Posts Tagged ‘reflections’

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
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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?

Reborn City: Three Days Away

Posted: October 29, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Reborn City

This morning when I posted on my Facebook page and Twitter feed about Reborn City coming out three days from now, I joked that I couldn’t tell if I was shivering from excitement or from the cold (this year autumn seems to have passed Ohio by and let winter take over early). Later today when I logged onto the Internet after back-to-back classes and quite a bit of homework, I noticed that my sister Adi had posted about RC on Facebook and Twitter as well. It made me very happy and I was glad that she was my sister. It also made me wonder if she’d been replaced by an alien of some sort, which is always a possibility.

But you know, I’ve received a lot of support these past couple of days. My mother told me last night when we went out to dinner she might buy more than one copy of RC, and I’ve had friends, family, and classmates telling me to let them know when it comes out just so they can buy it.

This makes me very hopeful. I’m looking forward to seeing how RC does when it comes out, and I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks of it, seeing as it’s my first published novel. I guess with the first one you always feel the most trepidation and excitement, because it’s your first time putting a full-length work out on the stands. And when it goes out, you wonder to yourself, will this be my big break? Will people love it or hate it? Will I have an excellent movie made out of it starring the actor from one of my favorite shows?

Okay, that last one was a bit much for a self-published writer with only one other book to his name, but you get the idea,

Anyway, thanks for the all the support, everyone. I can’t do any of this without you constantly reading, liking, commenting, and cheering me on. I hope that when RC comes out you like it and that you’re not afraid to tell me what you think of it, whether it be positive or negative thoughts.

All for now. I’ve got a Weekly Exercise to write!

We Need To Change

Posted: October 28, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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I just read a report online that said that since the Sandy Hook massacre in December, aproximately niney-nine hundred shooting deaths have occurred in the United States. Yes, that’s correct. 9,900 deaths have occurred in the United States since the Sandy Hook massacre ten months ago. And that’s just the reported deaths. According to Slate.com, which keeps a tally of gun deaths in the United States, suicide by firearms aren’t usually reported in terms of gun deaths by police and the media, so the official number of firearm-related deaths may actually be much higher.

But still, 9,900 deaths is pretty steep. It’s over three times the number of deaths that the United States sustained during the September 11th attacks. And what has been done about it? Have any laws been passed that aim to stop gun deaths? States like New York, Vermont, Maryland, and Colorado have adopted much more stringent gun control measures in order to prevent more tragedies, and President Obama issued over twenty executive orders regarding gun control in the wake of the tragedy. However measures to fight gun violence have dried up somewhat, especially on the national level.

Why? Because a small but extremely vocal and well-funded group of people, some of whom are very out of touch with the organizations they head, believe that any measure to curb the sales or ownership of guns is a violation of the Second Amendment. Yet we still fund millions of dollars to take out terrorists overseas who in recent years have caused far less American deaths than guns have.

I’m not arguing we shouldn’t go after terrorists. But guns are causing more deaths than terrorists right about now, and it’s only going to get worse if nobody does anything. And I know that for certain Americans having a gun is a way of life. It’s consider sacred. But guess what? The United States is losing innocent lives because people are using firearms in ways they shouldn’t be used or have access to firearms that, in other nations, would be restricted to use by military personnel only.

And don’t say that gun restriction will lead to a totalitarian state. Governments are more capable of incompetence than controlling every aspect of the citizens of an entire nation. Look at the shutdown if you want proof. And don’t say gun control led to the Holocaust, because numerous factors led to the Holocaust, and so far in my Holocaust class I haven’t seen a single reference to gun control being apart of Hitler’s rise to power. And saying gun control laws don’t work because anyone determined to get a gun can is like saying traffic laws or stealing laws don’t work because people will still speed through red lights and will still take money from your wallet if they can get it.

Besides, Australia has done very well with gun control, so why can’t the United States do well? We’re both a nation that overthrew British rule, have had or still do have problems with people of certain ethnicities, and have had massacres in the past that have devastated our people.

So I’m asking anyone reading this that if you think gun violence is out of control in the United States, please say something. On your blog, to your congressman or senator, to the local newspaper or in your church/synagogue/mosque/temple/whatever. Try and make your voice heard if you’ve had enough of people dying and want the killing to stop.

We need a change. We need to be the change. And I’m not going to stop shouting about this till I see some change for the better.

Reborn City: Out in Five Days

Posted: October 27, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Reborn City

I got my homework done earlier than I’d expected today, so I’m writing up a blog post to mark up how close Reborn City is to coming out. I’m so excited! I still can’t believe it’s been over four years since I first started writing the story.

To classify RC, it’s dystopian science fiction, but it’s a different science fiction than anything we see in the market these days. Unlike The Hunger Games or Divergent, the world of the story is (at least in my opinion) close enough to this world that we don’t have to totally suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy the story. Instead of just going “Crazy events must have happened to create a state that murders its children from the districts” or “I’m sure there’s a great economic/political/cultural reason behind why Chicago is divided into factions”, I try  to make the world slightly more believable. For example, racism, gang violence, and Islamaphobia are still major problems in this world, and the technology, although sometimes pretty incredible, is mostly recognizable to any citizen living in the developed world.

There are things that make the world of RC different though. For instance, buildings can change shape in the future, cars rely on vegetable extracts for food, and hoverbikes have just come into being. Not to mention that some gangsters in this novel have abilities beyond the ordinary. But most importantly, at this point the world of RC is mostly made up of city-states and small nations, and because of the Third World War, most nations and city-states are demilitarized. Now there’s something you don’t see everyday!

Well, it’ll be up to the readers whether or not this world I’ve created is more believable than the worlds of other authors. And they may let me know in any reviews that RC gets. At any rate, I’m just excited for them to read it.

If you’re interested in reading Reborn City, it’ll be available Friday, November 1st, and will be available on Amazon and Smashwords. The print paperback version will be available for $6.99, while the e-book version will be available for $2.99. And I’ll be using the Kindle Matchbook program, so that if you buy a copy of the e-book, you may be eligible for a discounted or even free copy of the print paperback version (at least I think that’s how it works). Anyway, I hope you/’re as excited as I am and I can’t wait to hear what you think when you get the chance to read it.

Till next time!

In media res

Posted: October 8, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
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And…ACTION!

You know, I don’t think I’ve had words begin with lowercase letters since I first started writing this blog. Except for “the”, “a”, “is”, and words like that, but that’s beside the point.

In media res is Latin for “in the midst of things” and it is a literary technique where a story begins in the midst of action rather than beginning with some background or exposition. It also details my semester at the moment, but that’s tomorrow’s post and it’s very beside the point! The point is, I noticed that a lot of stories I write tend to start in media res.

Even if we don’t know it, a lot of books we’ve read and movies we’ve seen begin with in media res (and plenty don’t).  They often use flashbacks to help fill in backstory and background information. A prime example of a book that uses in media res is the first book in the Bartimaeus trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand. Anyone read that? No? Well, for those of you who haven’t read it, the story is about a world where magicians who summon and bind demons into their service rule over modern England. However we don’t find out all that information at the beginning. Instead we see human protagonist Nathaniel summoning the titular demon Bartimaeus into his service before he’s sent to capture the Amulet of Samarkand, and then through flashbacks (and footnotes) we find out that the magicians rule England and its colonies, and that they use demons to do their bidding.

That’s an example of in media res. A good example of a work that doesn’t begin that way would be Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities, which all of us have probably read in high school or college. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, etc.” Only after we realize how much like our current era the era of the novel is do we find ourselves on a dark road in the middle of the night, and the story begins. And believe it or not, the first few lines of Harry Potter were exposition in nature: “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number 4, Private Drive were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” Rowling makes sure we know how absolutely, perfectly, horridly normal the Dursleys are before we realize how weird things are the day before they find Harry on their stoop. That is the exact opposite of in media res.

Now why am I bringing this up, you might be asking. Firstly, I just want to make sure everybody who’s not an author on this page knows what in media res is before I talk about it. And now that I’ve explained it all, I want to get back to what I said previously, which is that a lot of the work I write begins in media res.

This show’s pilot (and several of its episodes) utilize in media res. It is also my most recent TV addiction.

If you’ve read my collection of short stories The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, all but the short story I’m Going To Be The Next James Bond start out in media res. Take The Quiet Game itself: “It was a tranquil Saturday morning at St. Dunstan’s School for Girls as Traci opened her eyes and stretched.” I don’t spend a moment explaining that St. Dunstan’s is a Catholic school in the middle of the country, that it’s girls stay on campus, that it’s run by priests and nuns, or that it has a darkness within it. I let that come out later in the story.

And not just The Quiet Game, but most of my other work is told this way. I could begin Reborn City (out November 1st, by the way) by explaining that several years before the story begins, there was a conflict between Western civilization and several radical Islamic terrorist organizations and some Muslim nations that led to a third world war and the devolving of many nations into independent city-states, and then go into how my protagonist Zahara and her family get caught up in some violence in the West side of Las Vegas-style Reborn City. Instead, this is the first paragraph of RC:

Reborn City, former Nevada
28 Anno Bombus (2056 CE)
June 28

Zahara and her family had decided to eat out at a restaurant in North Reborn that served kosher meat, the closest they could get to halāl. “I know it’s for Jews mostly, but it’s a very nice place and the Jews were very nice to us in New York.” Zahara’s father, Emir Bakur had said when he’d suggested it. “They know they don’t have to fear Muslims anymore. And the Chaplinsky family in 4F was nice enough, right?”

Full action, no exposition or backstory. I leave that to the flashbacks I use throughout the story. And it’s the same with my other novel-in-the-midst-of-getting-published, Snake. The first four chapters are a single scene of the Snake taking his latest victim and then leaving the body out. I use several flashbacks throughout the book to explain why he’s doing this, but I don’t say it all in the beginning. I wait, and reveal it at certain points in the story through flashback and characters telling other characters about past events.

Now why am I saying all this? Because I think it’s an interesting stylistic choice that I decide to start most of my stories in the midst of the story and use flashbacks to get into past events that may have led to the current events of the story. In media res requires readers to put themselves right in the action of the story. No time to catch up, just plunge right in and fill in the details along the way. I think that’s a much more fun way to tell a story.

It also allows me to write in a way that keeps readers from getting bored with my work. Instead of explaining everything slowly at the beginning, I impart a bit of mystery instead and task the reader to play detective, to keep going through the novel to piece together how events of the novel came into being. The readers love it, they love unraveling how we got to where we are by reading and seeing what happened before the story and how those events correlate with what the story in their hands (or on their audiobooks).

So the next time a movie/TV show/book starts out like this, you’ll know what it’s called.

So yeah, I like in media res. And I’ll probably use it in the future. But I’ll be conscious of its use., and when I see other writers using it, I’ll wonder if they’re conscious of why they’re using it. Because the story requires it? Because they find that much exposition boring? Because it’s fun to tell a story that way? It’s almost as intriguing to guess why they use that method as reading the story to find out what happens, even if we might not ever know why that author does it. At least, that’s my opinion.

If you are a writer, do you ever use in media res in your fiction? And if so, why? If not, why

The Scariest Chapter I’ve Ever Written So Far

Posted: October 6, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Some of you may be wondering what the scariest chapter I’ve ever written so far must be. I write scary stories, so it must be something gruesome. What could it be? Monsters? Evil spirits? Something not of this world or any other world we know of?

If you guessed pure, human evil, then you were correct.

I’ve written several times on this blog that one of my works-in-progress, Laura Horn, has a teenage girl and a survivor of sexual assault as its protagonist. Naturally, the question came up of whether or not to actually show her sexual assault in the novel. I’m not sure when I decided on that issue, though it was probably when I wrote the outline for the novel. But I decided to show her assault, devoting Chapter 17 of the book to it.

The past few weeks, where I knew it was only a matter of time till I reached that chapter, were not terrifying, nerve-wracking, or exciting as I expected writing a sexual assault would be. Instead, I just felt a sort of…acceptance, I guess. I’d committed to writing that sort of scene, and when I finally got to it, I got to it.

And last night, after finishing Chapter 17 of Video Rage, I took a short break, and then I started writing Chapter 17 of Laura Horn. Today, after finishing up my homework and meditation class, I did the last of it. and now the first draft of that chapter is complete.

I don’t know if what I’ve written will resonate with readers or feel real to them. I wrote this scene based on testimonies and memoirs by rape victims that I’ve read, the articles I’ve read on the statistic and psychology of rape, more Law & Order: SVU episodes than I dare mention, and my own overactive and sometimes unhealthy imagination. (Those last two I’m not sure you can count as credible sources). But if I’ve done my job right, then I will be able to put the reader directly into Laura’s state of mind at the time of her assault, make them understand what she’s been through and how it’s affected her three years after the event when the story takes place. And only then will the readers really understand who Laura Horn is, and truly be able to empathize with her.

And speaking of which, I’ve had trouble at certain points of writing this story getting into Laura’s head and understanding her both as a character and as a person. But having just written the formative event of her young life, I now can truly get into her head, understand her motivations, her thoughts, were obsession with avoiding drawing attention to herself. So hopefully writing the rest of Laura Horn will be a little bit easier.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that this is the scariest chapter I’ve ever written. In fact, it scared me personally, because I was terrified of the fact that I could conceive this scene and then write it down without losing my stomach. Even now, I’m wondering how screwed up I truly am to write such a scene. Considering how many times Stephen King’s written that sort of scene, I can say I’m fairly f***ed up.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do such a scene again. However I do believe that when Laura Horn makes it to print, whenever that is, if I’ve done my job right, then the readers will feel the fear I wish to convey. And maybe they’ll understand the terror and trauma of rape victims. Maybe the book will help people who’ve experienced sexual assault. Maybe it’ll cause some people to think before they say someone deserves to be raped. I don’t know if any of that’ll happen, but it’s my hope that it will.

And now I’m going to take a break from writing. I’ve done a lot in the past 48 hours, and I’d like a little break before I pick up with Video Rage Ch. 18. I’ll need to recharge my batteries, especially after writing that sexual assault scene.

Until next time.

Some Reminders On Social Media Safety

Posted: September 29, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections
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This past week, I’ve seen some things on my Twitter feed that’s got me a little concerned. A few of my friends whose feeds I followed have said or posted some things that I’m not sure they’ll be proud they posted a few years down the road. One acquaintance made references to drugs she wanted to try. All that, plus the crazy Twitter uproar where people said very racist and inaccurate things about the newly elected Miss America, who’s Indian-American, made me decide to do a post reminding people of things they should and should not post on social media.

Now, people who know me personally know that sometimes I have trouble with keeping my mouth shut when it should stay shut. And I know for a fact that regular readers of Rami Ungar the Writer know rules of internet safety like the backs of their hands. But I think sometimes that we’re not doing enough to keep people safe on the Internet, and if this post helps even just one person from making a stupid mistake, I think writing and publishing this post will be well worth it.

Besides, some of the people whose Twitter feeds I follow might bite my head off if I brought up these posts, so this is a safer way to go about doing it.

So to start, here’s some basic things that we should all remember about the Internet and posting stuff on it:

1. Once something’s on the Internet, EVERYONE can see it. Yes, I know your Facebook has a privacy setting adjusted so that only your friends can see it. But honestly, anyone with a computer these days can learn to hack into someone’s account, so don’t delude yourself into thinking your profile is safe from Internet weirdoes.

2. Once something is on the Internet, it NEVER goes away. Yes, I see the Delete button too. But have you ever seen crime shows? The data is never really erased, it’s just been buried. And as any gravedigger can tell you, something that’s been buried can be dug up again.

So now that we’ve established that, let’s go over some common-sense rules of Internet safety:

1. Before you post something, ask if you would say/do this in public and/or in front of complete and total strangers. If the answer is no, then don’t post it. I know, you may feel that airing a couple of N-words and saying sh*t about your ex on your Facebook or Twitter feed may be therapeutic and can get the message across that you’re upset. But people will really see this stuff, people you don’t intend to see it, and they may not like what they see. Would you like a prospective girl you really like to tell you she saw your Twitter feed to tell you she’s not interested in a relationship with a racist bastard who says horrible things about his ex’s vagina? I don’t think so.

2. If you usually hide something under your clothes, don’t take a photo of it! You’d think that this one wouldn’t need to be stated, but as Anthony Weiner and plenty of teenage and college girls have learned, that’s not the case. Every year, people take pictures of their genitals and send it to their lovers thinking they’re being sexy or naughty or risqué. In reality they’re setting themselves up for trouble. These photos have a tendency to get out to the public, and it can lead to all sorts of trouble, including ruined reputations, loss of families, friends, and even jobs, and even legal charges in some cases! So folks, don’t use your phone’s camera to take a picture of your sex characteristics, primary or secondary. It could come back to bite you in the ass.

3. Tweeting/Posting about actual or possible criminal activities is not cool. Don’t even do it sarcastically! I’ve read two stories in the past six months about people who had made passing jokes on their social media accounts about blowing up airports or shooting schools. They got arrested! Also, their was a guy in my state who murdered his wife and posted the proof on Facebook. I think you can guess what happened to him! And even if the police don’t show up on your doorstep, employers these days do look at social media when considering prospective employees. Trust me, they don’t like references to crimes. It makes you look bad in their eyes.

4. Drugs and alcohol should not even be mentioned. Doesn’t matter if it’s excessive or not, employers (and the police) don’t like to hear how you partied it up while drinking a ton of vodka or how you tried shrooms and coke together. For employers, they’re worried that you’ll cost them money coming into work high or drunk, and the police…that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? So yeah, stay away from those references.

5. That comment you made about minorities or someone in a minority will come back to haunt you. Yeah, we may not think much of calling someone by a term that comes with a connotation of prejudice. In some minorities, these terms are used as an inside joke. But really, it will come back to haunt you when someone sees your racist tweet on Obama or your sexist post on a coworker and posts it on Reddit! Trust me, they will trace it back to your account, and you will be embarrassed.

In addition, if you see something about another culture that baffles you, don’t put it online as a way to ask questions or to ridicule someone. A friend of mine who’s a practicing Sikh has a beard on her face even though she’s a woman. She does it as a show of faith. Someone, perhaps not meaning any harm, posted it on Reddit with the words “What do I make of this?” The photo got some negative attention, and so did the poster. <My fiend though came out of it beautifully, not letting anything hateful get her down and ultimately forgiving the person who took the photo face-to-face.

6. If you usually hide something under your clothes, don’t take a photo of it. Yes, I said that already. But judging how often people forget it, I think it needs repeating.

7. Think about how this could hurt someone. Any time you say or do something, it has the potential to hurt someone. Maybe it’ll hurt you personally, maybe a friend or family member, or maybe someone you’ve never met who lives on the opposite side of the world. Either way, think about that when you post. It’ll make you a bit wiser.

I’m going to finish with that last one and wish everyone luck in future posting. And to the reader who may learn something important from this post, I hope you don’t have any negative experiences in the future with Internet postings, whether they be posted by you or someone else. God bless, and have a nice day.

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