I just got word from a magazine devoted to flash fiction horror that they do not want to publish my flash fiction piece. I’m sad, but I don’t hold it against them. In the meantime, I think my short short story, entitled “Masterpieces”, is creepy and full of potential, so I thought I’d publish it on my blog here. And since it’s less than 600 words, you can read it in one sitting and not have to waste any precious time during your lunch break or whatever.
So without further ado, I present “Masterpieces”. Tell me what you think when you’re done reading it…if you’re not huddled in a ball in fear.
I recently read a blog post (you can read it here) where the author commented on the attitudes some people have toward different academic studies. According to the author, fields of study like physics, mathematics, and biology–fields collectively known as “hard sciences” and based on reasoning and mathematical proofs–as more important and more factually true than the study of literature, which is seen as “soft” and therefore variable, indefinite, and downright false.
Now I admit that those who study literature (and those who create it) aren’t solving the mysteries of the universe, curing cancer, or creating alternative forms of energy. And I admit that you can look at a novel, poem, play or short story and draw many different meanings from the author’s comparison of blue curtains to the blue sky. And yes, fiction is, by definition, outright falsehoods. There’s no Hogwarts, the zombies aren’t coming for us, and in all likelihood Dante never visited all three realms of the afterlife.
But I don’t think that the English major is inferior to physics or chemistry or engineering. Far from it. I believe the English major fulfills a different role than the hard sciences. Fields like elementary neuroscience and evolutionary biology and botany seek to understand the physical world around us. Literature and English majors, on the other hand, seek to understand the human condition, to understand our collective soul. We’re focusing on a whole other dimension of existence, multi-layered and able to bring understanding and meaning to the lives of others. We make metaphor of life, turn it into art, show our darkest fears and our deepest desires in the struggles of characters brought to life through letters and words.
Isn’t that worthwhile in itself? To make people understand through a story not only themselves but the world around them? To feel empathy for a character, joy when they triumph and sadness when they struggle, because that character reminds a reader of themselves or what they want to be? I think it is, especially since reading and writing bring so much fulfillment to me and to the people I know who feel the same way I do.
Besides, the hard sciences may be solving mysteries and doing important work, but there is something that they lack, and that is the ability to identify with and inspire the masses. The theory of relativity will never be able to define an age like The Great Gatsby did, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will never have the same effect on our youth like Harry Potter did.
Sure, you can argue that the space race defined the sixties and seventies and that the Internet and technology defines us now. But let me remind you that those age-defining technologies were first dreamed about in a literature course or on a writer’s desk while his pen rolled across a page. From cell phones to space ships to the Roomba, all were first talked about and made awesome and terrible by some writer somewhere (especially if that writer’s name is Isaac Asimov).
And yet even today’s technology is influencing literature. Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress was as much inspired by the Internet as the blog and the webisode were. Several science fiction writers are now writing works on how social media and hacking are becoming a total part of our society and reflecting on that. And I wouldn’t do some of my best writing without technology.
So these fields aren’t competing with each other for superiority or totally exclusive. On the contrary, they merely handle different fields of our existence and feed each other occasionally. It’s like the relationship between bees and flowers: the bees get their food from the flowers and spread the pollen around so that the flowers can create new seeds. In this sense, they are helping each other grow.
So deride my English major anytime. I may not be solving some mysterious aspect about black holes or quarks, but I might just give you an idea someday on how to solve that mystery. And you may never be able to write your own homage to Edgar Allen Poe, but your work on cancer research or molecular genetics may give me or a friend some new idea for a future bestseller. It could happen.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for two days, but Sunday was nuts, and Monday wasn’t much better (though I did see Iron Man 3). In any case, I wanted to talk about something I noticed while working on Chapter 47 of Snake. In that chapter, the Snake gains an unlikely ally, and she goes out of her way to help him escape from the police. As I was looking over the chapter, I was puzzled by some of the things I was reading. I couldn’t figure out why I had written a character doing or acting a certain way, so I had to go back and explain in detail why the character had taken that action. As I did this, I realized something: this wasn’t the first time I’d done this.
I have this bad habit sometimes with my writing. I’ll forget that unlike me, my readers don’t know everything about the story or the characters. So what makes sense to me won’t make sense to the readers because they don’t know the same things I know. What’s worse is I sometimes do this with my characters as well: I’ll have my characters think about what a character did or is doing right now, not realizing that I hadn’t planned on revealing that until later, so it’s weird that the character should know that.
I’m sure this has happened to all writers, but it’s still embarrassing for me (and I’m sure for many others) when it happens. In fact, while writing this post I realized another moment in that same chapter that I have to fix up because of one of these instances occurs there and I totally didn’t realize it until just now. I hate having to admit it, but it’s true, so as soon as possible I’ll get into that chapter and fix that little problem up.
I guess the important thing is not to let these moments bog you down or make you think you’re a terrible writer. Just go back, fix it up, and try to keep these instances in mind so you don’t repeat them in the future. That’s what I’m going to do, anyway.
Has this ever happened to you? How do you feel about it?
It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to really write about, but I have something now. While I moved out of the dorms on Tuesday afternoon, I did not recieve my final grades till just now, so I’m writing this post now which some of you may have been eagerly anticipating. Others of you may also care less, but I hope you read this post anyway.
So anyway, a whole semester went by a little too fast if you ask me, but I did very well. I got a 3.3 GPA, an improvement by 0.1 from last semester. I didn’t get all the As I wanted, but I’ll work for that this coming semester. I did very well in Creative Writing with an A and American Literature with an A-. I also met some really awesome professors and learned a whole bunch.
I also worked hard on finishing up The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones and I’m now waiting for the copyright. Also, thanks to my friend Matthew Williams, Reborn City is close to having its final draft finished, and Snake is getting its 3rd draft. I’m a busy guy, but with all this effort I’m putting in, I should have RC out by the holidays and Snake by summer 2014 (hopefully).
In the meantime, I’m going to be working in the financial aid office at Ohio State like I did last summer, and I’ll be writing when I have the chance. Plus I’ll probably be seeing plenty of movies and reading a lot of books, so expect reviews. And let’s not forget I’ll hopefully be getting a Kindle, so if you want me to read your books, better start bribing me now.
So here’s to the start of summer. Let’s hope it all goes well.
I’ve always wanted a snake in a basket. Yes I’m strange, but you already know that, right?
I’ve been busy lately. Exams, preparing for two summer jobs, and a recent addiction to Doctor Who, plus all my normal writing and editing obligations. I’ve been one busy guy, but I wanted to take a break to share with everyone how the editing job for the third draft of Snake is coming along, especially since the main aim of this draft was to add more depth and history to some of my characters.
So far, mission accomplished. I’m about halfway through the draft, I’ve written one of the two new chapters I meant to write, and I’ve gone into some depth into the characters’ personalities and history. I’ve definitely had some fun working on Allison, my heroine, exploring where she got her feisty attitude and seeing how it’s been affected by her ordeal. At the same time, I’m still searching for the right place to insert some more back story between my killer and the heroine, because there’s a lot there that I need to add in for the relationship to make sense.
Oh well, I have 54 chapters to go. I should be able to figure something out and insert those parts (and for those of you with your mouths open right now because I said 54 chapters, don’t worry because most don’t make it past five pages). And by adding all this character history, the characters become more real, their actions make more sense, and their struggles make them that much more endearing.
Except in the case of the killer. In that respect, you find the Snake more creepy and fascinating at the same time. At least that’s my take on him. He’s changed so much from when I first created him. He’s definitely not the same character I created back in June last year.
Well, there you have it. I’m going to hopefully do some more work on Snake tonight, but first I’m going to grab some dinner. Can’t edit on an empty stomach, am I right?
As most of you are aware, I have three works of fiction on their way to publication, and at various stages of that progress. Since there has been significant progress made in all three works on their roads to publication recently, I thought I’d give you all an update of each work, in the order they’ll most likely be published in. So here we go:
The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill YourBones
The last time my collection of short stories came up in a post, I think I’d sent it to the copyright office so that I could sue anyone who used it without permission after publication. Getting a copyright through the US Copyright Office takes about two and one-half months, so I’m about a month and one-half of the way through the wait. When I do get the copyright, I plan to do a month-long countdown, and then upload The Quiet Game onto Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and other sites. It’ll be available for about $1.29, which is about the same as an iTunes song, but better because you get five short stories in one neat little package.
If you want to like the Facebook page for The Quiet Game, you can follow this link:
And if you want to watch my home-made trailer for The Quiet Game, please watch the video below.
Reborn City As I’ve mentioned before, my friend Matt Williams (author of the phenomenal novel Whiskey Delta, now available on Amazon) is critiquing each chapter of RC and giving me feedback. Just yesterday in fact, Matt sent me Ch. 17, leave less than ten chapters left. After I’ve finished editing the entire novel based on Matt’s evaluation, I plan on creating a cover, a Facebook page, and a trailer, just like I did for The Quiet Game. Plus of course the whole copyright process will be repeated for RC.
And for those of you who don’t know what RC is about, it’s the first novel in a trilogy taking place several years in the future and follows a street gang whose leaders have strange abilities and their strange connection with a shadowy military company. I hope it’ll gain an audience, especially given some of the themes in the story.
Snake My thriller novel about a serial killer hunting members of a certain New York mafia family is in the middle of a third draft, the point of which is to go into deeper character development and character history for the main characters. Once that’s done, I’ll probably put it through one more draft before I get ready to copyright it and publish it. And by the way, I think this novel is some of the scariest work I’ve ever done, and also some of the best.
I hope your interests are piqued by what you’ve read here today. I hope to publish The Quiet Game soon and to have RC ready soon, so wish me luck and keep reading the blog for updates. Thanks and I’ll write another post later. I’ve got an errand to take care of.
I saw a friend of mine yesterday at the library a little after 2pm. He and I began talking about finals (the topic de jeur during this last week of the semester) and he mentioned that he had to write a short story for his history class based on some of the stuff he’s been learning in class. I offered to look at his short story and critique it if he wanted, to which he said he’d send it over.
This evening I took a look at it and I wrote a quick critique of it before e-mailing my friend. After I finished and sent the email, I thought to myself, Hey, that’s the first time I critiqued something for a friend that wasn’t required by a class of mine. I don’t count that one time my sister asked me to look at her speech as she was running for a position on the board of the youth group we both belonged to in high school, mostly because we couldn’t get past the opening without her disagreeing about my assessment of the opening. God, that was a long time ago.
“This blog post is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read online. Now your friend’s short story…”
Okay, enough rambling. Back on topic:
I’ve been in two workshop classes in the past year, and I had to do a similar assignment to what my friend did when I took a world history course my first year in college. I’ve looked at a lot of short stories, occasionally had to look stuff up just to understand what a certain word meant or what the action revolved around, and written close to fifty critiques for each story. I’ve seen bad short stories, I’ve read ones that absolutely floored me with their first drafts, and I’ve read one or two that confused me so bad that I mentioned how confused I was in the critique letter.
But writing for a friend…it’s an entirely different experience. You want to give them the best critique possible. You want to tell them their story has potential. You want to say they did a great job. You want to tell them it’s only a matter of time before they’re selling books in bookstores and receiving royalty checks. But at the same time, you have to point out flaws, you have to say that they should possibly rewrite the whole thing, and sometimes you have to tell your friend that, for one reason or another, the story stunk to high heaven and you absolutely hated it. It’s a very different experience than critiquing for classmates you don’t know that well, and finding a balance between kind to your friends and critical of the work is tough, especially if you’re sensitive to a friend’s feelings or there’s a chance that they may say their work is too high-brow and those who don’t like it or understand it are literary fools.
Luckily my friend doesn’t aspire to literary stardom and even if he did, he’s a chill dude who doesn’t get emotional over critiques. But still, I took his feelings into account when I critiqued his work, and I hope he appreciates the critique and isn’t daunted or upset by what I had to say. (For the record I wrote a very positive critique and suggested that he rewrite the story from the POV of the sheriff character and do more showing and less telling) It was the first time I understood what my friend Matt goes through every time he looks at a chapter of Reborn City for me and tells me what he thinks, and what my friends and family go through when they review my work for me, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever do a critique like this ever again, though I’m sure I might be asked in the future to look at someone else’s work, especially if it’s for class. If I am asked by a friend to look at his work though, I hope I’ll be able to do a serviceable critique that will help them with their work and with their writing over time. Because if there’s one thing writers can do for each other, especially indie writers, it’s help to make each other’s work better and make sure they reach wider audiences.
What do you think when you get your work critiqued or someone critiques your work?
This is a rather unique question, and one that came up very unexpectedly for me. You see, I heard from some friends and teachers–all published writers as well–that James Patterson, author of the famous Alex Cross books and a few YA books whose names I tend to forget–that Patterson uses ghost writers to help get all his work done, which is how he’s able to publish 9 books a year. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but then I did some research and sure enough, I found a NYT article about this “collaboration”. And it broke my heart.
Should he work alone or should he work with ghost-writers? Most would say “no”.
Now, collaboration isn’t always a bad thing. Technically speaking, my friend Matt looking at Reborn City is a collaboration. Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson wrote a children’s reimagining of Peter Pan together, and it is certainly not a “technical” collaboration. And who can forget the legendary meeting of the pens of Stephen King and Peter Straub?
But those were collaborations that everyone knew about, everyone agreed to, and the fans were fine with. Most fans are still unaware of these Patterson collaborations, who he’s working with, and he gets all the credit. And it explains why the last couple of Alex Cross books haven’t been exactly up to par.
And we, the fans, are the ones who hurt the most. After all, we expect that the writing is original and from the author. And it’s…not. It’s a ghost-writing collaboration that is making the rounds on the Internet and that nobody really wants. We feel a little betrayed. And yet I still want to read his work, with hope that Patterson will someday return to writing on his own and doing what he does best, even if it means he’s not putting out nine blockbusters a year.
I’m not sure why Patterson does this–though I think money has something to do with it–but I hope that he cuts it out soon. It’s not what the fans want, it’s hurting the quality of his work, and honestly, if I were him I wouldn’t want this. I wouldn’t want to be working with several different ghost-writers and spending less time on the actual work just so I can be prolific and get a ton of money in. I mean, I plan to be prolific, but I plan to be prolific on my own, not with the help of other writers. Why can’t Patterson do the same?
What’s your take on these collaborations? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
Is that the creepiest title I’ve ever written for a post or what?
Today while editing Snake, I thought I’d listen to some music off of YouTube (I’ve still no handle on Pandora or Spotify, if that’s what you’re wondering) when one of those three-minute ads came up. Normally I skip those ads, but I decided to check it out once I heard that the man speaking in the beginning of the ad was a forensic sketch artist for the FBI (guaranteed to get my attention, right?). The ad is below, and I strongly encourage you to watch it before going any further.
Let’s go over something very interesting about this ad: when the women in the ad described themselves to the artist, they tended to focus on the features they disliked about themselves. The resulting sketches then embodied those aspects and didn’t really match the actual women. But the people they’d become friendly with prior to the sketching, when they described these women to the sketch artist, they tended to focus on what made these women beautiful, what these newly-made acquaintances liked about these women. The portraits therefore were very beautiful and more closely resembled the women.
This is the guy who talks to his mirror image. If you’re familiar with his anime, you know he’s got a lot of work to do on himself.
Now despite being a Dove commercial (and not even Dove chocolate), I found myself really liking this commercial. I also found myself remembering something from an anime I’d watched years ago, where a character had a discussion with a mirror image of himself while trapped in another world (typical of anime, right?). The character was told that he represented how he saw himself, while his mirror-image was how others saw him. They were very different representations of the same character, but they were still the same person.
And that got me to thinking. Yes, dangerous activity, but I think anyway. We all focus on different aspects of ourselves and aspects of others. When we focus inward and look at ourselves, we often see what we don’t like about ourselves. For me, it’s my constant battle with zits and keeping off the weight I gain because I can’t resist those sweets. However when we focus on others however, we tend to focus on what we like about them, especially when we like them. When I think of a couple of friends of mine, I usually think about their height that I’m so jealous of or their smiles, and that twinkle they get in their eyes when they do smile.
So what does that tell us? Perhaps that we focus on ourselves and point out what keeps us from attaining some measure of perfection that society expects from us, and that we look for the good in others because that’s what we want for ourselves. It’s a possibility, although it’s not a nice one. Perhaps it also tells us that while we’re critical of ourselves, we love seeing the good in others, because it reminds us of the good in others, or the good we’re working to attain. That’s certainly a better take on things, right?
It’s also very true of some of the characters in my stories. Take Reborn City, for example: my heroine Zahara Bakur sees herself as a timid girl who gets easily scared when violence rears its head and can’t be relied upon when the chips are down. Her friends however see her as a very innocent but very strong girl, close to her faith and resourceful when the chips are down. Who’s right? Both actually: Zahara is nonviolent and doesn’t like to get herself into conflict, but she’s also quick-thinking and her faith supports her when times get bad. In addition, she likes to see the good in everyone, which can be a real comfort when you’re in a gang and people tell you that you’re a waste of space. In her own way, she’s helping people, all without a gun.
In addition, the titular character of Snake is also very multifaceted, though he and the people around him are more aware of that than Zahara is. The Snake is certainly gentle to those he cares about and is capable of compassion, but to those who pose a threat to him or those he loves he can be very dangerous. He’s also aware that he’s mentally unbalanced and that he’s also quite possibly evil, but at the same time he wants to at least use his evil for a good purpose. My heroine Allison Langland, who knows the Snake very well, is aware of his evil, but is also aware that he’s actually a very good guy. He’s sociable, he’s self-deprecating, and he’s responsible. She has to reconcile this with the fact that the main character is also a vicious killer capable of torture and murder, but she prefers his good side, because that’s the side she sees as the real Snake, and it’s the side that she thinks is the true hero.
To put my metaphor better, we are all something like this. Good or bad, our own perceptions or other perceptions. We just have to act on those to really get to know who we are.
So what does this say about all of us? For starters, we are not the sum of our features or our flaws, and we are not the sum of what others see in us. We are a combination of those ideas of ourselves, and we are what we use all those ideas about us for. For Zahara, she is the girl who can bring light to people living in the dark, even if she hates anything involving violence; for the Snake, he’s a monster doing good in the only way he knows how, even if it damns him; and for me, I’m trying to lose the weight, wash my face at least once a day, and write stories that people empathize with. We’re all combinations of our own perceptions, the perceptions of others, and what we use those perceptions for. Once we figure all that out, I think we can achieve a level of peace and live our lives in a way that’s conducive to us and those around us.
I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time I’m getting ready for bed and I see that one zit on my nose or how much weight I’ve gained this semester.
After this stressful week, I figured I should do something to commemorate that we all got through it. And since I’m still very upset with the Senate for its failure to pass sweeping gun control measures that would’ve benefited many people, I decided to write a poem, something I don’t do often but that I think for this situation can be very helpful to get the point across. So before I do, I’d like to remind people that you are free to agree or disagree with me, but please be civil and respectful in your comments.
So without further ado, I’d like to bring you Change For The Dead:
We say that I’m against our right to bear arms.
What about our right to feel safe on the streets?
We say after every massacre that more guns is the remedy.
Are we going to tell Boston that every citizen needs a bomb?
We say gun restrictions don’t work,
That there are people who won’t submit to them.
Tell me, if I decide not to follow our laws on stealing, drugs, or traffic,
Should the nation do away with those laws?
We say we fear a dictatorship if we change our ways.
How about the fear of children and the fear of their families?
We say this is the way of America,
But I thought that was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Our constituents wanted action.
Why did we deny them that?
We won’t do anything for the living.
How about we bring change for the dead?
How about I do a séance on the Senate floor,
Summon the many who’ve died?
They are legions, they are many,
They want only that no more join them.
Can you hear their cries?
Can you listen to their complaints?
Many lost all potential before they could achieve it.
Are we going to let them down?
Listen to them, open your hearts.
Don’t let your fear keep us from helping them.
Something’s wrong with this world,
But now I hope we can make it right.
Rami Ungar The Writer 