Because all this relates in a strange way to my novel Reborn City. When I wrote the novel back in high school, I still thought there was at least a small basis to differences to races, and that reflects in the novel, where most of the gangs are divided up by race. I didn’t even factor in that there are different subgroups in races, like instead of just all Hispanic/Latino, there are Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, Nicaraguan, etc. I just knew I wanted to include a racially-diverse cast of characters and at the same time show how races work together would always win out over races fighting against each other.

Too bad I find out all this mind-boggling information after the book comes out, right? But now that I’m better armed, I’ll try to be a little smarter about it all. I’ll still include a racially diverse cast, but I won’t write it with the belief that races are homogenous or static or anything. I’ll just have people with very diverse backgrounds and that won’t even be a huge factor in the works I write, but instead just something interesting about my writing style.

However, that doesn’t mean one should ignore race because it doesn’t to exist, or because race shouldn’t matter. The fact is, people still see race as an actual, biological thing, and the belief is the basis of a lot of problems, controversies and discussions in the United States and the greater world. Ignoring it would be like ignoring your health in the hope you won’t get sick; it just won’t work. Instead, one should acknowledge race as a social construction, try to see through it, and if possible help others see through it.

That’s my opinion, anyway. You can agree or disagree as you like.

I’ll try and write a post tomorrow if I can. Until then, good night everybody!

My Scary Scene Might Just Be Okay

Posted: November 3, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the scariest scene I’d ever written in my career. It was a pretty intense sexual assault scene, so bad that I had to go out shopping in the middle of a downpour just to find my center and write about it in a blog post (it was that bad). Two of the concerns I had with the scene was if it would deliver the emotional effect I was looking for, and was it well written?

Well, I can’t really testify as to the former question. Only readers of the story could tell me, and that novel is still in its first draft. But for the latter, I might have an answer.

The book I’m reading for class right now.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m taking a literature class that covers science-fiction literature (and a couple movies). One of the books we’re reading is called The Windup Girl by Paolo Baciagalupi, and early on it has a pretty terrifying rape scene. I found myself reading it on my couch, putting a hand over my mouth as it ended. I was thinking about it the whole rest of the day and well into the evening, trying to wrap my head around it.

And then I realized something. I felt these same emotions writing my own rape scene. Not at the same intensity, but close to it. And it was written in a similar way to my own scene as well. In fact, I thought to myself, “There are many similarities between the scene in Baciagalupi’s novel and my own draft for Laura Horn.” Now I’m not saying I’m on par with a novelist who’s won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (and besides, his scene had some sci-fi twists, making it very different from mine), but the similarities really sprung out at me, especially the emotional similarities. It made me realize that wondering whether it’s well-written–whether I included the right words, whether I was describing anything right–was the wrong thing to worry about.

Instead, I should be worrying about delivering the emotional impact that you’d expect from a rape scene. The terror, the humiliation, the pain, the anger, the crushing despair. I should be more focused on those aspects of the writing when I write those sort of scenes. If I do that, the well-written part will somehow weave itself into the scene.

So now that I’ve figured that out, I think I’ll approach those scenes very differently in the future, should I decide to do one again. In the meantime though, I think I’ll go to bed, as it’s getting quite late. Goodnight, my dear Followers of Fear (that’s what I’ve started calling people who read this blog regularly, along with those on my Facebook page and Twitter feed. Do you like the nickname?).

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering when I’m going to end this self-imposed hiatus on my writing (if anyone’s wondering that at all. I’m sure most of my readers have more important things to think about, but you never know), I promise you it’ll be as soon as my workload clears up a bit. That might not be till after final exams, when all I have is work at my job and whatever’s on TV or whatever I’m reading at the moment, but on the plus side, exams are in four or five weeks, so it’ll be soon. And then I plan on writing up a mean storm of fiction! It’ll make up for all I’ve missed during NaNoWriMo!

A Few Things About Hypnotism

Posted: November 2, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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I was sitting on the couch this afternoon, getting in some much-needed reading. One of the books I was reading was a mystery manga involving mysteries al a Sherlock Holmes. I was enjoying the story…until one thing popped out of me as being really inaccurate. The story involved the protagonist taking on a loan shark who employed hypnotism in some of his more unsavory schemes. Now I can do hypnotism to some degree. And I’m always happy when it’s used in fiction…as long as the portrayal is accurate. And I’m sorry to say that the manga’s author was pretty far off on the portrayal of hypnotism’s accuracy.

Now I know that it’s a manga, taking place in a day when not a lot was known about hypnotism, and that the stories are modeled off actual Sherlock Holmes tales, so it could be based on a story that involved hypnotism, if rather inaccurately. And since this is a manga, I can’t very well tell how much research the author did for her manga, especially this particular chapter. But it kind of gets at me when hypnotism is used inaccurately. So let me take this opportunity while I have your attention to tell you some things about actual hypnosis. With any luck it’ll keep some other author from doing a grossly inaccurate interpretation of hypnosis in his/her next work.

1. Hypnotists can’t do anything unless the hypnotized person is okay with it. You ever see that movie where the hypnotist turns a teenager into a werewolf through hypnotism, whether he likes it or not? Neither have I, but I know of it and I know that’s not how it works. Hypnotized subjects are still conscious while they are hypnotized, and they can’t be forced to do anything unless they want to do so. Which means a subject can’t be forced to murder, do some really inappropriate act, or something along those lines unless they’d willingly do those acts while fully conscious. The only exception is magical hypnosis, and I’ve never seen an actual case of that outside of novels and manga, so forget I mentioned it, okay?

Okay, that just took out 95% of all hypnosis myths right there. And you at home or on your phone or at work or on a plane still reading this when the flight attendant has just told you to turn off your device (shame on you! They don’t tell you to turn off your device just to annoy you, you know), might just be wondering what hypnosis actually does if nefarious villains aren’t using hypnosis for evil schemes? Well, I’ll tell you:

2. Hypnosis is a form of therapy. Hypnotists will talk to a subject, gradually using verbal cues and commands to relax the subject to the point where they are in a state of consciousness somewhere between waking consciousness and sleep. They will then make suggestions that are designed to help a subject to some goal, whether that goal is to lose weight, quit smoking, cure insomnia, distress after a very long day, and everything in between. Sure, it doesn’t work for every person, and even for those whom it works for it doesn’t always work 100% of the time. But in essence, it is a form of therapy.

3. It can’t, however, be used to recall lost memories. You may have seen on TV once or twice someone having lost a crucial memory and going to a hypnotist to retrieve that memory, and then receive that memory, sometimes with aliens. Let me tell you now, memory regression through hypnosis is rarely successful. Sometimes an accidental suggestion from a hypnotist can cause a subject to create memories that never existed. And even if that doesn’t happen, memories brought up through this method may be tainted through outside sources, such as whatever you saw on TV last night or that story you read in high school that you really loved or the disappearance you read about in the news. I’m not saying that memory retrieval through hypnosis is never successful or impossible, I’m just saying it’s rare and difficult to do without unforeseen consequences. Still, it has happened before, so it could happen in a story you write. I just want you to be aware of the facts as they stand.

4. You also can’t claim hypnosis as a legal defense. The reason behind this is because most psychologists aren’t really sure what hypnosis is. Some aren’t even sure it exists, and a few are worried that hypnosis could be used in the wrong hands to cause all sorts of problems, from split personalities to causing more psychological problems. This, and the bit about the hypnotic regression is the reason why hypnosis hasn’t been used successfully in an American court for years.

5. Hypnosis is still being studied. Like I said, hypnosis is still a mystery to many psychologists. It’s not clear what causes hypnosis to work and how it works or why it works. There are studies being performed all the time and the body of literature is growing, but it’s still small. And while that’s still the case, hypnosis will still be controversial and mysterious, let alone something regulated by the American Psychological Association. Yeah, you read that right. Hypnosis isn’t regulated in the States. Better do your research before you go to see a hypnotist for something. You don’t want an actual quack, do you?

6. Hypnosis can’t be done in a single moment. At least, not always. Hypnosis is a process, and it usually takes several minutes to get someone in a hypnotic state the first time around. Sometimes a full hour, depending on the skill of the hypnotist and the goal of the session. There are only a few exceptions to this. First, you’ve experienced hypnotism enough times that a trigger has been implanted by the hypnotist (and with your permission) to put you in full hypnotic trance within a few minutes or even moments. Either that, or you know the hypnotist from a TV show or from shows in clubs, and you’re open to his/her suggestion, which makes it easier for the hypnotist to do his/her work. And finally, you may be used in a live hypnosis show, and you may be faking it for the audience. However, I’m not sure you can actually call that hypnotism, so forget I mentioned it, okay?

7. Only certain people can be hypnotized. This is one of the few things really known about how hypnotism works, and it works best for people who are easily suggestible or imaginative. So authors and artists who were very gullible in high school are at the most risk. Just kidding, but artists, children, and people who think outside the box are more likely than others to be hypnotized. It’s not exactly clear why, but it’s likely to do with how open to suggestion and trusting people without reason you may be.

8. Hypnosis is not an arcane art for an initiate few. In fact, it’s easy to learn. I learned it from a DIY book and watching several YouTube videos on hypnosis. You can learn it too, if you wish.

Well, that’s all I have to say on hypnosis right now. It actually turned out to be a few more things about hypnosis, didn’t it? Well, I said what I had to say and that’s that. I hope you found this information helpful and if you’re writing a story involving hypnotism, you can refer back to this list in order to accurately portray it. And if you’re curious in learning more about hypnotism, you can refer to a number of sources and websites for more information. I personally recommend HypnosisDownloads.com, HypnosisDownloads.org, and NLPmagic on YouTube.

Good night, everybody.

The Orphan in Fiction

Posted: October 30, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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The other day I was reading a blog post by impossiblegirl123, author of Life and Other Diasters, that got me thinking. The post was about the author’s favorite books growing up, and I mentioned some of mine in the comment sections. It was then that I noticed something interesting about the books mentioned: several of them had orphans as main characters. From Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Eragon to The Thief Lord and The Bartimaues Trilogy, all these books had at least one parentless child as the protagonist.

Now here’s my question: why? Why are orphans so popular in fiction, especially fiction aimed at children and young adults? It’s not something I’ve considered before, though now that I look at it the orphan trope seems pretty popular. Heck, I use orphans in Reborn City: all the main characters are orphans in one sense or another! So in this post I’m going to try and figure out why orphans are so popular as protagonists, especially when in real life orphans aren’t that lucky to be in harrowing adventures involving magic, love, and mystery (how many series did I just pin down right there?).

1. We want to think good things will happen after horrible events occur. I think that’s the more emotional reason behind the orphan trope. Everybody hopes that after a disaster occurs, such as the loss of parents, we’ll be then blessed by something extraordinary. Having orphan characters, people who have no parents and are affected by their absence in some manner, allows for us to identify with the characters and what we hope would potentially happen to us should, God forbid, we tragically lose our parents before their time.

2. Who needs parents in the way? An orphan cahracter is a parentless character. And how many times would a parent get in the way of a character if they had to set out on a probably very dangerous journey? I’d say 100% of the time. Hence, having an orphan character means parents won’t get in the way of the plot development.

3. Great introspection. Parents help to shape our identities. Orphans are therefore somewhat lacking an identity. During the course of their journeys and adventures, there is plenty of room for an orphaned protagonist to wonder about the important questions, such as “Who am I? What’s my purpose in life? Why was I abandoned to the world? Will I ever find someone who will love me for who I am? Why do terrible monsters keep coming after me?” It’s perfect for authors who love to add a little grounding introspection and character development in the middle of a pulpy action-adventure plot.

4. A morality tale. As children we’re often taught the difference between right and wrong from our parents. When you have a lack of parents, whom do you learn right and wrong from? Do you even get a chance to learn or do you have to figure it out yourself? Do you ever figure it out at all? All of us want to believe that fi we were in horrible situations, like being orphaned at a young age, we’d be just as moral and virtuous as we are in reality (which might be a contributing factor in the continuing popularity of Oliver Twist and Harry Potter, two orphaned boys with incredibly kind dispostitions). Personally I find the story slightly more interesting when the orphan in question has to struggle to be the righteous and confident hero, which will forever put me at odds with the first couple chapters of Sorcerer’s Stone, but you still can’t deny that there’s something about characters who remain good in the face of adversity that just makes you want to love them, right?

From many Brothers Grimm protagonists, to Tom Sawyer and Oliver Twist, to Batman and Spider-Man, to Harry Potter and Eragon, we love orphans in fiction for any number of reasons. The reasons we may include them in our stories may be any of the ones listed above or perhaps an entirely different reason, but the reasons are why orphans are a continuously popular trope in fiction and while they’ll still play large parts in the stories we write for years to come.

Do you have a favorite orphan character? Have you ever written an orphan character? Why do you like the character or why did you use that sort of character archetype?

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