Two years ago, at my local library branch, I signed onto WordPress for the first time and wrote a little post saying what I wanted to do with this blog I was writing. A year ago, I wrote a post during my lunch break at work about how a year had passed and what had changed for my blog (you can read it here if you’d like). And today, I am happy to announce that Rami Ungar the Writer is now two years old (I’m seriously hoping blogs don’t have terrible twos). It’s been an amazing journey these past two years, filled with meeting new friends, plenty of fun and new experiences, and even a published collection of short stories! Let me tell you, it’s been fun.
As my blog currently stands, I’ve written 527 posts and 4 pages, which has led to the blog being viewed a total number of 14,231 times at the time of posting. It has also been commented on 1,110 times, and has garnered 328 followers. And to all who’ve been following me and supporting me up to this point, I would like to thank you kindly for your help. It means a lot to me that you would continue to follow me after all this time, giving me your support and your love, and even occasionally reading or even buying my published writings.
Today I’ll be working hard to continue bringing awesome horror fiction to the world. I’m going to start Chapter Seven of Video Rage later today and hopefully finish it by the time the Sabbath comes in. And while I’m writing it, I’ll keep in mind all of you, you who have helped me, read my work, and supported me these past two years.
Yesterday I saw a video on a Freshly Pressed post on pregnancy in science fiction and fantasy, particularly the “mystical pregnancy”. The full video is below:
This video got me thinking. First I started thinking about all the instances not mentioned in this video: Nymphadora Tonks in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Scully once again in the seventh-eighth seasons of The X-Files, Amy Pond in the sixth series of Doctor Who, Ruth Gallagher in the second book of The Age of Misrule trilogy, Lady Gaga in the Born This Way music video and live performances, Padme Amidala in Revenge of the Sith–you can stop me anytime, you know.
Then it got me thinking about the use of pregnancy in fiction, particularly the TV shows, movies, and books I like. It was a bit of a shock, how transparent and flat these women can become when they are impregnated by their writers. Some are barely there at all as characters. It’s a little sad, and kind of sexist, reducing an entire complex being to the process of pregnancy of birth. And if you need a great example, take a look at Padme in Revenge of the Sith. She gets maybe twenty minutes of screen-time, has very few significant lines, and in the end dies of heartbreak after giving birth. I think her most memorable line from that movie was “So this is how democracy ends: to the sound of thunderous applause.”
To reiterate, this wasn’t what fans were hoping to see.
But after discussing things with the Suspense/Thriller Writers group I belong to on Facebook and sleeping on the subject a bit, I came to a realization that while pregnancies, and mystical pregnancies as well, are used perhaps a bit too much in fiction, it’s the portrayal of the characters that matters the most. For example, Padme’s pregnancy is a very bad example of how badly the subject of pregnancy can be handled. However there are better examples, such as Aeryn Sun from Farscape. According to writer David Lucas: “Aeryn: surrounded by enemies, gives birth. Later, with the baby in a sling, emerges even stronger as a character and as a fighter as she has something even more precious to fight for.” Note this part of a FB comment, so that’s why there’s two colons there.
Two other writers, John Saunders and Annette Wright, points out the character of Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator films. In the first film, Sarah is naïve and has to struggle a lot. But her pregnancy and its aftermath helps hone her into a fierce fighting machine, pun totally intended.
Don’t mess with Sarah Connor, people.
And there are plenty of other examples where female protagonists and other characters have used their pregnancy to grow as characters rather than become one-dimensional breeding machines. For example, Adalind Schade from Grimm becomes even more of a schemer and antagonist, because now she has something over the other characters: the birth of a new prince. Ripley in Alien 3 had a chest-burster growing in her body, but instead of letting the men do the work, she worked proactively to defeat the Dog Alien and kill the Queen growing inside her (and yes, I’m counting that as a mystical pregnancy). And there are probably loads of examples I can’t even think of, showing that portrayal is most important in using pregnancy in science fiction and fantasy.
This was a woman who didn’t let an alien baby get in her way!
So for future reference, I’ll make sure to take a look at pregnancies in fiction and see how it’s portrayed, what works, what doesn’t work, and what can make up a positive or a negative portrayal. I may even write an article on this for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, if I can find the time.
Plus I’d like to check out the other videos in that Tropes vs. Women series. It looks interesting, and I might just learn something important that’ll improve my fiction writing in the future.
As always, thought and comments are welcome on this subject. What is your take on pregnancy in fiction, particularly mystical pregnancy?
It’s been officially two weeks since The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones became available on Amazon and Smashwords. In that amount of time, I’ve received a lot of encouragement and praise from friends and family. In fact, the number of copies sold has risen to nineteen paperbacks and eight e-books. I haven’t received any reviews yet, but I’m sure as more people read the book and get through it, they’ll write a review.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention it, but I’ve signed my first autographs! They belonged to my parents and my dentist, but I’ve signed some copies of the book. It was an exhilarating feeling, and it made me happy to leave personal messages to the people who bought my book. After all, even though they were family and friends, it’s still amazing that I’m published now, and I wanted to share the joy with the people who are helping to make this into a success, whatever that is in the difficult world of self-publishing.
If you haven’t checked out The Quiet Game yet, then you can read a description of it on the Short Story Collections page, complete with links where you can get a copy (should you so desire to buy one). I promise you, it’s a chill of a good time.
I was hampered by a little writer’s block today, but after a pasta dinner, a nice walk and a shower, I was able to get a lot of writing in. And I’m happy to say, I got through Chapter Six of Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City. Like I’ve stated previously, Video Rage takes place about two or so weeks after RC ends and a lot has changed for the characters. People are pushed in ways they’ve never been pushed before, secrets are revealed, and the whole world is after them now. It’s a pretty crazy trip, but it’s fun writing.
Writing these first six chapters has been a lot of work. I had to re-immerse myself into the world of Reborn City, and since the plot of this novel takes place outside of Reborn City, I had to invent a lot of new aspects in terms of that universe’s society and culture. It was a little difficult at first, especially writing a good hook for the opening, along with showing what the Hydras have been up to and how they’ve changed since RC closed, but now it feels almost natural to go back into that world. Kind of like jumping down the rabbit hole, I guess.
I also had to split up Chapter Four into two parts while I was writing it. I realized that as a chapter it would be packing too much in, so I had to split it into two separate chapters. In terms of character development and storyline, I feel it was the right thing to do. I still have 31 more chapters to write instead of 30 like the original outline intended, but it’ll be 31 better chapters thanks to the split, if you ask me.
Tomorrow I hope to start Chapter Seven, if I can get through Chapter Six of Laura Horn quickly. Working on two novels at once has its drawbacks, but I’m getting a lot of work done, and I’m having fun with it. If I can, I’d like to make a habit of working on two novels at once from now on, if I can. Of course, when senior year comes around and I have a thesis to write, I may have to focus on just one novel! Good thing that’s a year away, right?
I hope to have more good news tomorrow. In the meantime, good night and have a lovely sleep.
Looks like all of my goals for today are done. I stopped by the library, saw The Conjuring (and really enjoyed it) and I finished the Prologue section of Laura Horn. Not a bad day’s work, considering I slept in late.
I’m not sure if I write prologues the same way as other writers do. Most only use a single chapter, but I use several chapters, each no more than 10 pages, to tell a short scene that sets the mood for the novel. In this case, I wrote three chapters, about ten pages total, to start the mystery that is at the center of Laura Horn and will affect our heroine later in the story. It worked very well for Snake, so I’m doing the same thing here, but I still wonder what other people–especially other writers–make of my use of prologues.
Did I mention Laura doesn’t show up in the Prologue? It’s true, she doesn’t make an appearance till Chapter Four, and we don’t see things from her perspective till Chapter Five. Why do I do that? Well, I guess she didn’t need to appear in the story till that point, and in order to understand Laura, it’s best we find out what happens to her in Four before we see things through her eyes, which I save till Chapter Five. Besides, if Harry can wait to appear till the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, why can’t Laura Horn make her first appearance four chapters into her own novel?
Just saying, is all.
Anyway, I’m satisfied with the Prologue. I may have to take a couple more looks at Chapter Three, I feel like something’s missing from it, but I’m not sure what. Chapters One and Two are pretty good though. Very dark and very informative about what’s to come in the novel. Just need another run-through on Chapter Three when I get to editing the first draft.
Tomorrow I’ll switch back to Video Rage, work on a chapter that includes some nasty character conflicts. After that I’ll start Part I of Laura Horn, which is where things start to get moving. I’m enjoying being busy with two novels. Perhaps it’s something I should make a habit of. Could lead to faster publications, at any rate.
And by the way, what do you think of the picture above? I personally like it, and I think Laura would like it too. She’d draw it herself…if she was good at art and wasn’t so badly traumatized. If we had the former, her subject matter would definitely be more dark, and if we had the latter…where would the story be for me to write?
It’s been one week since The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones was published in an elaborate post meant to take the place of an actual launch party (see here). I’m starting to wonder if I should’ve just said “The book’s out, here are the links to purchase it”. But anyway, it’s been a week since The Quiet Game came out, and since then I’ve sold about 10 print books and 8 e-books, with more to come as people tell me they are planning to buy it or will buy it as soon as they get home (thank you, everybody!).
And I’ve gotten some reviews, as well. One was from my mother, who said she can’t read me at night anymore (and has since given me a full report over the phone over what she liked and disliked), while the other was from Jason Haxton, author of The Dibbuk Box, which indirectly inspired one of the short stories, Samson Weiss’s Curse (apparently he really liked that one). As Jason told me, he thought the book was a strong start and wished me a hearty congratulations. Thanks Jason, I really appreciate the feedback.
And with other friends promising reviews I cannot wait to see what people think. In fact, this whole journey in publishing The Quiet Game has been a blast (except for the wait to get the copyright, but I won’t let that ruin the whole thing). I’ve learned a lot, had some great help from friends and family, and got to express myself as well. Maybe in a few books’ time I’ll write another collection of short stories, and it’ll be better than The Quiet Game! Sounds like fun, right?
If you’re interested in reading The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, you can purchase it off of Amazon or Smashwords, in both print paperback and e-book. And if you do read it, please let me know what you think. I always appreciate feedback, even negative feedback. It makes me want to work harder for my readers.
I belong to a group of suspense and thriller writers on Facebook, and occasionally the subject has come up in discussion on characters taking over the plot of the story and acting in defiance to the author’s expectations for the story. Until recently, I had no idea what that meant, though I may or may not have said that I did. With my stories, especially my novels, I wrote an outline, then I wrote the story. The characters mostly followed the outline, and any changes, such as certain areas of the climax of Reborn City, I felt were my own creative decision.
It wasn’t until this morning, waiting for the bus to work, standing in the pouring rain, that I had a little epiphany of the subject. I remembered when I first started writing the outline for Reborn City, back in high school when publishing a book was still just a very far-away dream. Originally I’d planned for bad-boy Rip to be the star of the show, and Zahara Bakur to be the deuterogamist (secondary protagonist for those of you who don’t know that term). But as I started outlining the novel, I saw that Zahara was taking up more of my attention and more of the story than Rip was. Consequently as time went by, Zahara went from deuterogamist to co-protagonist, and by the end of the outline, she’d gone to leading lady, with Rip being the deuterogamist.
And you know what? I thought the novel benefited from that. Sure, the Hydra leaders have a plethora of problems, and having Zahara around doesn’t exactly make them easier. But I think they benefit in some ways from Zahara, and she’s the one who goes through the biggest transformation of all. Heck, I’m only two chapters into the second book of the series (three if I can stay on track for tonight), and I’ve already noticed that she has a confidence that wasn’t present in the first book.
Sure enough, my characters are having more of a say in how the story turns out than I am. If anything, Zahara’s dictating her story to me, rather than I’m coming up with it. It’s a weird feeling, but it’s also kind of fun and exciting, and I get to experience my characters’ growths, decisions, and tribulations with them. And isn’t following a character through all that just the reason we pick up books in the first place and read them?
I’m looking forward to see what happens from here on out. I’m also hoping to see if I’ll write any more stories where the characters do more of the dictating than I do. If I do, it’ll probably be sometime soon, especially since I’m working on two novels at once!
Yesterday I finished one of the first books on my new Kindle, and I’m happy to say that it was by a friend of mine. And since Matt’s done a lot for me and I for him, I thought I’d give him a review of his novel. So Matt, know that what I say here, I say as a friend giving his honest opinion. And I know you wouldn’t want me to just give a gushing review if it wasn’t truthful, right?
So my friend’s novel, Whiskey Delta, is about a world terrorized by zombies. Sounds familiar, right? But there are some key differences between this novel and other works featuring zombies. For starters, the military is actually giving an adequate response to the zombie threat. That’s something you usually don’t see in the zombie literature/films/movies. For another, something about these zombies makes them very different from regular zombies, though I won’t reveal what because that would be a huge spoiler alert. The book itself follows a group of soldiers sent into Los Angeles on a covert mission in order to retrieve something important for the war effort. What happens there will change each and every soldier profoundly.
I thought the story was an entertaining zombie novel. It’s rare to show the military doing anywhere near a good job in a zombie story, so I commend my friend Matt for doing so. Also, I thought the twists in this novel were very interesting, especially in terms of what we thought we knew about these zombies–known as Whiskeys in the novel–and what the truth of the matter turns out to be.
I did think that certain characters such as Kobayashi and Saunders were introduced so quickly that I didn’t even have time to process them into the group before they were in the group, and that the main focus of the novel seemed to shift between characters rather than focusing on one character and saying “Here’s our protagonist”. But it’s a military team, so I’ll let it pass.
I also thought that more character development would’ve been nice, as I seem to know supporting character and all-around hillbilly Whitman better than I know main characters Braun, Dezba, and Saunders, which doesn’t seem right to me. And all the military terms were hard to follow. I’m not overly familiar with the military, so things like claymores, SCARs, and Stryker left me a little confused and I had to rely on my imagination for most of it.
However it was an entertaining story and by the end of it I was glad I read it. For Whiskey Delta, I award it a 3.9 out of 5. I’m looking forward to what the sequel, Papa Zulu, will produce.
Between finishing the last post and getting out of the shower, I realized that there wasn’t enough time to watch a movie before bed (another time, perhaps). Which is why I decided to write this post, featuring my first review of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. (If you’re interested in reading but don’t have the link, click here). It comes from one of my beta readers, and it was posted on her Facebook status. And by the way, this happens to be my mother.
Yes, I know your family is supposed to love everything you write, even if you have your character choking a baby (please don’t ever write anything as sick as that). But my mom’s a little different. For starters, my mother was the one who got me into Anne Rice and Stephen King. Yes, she did. Originally a fan of the two authors, she’s the one who lent me Interview with the Vampire and told me to read Stephen King when I’d read several Anne Rice books. She’s also lent me other books and turned me onto other writers like Dean Koontz and Dan Brown. She also introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files, shows which had a profound influence on me and my writing.
So even though she’s family and even though my mother doesn’t get the same sort of thrills I do from horror movies (I feel delightfully terrified while she’s just terrified), she’s definitely helped in molding me into the writer I am. Which was why I was very delighted when I called her and she told me she was about one short story into the book. And later when I logged onto Facebook, I was greeted with my first review. What did Rabbi Wendy Warren Ungar have to say? Why this:
“Reading Rami’s new book of short stories that was just published, (shameless promotion here), and I’ve discovered that my son is yet another author I can’t read at night!”
If you haven’t noticed, the subtitle on this blog is “Scared yet? My job here is done.” Well folks, my job here is done. Because I’ve always dreamed of giving someone a fright with my writing, and hearing that my mother can’t read my work at night gives me a small sense of accomplishment. I like knowing that I can deliver the goods when I say my stories are scary, and I like knowing I’m getting the sort of reactions I’d hoped for.
So Mom, thanks for reviewing and shamelessly promoting and all that. It means a lot to me and I hope to make even better stories as time goes on.
I also hope to post more reviews for The Quiet Game as they come. I know some friends have said they’ll write a review when they’re done, so I’m sure those reviews will show up in the next couple of weeks. Until then I hope you enjoy reading The Quiet Game as much as I enjoyed writing it, putting it together, and sending it out to you.
Yes, you read that title right. I’ve been using drones recently. I started using them sometime this past weekend, and I’ve been using them almost every night since. Mostly I fly them around certain sections of the state of Colorado, usually near Interstate 70. I’ve fired a few missile and several bullets. The drones were fun to pilot, but they had a bad habit of getting destroyed, and it’s not really my fault. Still, I might get blamed for it, so I won’t be piloting drones for a while.
This is actually the model of drone–or a variation of it–that I used.
Now you are probably wondering variations of “What the f**k is he talking about?” and “How the hell did he get his hands on drones?” Well the answer is simple: I wrote them into the second chapter of Video Rage as part of a fun little battle sequence. I thought it’d be interesting to use drones in this chapter, especially since drones are still relatively new to us now and many people, myself included, are at the very least a little wary of drones and their use by the military, if not downright scared of them. It ended up working out very well, because the drones showed how powerless my protagonists can be even with their powers, and how hard they have to work to stay alive.
Got you, didn’t I?
The drones also allowed me to do something I planned for this novel: cause friction. Something happens to one of the characters during the drone attack, and it causes some tension in the tight-knit group of people who star in this novel of mine. Later on there will be more tension between the Hydras, and we’ll see what happens when that tension hits a boiling point. Believe me, things will get ugly as a result.
I’ll be using drones again later in VR. The drones in Chapter 2 are very similar to drones used today by the US military, but in later chapters I plan on using new drones that the military probably hasn’t dreamt of yet (or if they have, my friend Matthew Williams will know of them). It’ll be interesting to see how the use of drones will work out, both for the story and for the characters.
At the very least, it’ll make for some interesting reading.
Now I’m going to take a break, shower, and then sit down for a movie. Tomorrow I’ll try to start the next chapter of Laura Horn. Things will heat up over in that storyline as well.
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Rami Ungar The Writer 