1. "I have a problem with your premise." This is the red flag to end all red flags. I don't care how flimsy the premise is. Every idea has the potential to be a good story. Execution is something else entirely, but if somebody doesn't like your idea: don't listen to them. What they're basically saying is "I am not an Ideal Reader, therefore not your target audience, therefore I am not the right person to critiquing your work."  I hate, hate, hate people who think you should be writing for broader audiences than your story is capable of reaching. If you're writing romance, you're writing romance for romance readers. You're not trying to reach hard science fiction readers. Very few people even know what makes a breakout mainstream novel that has high market appeal. If they did, every single book ever written would be Harry Potter. It just doesn't happen. And for somebody to ask you to make that happen is ridiculous and unfair. For the most part, writers are writing to please themselves first, and you don't have to feel bad because your fantasy story is not grabbing the attention of romance readers. It's a freaking fantasy! I had someone in my writing group tell me that she found my psychic dolphin story "ludicrous." She basically said it could never happen. Aside from the fact that that seemed to be missing the point of science fiction and fantasy entirely, it affected her ability to feel basic things about the story like emotional connection to the characters or plot stakes. I went home, incorporated her line edits and punctuation suggestions, because that was all she was capable of giving me aside from telling me "this story doesn't work." She had all sorts of ideas of how she would have done it. That didn't mean they were valuable critique.

2. "This would be better as a ________." I keep hearing that my prose work needs to be graphic novels. I keep hearing that my dinosaur story needs to be for children, not teenagers. I hear all sorts of people say that a chapter book should be a picture book should be a board book.  And boy, do they love bludgeoning you to death with what something should be. It's a very popular pastime. The problem with this is that it's not necessarily your job as a writer to find your market niche. It the job of your literary agent and eventually the marketing team that will be part and parcel of your publication contract. Believe me, these people know how to sell books. And once you get to that point, they will tell you what your book needs to be in order to sell. (Or, with the rise of ebooks, it'll be your own damn job anyway.) However, publication is a long way away for a lot of writers. So this kind of critique just wastes your time. The only time you need to implement this is when a literary agent is telling you so. And odds are, if you think your story is a YA novel, you've landed a literary agent that thinks so, too. Granted, knowing your book's level is important. You need to know the difference between a chapter book, a middle grade book, and a YA novel. But that's very basic research, which should take you about five minutes on Google. It's not rocket science. This sort of critique is smoke screening, the same sort of useless ideamongering that's direct kinship to "Oh you're a writer? I've always wanted to be a writer!" The most important thing to remember about critique is that it's someone else's idea about what your writing should be. A lot of ideas from other people about your writing are good and should be implemented. But not all of it is gold. Sometimes you get really stupid ideas from other people. And you need to trust your judgment to know when something is a stupid idea that will wreck your story to its very heart.

3. "You can't do (insert arbitrary story movement here.)" I have been scolded for not having my protagonist show up in the first 10 pages, despite the same thing happening in Harry Potter, David Clement-Davies's Fire-bringer, and even the story of Jesus Christ. I have been chastised for characterizing before I begin the plot, when everybody knows hundreds of books that take the time to characterize for emotional stakes before the plot begins. For every time someone tells me I can't use a trope, I can pull up an article on TvTropes where that trope has been used successfully. Please note that critiques like "This story movement isn't clear" or "This story movement makes no sense" are not the same thing, and are (or can be) valid critiques. (And if you do hear that, you should pay attention; odds are it's pretty important.) This sort of critique springs from "knowledge" of the market. Mysterious, ethereal "knowledge." Its most common form is when someone is published, and someone who knows that person seems to think that their success is due to a specific formula. Therefore, if your novel falls outside that formula, you can't do it and expect to be successful (i.e. published). Another popular form it takes is when someone goes to a writing seminar and listens to literary agents talk about trends or things they're looking for. Believe me, you will hear at every writing session you ever go to, every literary agent you ever encounter, that "the writing should be good, the characters should leap off the page, the plot should be engaging." That does not mean that if your YA novel is not a paranormal romance it's doomed to failure. Or that this arbitrary thing you've done will doom you for all eternity. (One of the biggest lessons you learn from popular literature is that "good" writing is not the same as "marketable" writing.) It never seems to occur to these people that one literary agent's opinion is just one literary agent's opinion. Or that nobody sees bestsellers coming, and that one book's success becomes the next round of "You can't do (insert arbitrary story movement here because (bestseller) didn't!"

4. "______ is too scary/controversial/morally wrong and shame on you for writing it!"  This one is a double-edged sword that lurks in children's writing groups and among literary agents. Everybody's out to sell books, and for some reason it never seems to occur to these naysayers that controversy sells just as well as good wholesome morality (or better). The younger you go, the more scrutiny you're under to be politically correct, but I've seen people who write YA scolded for having sexuality in their books and, no joke, a children's picture book where a dog chases off thieves being scolded for "too much real-life fear for a child." When writing becomes a social event, it can be a lot of pressure on a writer given to the demands of the audience. Regardless of whether it's your target audience or not. I've seen entire stories wrecked by this. The climax is too controversial, so every single building block of the story leading up to it gets demolished. And more often than not, the story gets destroyed in the process. It just becomes this bland, happy, generic thing. This rubs me the wrong way as an artist, and as somebody who feels of the role of the artist is to be controversial. To forge new paths and make new statements. Given the "Hollywood" trends of a lot of YA literature, we need more original, breakout stuff with profound and real things to say. Not less of it. I can freely admit that a lot of people write for the express purpose or being published, not to make an artistic statement. But I maintain that this attitude is an insidious one. I believe it has a direct correlation with the cookie-cutter YA that keeps telling the same story over and over and over, in ever narrowing margins. I'm not published yet, but if that were the sort of feedback I got from a literary agent, I would not implement it. I just don't think it's valid critique to be told "you can't" rather than "this is done well despite the controversy and stands on its own merits despite breaking from the norms."

5. "Well, I don't read (genre), but I don't like (obvious genre element) and think you should cut it."  This gets back to the Ideal Reader thing. I can't stress how much a difference it makes to have an Ideal Reader. And Ideal Reader is not somebody that will tell you "I love everything you write!" An Ideal Reader is more than likely a member of your target audience. I have had my fantasy worlds scolded for being too detailed. What I think is an intriguing and interesting detail, my writing group often accuses me of world-builder's disease. Each is its own battle, and sometimes they make good points, but nonetheless I balance every bit of critique I receive with the knowledge of fantasy that I like to read. But when somebody starts telling me they don't like magic or psychic dolphins, that kind of critique is going to go in one ear and out the other for me. I read fantasy. I read a lot of fantasy; I read a lot of types of fantasy. I read fantasy on different reading levels. I read myths and fairytales and have studied deconstructions of myths and fairytales. So when someone who's never read a fantasy novel in their life starts telling me how to handle my fantasy, I don't have to listen to that. I have the right to trust my own judgment when it comes to an element about the genre I adore. Again, please note that things like "This element isn't clear" or "This element doesn't make sense", that is not the same criticism. This is when someone tells you to remove your psychic dolphins from your psychic dolphin story because their premise is too ludicrous. This is someone telling you your romance novel has too much romance in it and could you ease up on the steamy scenes already? This is a grey area for sure, when someone starts telling you to remove the part of your genre that makes it your genre, that's another pretty big red flag. You need to put on the brakes and examine where this person is coming from before you start to doubt yourself.

There's a frustrating element I've noticed lately in regards to Art. "Art with a capital 'A'", as a friend of mine calls it. And I suppose this blog was triggered by the cancellation of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan game Fighting is Magic. The fandom lost its collective shit because Hasbro sent the developers a Cease and Desist letter. The entitlement was just amazing to watch, and even worse was the sheer ignorance. Some of it stupid, like "Technically, all fanworks are parodies, so it's not illegal!" and "Copyright laws are so stupid!" to cruel, like "They can just take their development overseas, then Hasbro can't stop them!"

I was baffled by this. Because Hasbro had the right to protect their intellectual property.

See, I've been a freelance artist for a while now. And it's hard. It is so freaking hard, and part of the reason it's hard is because the default attitude of most people you deal with is, "We're not, like, going to pay you a lot. Or give you insurance benefits or anything. Because it's just, like, drawing, you know?" Leaving alone for the moment that more people are successful brain surgeons than successful artists, it echoes a larger sentiment: that Art is silly and fun and pretentious, not serious, and certainly not anything anyone should get paid for. In our highly visual culture, the pretty shiny has just become our due. It happens because it does, and we should get it for free.

A friend of mine related a lesson learned in one of her Illustration classes, where after a round of critiques, the teacher said, "Okay, which one would you pay money for?" And it entirely changed the perspective of the students. They were a little startled by the question, because suddenly the art wasn't just there for free. And suddenly the art was assigned a different kind of value aside from self-expression. A much more concrete value, that lets you eat and buy stuff. And it happens in every part of our culture. We pirate video games, and music, and movies. And become indignant when we can't. Also, angry when the creators ask for a little consideration. Case in point, the Hasbro thing. Another case in point is Deviantart itself. The points system is insulting to artists trying to pay their electric bill this month. Requests can also sometimes be insulting, doubly so for a professional artists who has no time to waste on projects that will not feed them. And believe me, when the most the average person is willing to give for a digital picture is maybe $35, breaking that down by hours becomes less than minimum wage most of the time.

I'm really trying not to get into another rant about fanworks, but it creates a disturbing trend for me. I feel it's kind of like corporate culture invading Art. First, you have this smoothly marketable thing, this character or concept, that is vetted in and out until it has broad, mainstream market appeal. (Apply this to anything: music, movies, whatever.) Then, part of that mainstream market starts doing Art of this highly vetted concept. It becomes free advertising. Free. Free for the corporation already making money off it. And then this weird line starts to blur, because on one side you have this corporate concept that's preempting other forms of self-expression because it's already got its vetting and appeal behind it, and on the other you have people who are willing to discount their own creative expression because it's just fanart. Then, this very same corporate culture can shut down anything in a legal sense, and it makes the creators of this Free Stuff howl in outrage. It's always okay to take Stuff For Free when it's Somebody Else's Stuff. We're all supposed to join hands in the Jungian space and agree that Art is all about expression, man, and when someone asks "Yeah, but how am I supposed to eat?" the question's disregarded as ludicrous.

This attitude towards Art is very pervasive. It discounts the original creators of content. It sneers at the idea that Art is valuable or meaningful (or original, in SO MANY cases). Art apparently belongs in the aether, an imaginary utopian hippie commune full of rainbows called Give Me My Free Shit, and if Art forgets itself and starts trying to wonder into the Real World where money and stuff is, it needs to be bitchslapped back into place. It's within the nature of an artist to share, but to ask for support like money and stuff? That's unforgivable. Then we're drama queens and selfish assholes, like Hasbro. Defending the thing that makes them money and shit; how dare they!? And the hypocrisy of it is nothing short of astounding. These people want to perpetuate the corporate elements of marketing and advertising appeal, and all the popularity it brings, but then gnash their teeth and wail when that very same corporate culture viciously puts them in their place. I don't even know where fake movie trailers and redubbed animations count on the Art spectrum, but I'm increasingly feeling that stuff like that is just an easy way out. Take somebody else's work and make it your own to bask in the praise. Harmless enough. It's just when stuff gets big, like Fighting is Magic, where people start ignoring the rights of the creators in order to feel like … I dunno, like they're artists without having any of the hard work that went into it, that it gets disturbing. (In the case of Fighting is Magic specifically it's tragically misguided, because these guys did work hard, they were just doomed from the start because they had no idea what the hell they were getting into and somebody should have told them so.) It sends a very clear message to creators: don't bother being original. Don't even bother trying. But if you become successful, Your Success will become Our Success and we don't have to pay you for it.

Take it from me: one of the worst, most condescending and insulting things in the world for an artist to suffer is the idea that Art Is Silly. That office jobs and mechanics and lawyers and stuff: they do real shit. Are deserving of dignity. Artists don't. Artists draw funny little doodles that are amusing, even when it's multi-billion dollar animated movies or video games. I have had the concept of my time scoffed at, belittled, and shamed because I draw for it, whereas something like a call center job or even fast food there's no question of being paid for your time. So yeah. When people slap something together and call it Art, especially Art that belongs to other people, it's a little aggravating. And if you think it's easy to do Art, you're not doing it.

And that's the vibe I'm getting from people who Don't Do Art. They discount it, take it for granted, and are even bold and stupid enough to think it belongs to them. Why nobody told the Fighting Is Magic development team that maybe they shouldn't waste two years of their life on something that was illegal in the first place is beyond me. It shows an amazing lack of knowledge about Intellectual Property laws, licensing, and copyright, which any artist who has been screwed by a contract (or a nonexistent one that leaves no recourse to not getting paid) knows backwards and forwards. The first time you get paid in shoestrings, gum, and the "privilege of being able to include it in your portfolio", you learn real quick that money talks and bullshit walks. And I'd honestly like to know what the original animators and designers think of their work being advertised while they're not seeing a dime of all that exposure. Someone else is, and it's probably profit margins.

I'm not saying the maze of corporate money, marketing, Art, and expression is an easy one to navigate. There's a lot of grey area and fog, and I don't want to equate some eleven-year-old who loves Pokemon and is inspired to draw a picture of it is the same as someone who thinks no artist anywhere deserves money for their creations. Or that all Art everywhere should be free because I Deserve Free Shit. But there's an unfortunate attitude that's extremely prevalent that I'm honestly getting tired of hearing. Especially when I hear "What do you mean you won't do it for free!?" for the umpteenth time. That phrase basically says "You and your skills are worthless!" for anyone looking for a translation. And don't tell me it doesn't exist. I've seen blogs and forum posts in the video game industry that encourage finding gullible people on Deviantart who will work for free or cheap, and specifically say you're better off avoiding more seasoned professionals because they'll cost you money. There's a saying: Amateurs make it hard for the professionals. And I have to say, the worst kind of amateur is the one that says "I worked hard on this thing that isn't mine totally for free!"

What the hell are the rest of us supposed to say to that?

It's been a while since I dared to broach the subject of fanfiction, but some recent discussions about its merits have driven me to the keyboard yet again. Maybe I'm just a natural curmudgeon, who gets her jollies stomping on other people's idea about art. Maybe it's the indignant fire in me being banked by phrases like "Do NOT redistribute, claim, copy, edit or use it in any way" on fanworks and people saying things like "That's someone's creative work, man!" in reference to said fanworks. Maybe it's because I fiercely believe that we don't need new excuses to lower ourselves to ever greater levels of mediocrity. Or maybe it's just because I like making fun of people whose best contribution in the creative sense is somebody else's far more successful idea.

1. Fanworks are derivative works. This is the big one. Holy crap, no one anywhere on the Internet seems to have any idea what the hell this means. First of all, fanfiction and fanart are not "creative works." Creative work implies you are the creator. As in, the holder of the intellectual property and the idea (if you are licensed, such as Warner Brothers being the licensed to make the Harry Potter movies) or at least its progenitor in some sense (like Rowling being the original author of Harry Potter).  So yes. That Zelda painting or that My Little Pony fanfic you poured a hundred hours of your life into: it's not yours. Nope. Doesn't matter. I don't care: at the end of the day you have not created in a legal sense. And believe me, when it comes to creative ideas, legal is all that matters. And don't tell me that shit doesn't matter, because it does. I see it every single time some idiot tween posts "DO NOT STEAL" all over their fanart. I laugh every time. It's like the greatest joke ever. These people actually think they're Da Vinci or something, forging bold new pathways into something never seen before, when they're copying someone else's highly vetted, extremely marketable and already successful idea. Don't get me wrong. I like fanart, especially Pokemon, and it's been neat seeing some people's interpretation of My Little Pony. At the same time, it's just as freaking heartbreaking to see young artists slaving away at copying the exact Flash style of MLP:FiM instead of exploring digression and their own self-expression. But screw that, right? I mean, art, pfft, what's that about?

2. Copyright is largely defined by what makes money. Name a webcomic artist you like. All the work they do largely goes into posting their stuff for free and hoping that the idea takes off. I'm amazed at the number of people who draw Balto-ripoff wolf characters, then froth at the mouth when someone "steals their pose" or their "character design." Sure, man. Sure. Your crap knockoff thing is the next Harry Potter. But, ahem, let someone actually start making money at knocking off Harry Potter, like that guy a few years back, and watch how fast the lawyers show up. And oh my God, do not even get me started on what the value of art even is in this society. If you are anybody who has actually tried to make money drawing and freelancing, you have probably been paid in "exposure." Seriously, there needs to be a tax break for that. Fanworks, more than anything, should be all about digression and self-expression with no strings attached, but it doesn't. No, it becomes this horrible bitchfest battlefield where people are allowed, somehow, to say that their Rainbow Dash is theirs and only theirs, and no one else is allowed to say anything. It just goes right back to how laughable the idea is in the first place. It's this engorged, misplaced sense of self-importance, when you did jack squat to make that idea happen. Seriously, the definition of derivative works includes the phrase "lacked any original expression." We're through the looking glass here, people.

3. Parody and educational uses are Fair Use. I did a thing a while ago about how too many DA artists design horrible wolf characters. And found some horrible wolf characters and posted them as part of the tutorial. And had several people scold me for "not asking the original artist's permission." Fair Use is this wonderful, magical law in Internetland, that basically means when it's yours, people need to ask and pay, but if it's not, it had better be free and if it isn't you're going to pirate the shit out of it. Ahem. Fair Use actually says (among other things) that for the purposes of critiquing something by making fun of it (parody) or for educational purposes, you don't need the original creator's permission. Yes. Weird Al likes to ask the original artists out of a sense of propriety. It doesn't mean that there would be legal precedent for those poor wolf artists to legitimately sue me. This is yet again why the "DON'T STEAL" thing is hilarious to me. Because trust me, if Hasbro decided to throw their weight behind any kind of legal complaint, they'd have precedence. They just don't, because it would alienate fans and they'd lose money (see Rule #2.) But trust me, the moment somebody starts making an enormous amount of money off their intellectual property, they so will. If you have any doubt, look up interviews with the creators of My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic and how much they've sweat over how easily they could lose an entire year and then some's worth of work for bald-faced, legally defined copyright infringement. (Another thing people don't seem to know the definition of.)

4. Fanfiction has never been lauded.  I think the thing I love the most about fanfiction especially, but all fanwork, is that it seems to enjoy this weird sort of limbo according to its biggest proponents. It is above reproach, yet rails against how unfair it is that it's not regarded with the same kind of legitimacy as, you know, real art. I've said many a time that fanfiction fosters a malformed environment, giving its purveyors a bloated sense of ego when all they're getting critique from is other fanfiction writers. (Most of which, I gotta say, if the general writing skill is anything to go by, have never read a decent book or developed a literary aesthetic of any kind. Most of which.) However, fanfiction insists it's a real boy, not a puppet, despite proving time and time again that as a medium or art movement or whatever the hell it thinks it is, it lacks the maturity to suffer the sling and arrows of critics (mainstream or otherwise). Letting alone the "God forbid you actually tell someone they suck" idea, even its criticism is skewed. Fanfiction is highly incestuous and highly closed off. Only certain people move in certain circles; i.e. the fans of that one thing. Maybe Zelda fans are going to check out Balto fanfiction, but in the end, it's still just fans of that something. And hell yes, I will tell you that is not as legitimate as someone like Stephen King or Shakespeare writing stuff that people didn't know they liked until they read it. In a heartbeat. Fanfiction loves the equilibrium legitimacy argument, because it absolves it of any and all flaws without sacrifice. Egotism of the worst kind.

5. Entitlement does not equal good ideas. This is big thing for me, mostly because of the This Is Why The Fandom Can't Have Nice things deal. You didn't create it. Any of it. Not any of the stuff you love and are fans of. Yeah. You love it. It comforted you, provided an escape, helped make the hard times a little easier, made you resonate with humanity as a whole, maybe even helped form a part of your identity. It still ain't yours. And what I love the most is this idea that art is somehow easy. That the writers of Mass Effect 3 were somehow dumber than the multitude of fans who screamed about the ending. That Snakes on a Plane wasn't some god-awful mess of a movie because the Internet wrote it. That you, or your forum buddies, or your circles are like, profound visionaries, man, cause you understand what it means to be real fans. And! And! I love how this dovetails so neatly with the simultaneous attitude of fanworks that they're not allowed to be critiqued. Legitimate, real, profound, and successful art is not easy. And to all the people out there putting yourself into a box and saying "I'm successful because I draw fanart!": screw you. You are not for one second as legitimate as the original nobody with no pageviews. The creator has ultimate vision, and yeah, licensing screws up good ideas (ask Bill Watterson.) You want to do something about it? Go be an artist. Go find out how easy it is to be creative, not derivative. But don't mistake being a fan with being a creator. Because once you step over that line, you're deluding yourself into thinking that what you have to say is the same thing as being popular and highly marketable.

I ran across this post today here on Deviantart:  [link] . Some of the videos and links invoked inspired me to discuss the creative process. And negativity.
From time to time, I think I am very lucky in that my existence is caught up in what I do. I write, because I can't not write. And I draw for the same reason. Other people, apparently, are not this lucky. So I guess this journal is for them. Anyone who has ever doubted, anyone who believes they are a hack, anyone who believes that creativity done right flows all the time and never, ever stops (that's crap, by the way.) And, perhaps most importantly, that the Internet is the end, all be all of Art.
I personally have a difficult time doing everything the Internet demands. I have difficulty with Twitter, I'm lousy at my Facebook, and my account here on DA is probably the only thing that I check consistently. But, that's because I have a life. I have a project that I'm working on pretty much all the time, a dog that has to be walked, and most of my down time I choose to be focused on what I want to do, rather than the latest bit of Internet. The Internet is the most powerful tool of communication we've ever created. It also shows the worst of humanity way more often than it should.
I heard a parable once about living a life: that your life is an empty jar, and you can choose to fill it with rocks or sand. The rocks are the major, important things: your goals, your dreams, your relationships, your career. The sand is all the other minutiae: day to day crap, drama, going to the grocery store, and so on. You can fill a jar with sand, but if you do there's no room for the rocks. That's why you put the rocks in first. The sand fills up the spaces and the cracks in between.
So, when I see people talk about being afraid to create new content, because they are afraid of what the howling mobs on the Internet will think of them: all I can think of is that these people have filled their jars with sand.
I've noticed a phenomenon that suggests that art is meant to be social. It's a social event. You draw with friends, so you don't get bored. You draw with an audience, so your self-confidence can be propped up. You draw with a class so you can stick to a schedule. Art, for whatever reason, has become about less about focus, about introspection, about the journey to the truth that lies at the core of every human life.  Art seems to be moving away from its traditional role of criticizing and critiquing society, breaking new roads and giving new insights to its culture, and moving in to the mainstream cry of "Please accept me!"
I've got news for you, folks. Artists have always been lonely. We might make connections, but we belong to a world that demands us as individuals, more alone than regular people. Because if we're not alone, the process suffers. Art suffers. Art is not about being accepted. It's about creating something new, something that hasn't been there before.  A new voice, a new perspective, even a new emotion or a new awareness. And, yeah, we're damn brave for what we do. Because we do it more alone than anyone else. We're more alone then athletes, surgeons, engineers, and the idiots who do nothing with their lives but watch reality TV and post mean comments about your painting.
A lot of what these people seem to be whining about is that the Internet is a toxic place for feedback.
At the risk of sounding facetious: well, duh.
Philistines have always been the bane of the artist. Marcel Duchampe's Nude Descending Staircase was unveiled to scathing ridicule. Michelangelo's health was ruined by the Sistine Chapel. Art is easier and more accessible than ever, and these people want to complain when Michelangelo painted 5000 square feet of frescos? If Art is not worth sacrificing for, it's less meaningful than you think it is.
And, yes, that means suffering the slings and arrows of people who 'just don't get it'. Who the hell cares?
I can assure you that Da Vinci was not asking the peasants on the street what they thought of his work. If he was asking anybody, he was asking other master painters. I don't care what the latest angry 11-year-old has to say about my critique of how to design wolf characters. A) They don't know what they're talking about because they're laughably lacking in experience, and B) they don't have to listen to anything I have to say.
I draw for myself. I write for myself. And anytime I feel like I'm getting a little bit too big for my britches, I go to a used bookstore, and look at how many other novelists ended up there. Because odds are, I will, too. I'm probably not going to be the next J. K. Rowling. But, at the end of the day, I'll be satisfied with myself, what I had to say, and how I chose to say it. On my own terms. Because that's what being an artist is about.
We might be more alone, but we have the most freedom of any other existence. Our identity is the envy of everyone else in their most secret hearts. Cherish that. Especially the next time somebody tries to shit all over your creation. Yeah, yeah, we all want to be accepted and all that, but no matter what, we are all "unutterably alone."  You might as well have fun with it while you're here.
To everyone too scared to create: go back to the center. Go back to being alone. The Internet will be waiting for you when you get back. In all its stupid, burping, loud, obnoxious glory. The Internet should not define you. Your artistic vision should. And if you've lost sight of that, that's why your fear has gotten the better of you.
Art. What else matters?

I know I can't be the only one out there who soundtracks for her stories and characters. If Youtube is anything to go by, people see music videos for everything. I am constantly on the hunt for new music, because music opens up creative doors for my process. I see things for my characters and story that I could not otherwise do on my own. Movies and books provide  inspiration, but music is in a class all its own.
In celebration of that, I invite my watchers and fellow writing enthusiasts to try a creative exercise: offer up the soundtrack to your own writing. You never know, you might just give someone else the perfect song to complete their own soundtrack's story. It's my hope that people will post a musical narrative that evokes the journey of their characters and story.
Creativity on DeviantArt is far too often seen as a commodity, something to be selfishly hoarded instead of shared. The best sort of creativity is the kind that inspires.
In the spirit of that, since it's the holidays and all, let inspiration ring.
Check out the comments, take a listen, and be sure to leave comments for other people if they leave a song that you like. Especially if it sparks your interest in their story.
I'm not one to be left out,  so I will kick things off by offering the first fifteen songs from my dinosaur novel Mark of the Conifer:

1. The Beginning - Two Steps From Hell - Unfolding Armies [link]
2. Sunstrike's Clan - Two Steps From Hell - Adventures of Enchantment [link]
3. Sol's Theme - Immediate Music - Serenata Immortale
[link]
4. Song of the Sauris - Corner Stone Cues - Madokara Mieru [link]
5. Song of the Droemar - E.S. Posthumus - Arise
[link]
6. Song of the Hadrei - Chouwa Oto - With Reflection [link]
7. Song of the Theros - Corner Stone Cues - Ten Years Kashmir (Film Percussion Mix) [link]
8. Leaf's Escape - Two Steps From Hell - Black Blade [link]
9. The Sea Gods - Two Steps From Hell - Atlantis [link]
10. Facing the Fire - Two Steps From Hell - To Glory [link]
11. Courtship - E.S Posthumus - Manju [link]
12. At the End - Two Steps From Hell - Crimson Death [link]
13. Legend - E.S Posthumus - Oraanu Pi [link]
14. Told In Stone - Switchfoot - The Shadows Prove The Sunshine [link]
15. The Pact - Angels And Airwaves- The Gift
[link]

1. Seeking validation on the outside and getting shocked when you get critique. Validation comes from within, folks. Hard life lesson, but there you are. First of all, every artist of any kind has to learn to tell themselves they've done good work even in the face of their detractors. (One just hopes they balance it out with taking valid critique into consideration so they improve.) If you can't, you're not going to accomplish much. Second, I'm not saying that encouragement and fans and book deals aren't very nice things, but to the creative process they can be massive distractions. I read recently that a core of stillness is necessary to the creative process, and the more distracted I get, the more I understand it. I have seen entirely too many writers (and by this I mean full-grown adults who should be emotionally mature and everything) seek validation in a desperate and pathetic way, and get outraged when — gasp — someone tells them their writing could improve. I have seen people (mostly women) backbite, backstab, cold-shoulder, ostracize, and instill hierarchies of "published" and "not-published" that resemble cliques a high school would envy. And these cliques ain't got a decent writer among them. What they do is flock together so they can all preen and stroke and tell each other how wonderful they are. And those that aren't published latch onto those that are, as if attaching oneself to these people will give up the great secret on How To Get Published. (Psst. The answer is: BE A BETTER WRITER, STUPID.) If your self-esteem is low where your writing is concerned, it can be so, so easy to seek comfort. Especially if your Real Life at large is littered with terrible choices and even worse consequences. But if you fall into that hole, the best you can hope for is writing the kind of stuff in Rule #5 that makes me hate you.

2. Trying to make writing a social event. I don't understand why people do this. From the get-go, I heard the phrase "writing is the loneliest profession." And pretty much accepted that as my lot. But I watch people in Real Life and online constantly avoid the reality that the only way to write is to sit your ass in a chair and hit the keys. Mostly by trying to see if someone'll do it with them. NaNoWriMo is not the worst offender, but it's a good example. Classes and writing conventions can be helpful, but I have seen people pay good money for years on end and never get anywhere. Because they're not writing on their own. They might scribble a few things, but for the most part they want to talk to you about all these great ideas they have. One of the few hard and fast rules of writing I've discovered is: if someone's talking to you about what they're writing, they are not writing it. I guarantee you. I will bet you anything that the babbling ideamonger in the center of the room has barely written a word, while the surly introvert in the corner logged a hundred thousand words last novel. Writing is lonely, people. We explore worlds and journeys and emotions entirely on our own. Because if someone else were there with us, it would screw up the process. Leaving alone the whole "stillness is necessary to the process thing": I don't know if you've experienced the fresh hell that is collaboration, but believe me when I say it's one of the worst things I've seen people try to do. They are ready to kill each other by the end of it. People who collaborate well most of the time can do it because they've completed independent projects on their own in the first place, and bring a certain level of self-discipline to the table. Do not think that there is a magic feather. Writers write. And nobody's gonna make you do it but you.

3. Asking people or conventions to hold your hand. I recall talking to a group of ladies at SCBWI that were talking about a rather elite writer's program (the name of which escapes me) that had resulted in several people getting published. There was quite a bit of clucking and patting of feathers as these ladies assured themselves that such a pedigree ensured success. One of them turned to me and said, "Don't you think that would help you be a better writer?" I was unaware I was part of the conversation and happened to be doodling ponies at the time, so looked anything but the picture of literary aplomb. I replied by paraphrasing Stephen King: "The grit of sand is what makes a pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters." Proverbial pin drop. (I later found out that many people who graduated from that writer's program were still struggling to break into print.) Conventions are good for the uninitiated: if you don't know anything about the marketing side of writing, they're valuable. If you don't know anything about writing: they are less valuable, but still valuable. If you know both, conventions become maddening events in which you shell out several hundred dollars to hear the exact same stuff you've heard before, spend ten minutes with an agent, then get to stand around in a mixer trying to talk over everyone else's ten-second pitch line before you realize all the literary agents are hiding in their hotel rooms because this crap is insane. Conventions and writer's retreats are inspiring. I will give them that. Going to one, it's impossible not to come home fired with new zeal. Therein lies most of their value. But the shine is off the apple in about a day. You're back to the realization: you've still got to sit down by yourself and type things out. And really, talking to some "writers", that's more than they can handle. So they just sign up for the next convention with all their friends to keep that high going.

4. Strangling an idea to death. I've only personally experienced one person who couldn't let go of an idea. I joined SCBWI about four years ago, and met a lady from England who had an idea for a book that was a feel-good romp with five children who travel the world solving mysteries. She kept insisting it was a middle-grade, but it read like a chapter book. I dutifully did my critique, saw her at meetings, and life went on. Four years later: she's still hocking that book. Still going to the same old conventions over and over and trying to pitch the thing. My writing group consists of far more sociable writers than myself, and they assure me this happens all the time. That elite writer's program I mentioned? Apparently one luckless woman in SCBWI has taken the exact same book there three times in a row, year after year. And this is $3k a pop deal. I have also seen people write total staleness into their first chapter. After changing one line and asking me to critique it again, and again, paring down the spontaneity of the writing the same way someone chews their fingernails bloody. Digression is important. You have to know when to let an idea go, when to let it incubate, when to realize when it just ain't gonna work and you need let it die, and when its time to try something new. There are books that have taken decades to write. Your new project could teach you something that will give you a totally new insight into how to solve a problem in your old one. Creativity is about growth. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

5. Writing what's popular, not what you have to say. Uuuuugh. I hate this one. I hate it hate it hate it. This leads me to encountering cookie-cutter Hollywood-model books that are the same thing over and over, and drives me to write scathing reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I cannot believe how unoriginal so much YA literature is, or how spineless so much of it is. Between the books that copy the latest bestseller, and the books that copy waning bestsellers, the books that are retellings of fairy tales and myths, and the demand of publishers to publish what's marketable and not necessarily aesthetically valuable: there's not much room for originality. Granted, the ebook market has created an outlet for this, but it doesn't soothe my pain. More than this, I hate meeting writers I want to punch in the face because they think they're being clever by writing Twilight-but-seriously-not-Twilight-nudge-nudge-wink-wink. I swear to god, the worst of them are people who read one book and decide they can be a writer. And odds are it's not even a good book, it's just what's popular at the moment. I'm not saying populist literature is bad (Dickens and King qualify), but a lot of it can be. I loathe writers who have so much timidity they feel the only way they're ever going to say something meaningful is by treading the path of someone bolder or luckier. That their own experiences, however humble and true, aren't as important as something flashy and hollow. And don't give me that crap about "all stories have been done before", because there is a distinct line between stories inspired by inherent structure, and stories that rip off every cliché' known to the genre without even attempting originality. You're writing to express a truth. Be brave. Step out somewhere new and show us the way.

I'm not looking for a religious discussion. If someone starts one, I will rip your face off and block your comments.

1. How involved a deity is affects religion. At least in fantasy, anyway.  Now of course there are plenty of fantasy religions that don't bother to clear up whether a god actually exists, and the driving elements of the story or more about religion and power rather than spirituality. So considering whether god or gods actually really do exist at all in your story is a perfectly cromulent question. However, if a god does exist, and is constantly involved in the lives and well-being of its worshipers, enemies or non-believers might think twice before some serious smiting ensues.  For that matter, followers of an attentive god might watch their mouths.  (Look at the Greek Gods and what they did for slights!) A god may be protective, but that doesn't necessarily mean benevolent.  In fact, a god or gods may have the attitude of "No one messes with my people but me!" Ancestors and spirits may replace a full-on deity, but how involved they are with the real world still needs to be addressed.  (I think that Starclan from the Warriors cat series might as well not be there at all, since they are never helpful and at times downright deliberately confusing and obstructive. The overthrow of them would make for the best Japanese RPG ever, though. Get on that, Warrior fanfiction people, I'm throwing you a bone, here.)   If a god is distant, and never involved, it obviously leaves more room for interpretations, like popes and priests.  Often there are magical quotas for gods, that by worshiping a god one gains particular magics or some other boon.  If this is so, pay attention to what that god likes and what it wouldn't tolerate.  (If a god likes babies, for example, and your character accidentally kills one, I'm going to take issue when the god pats him on the shoulder and says, "Eh, that's okay, buddy.") Very few people like the full-on attention of gods.  Heroes tend to have miserable lives, ditto prophets and martyrs.  A god nitpicking all the time creates a tyrannical heaven, especially if they're petty. The angle of gods sneering at poor, pathetic humanity has kind of been done to death; sometimes I wonder how people would behave towards a god that could care less if it was worshiped, or even gods that are at mercy of mankind like in Princess Mononoke. That also begs the question of whether a god or supernatural being needs worshipers in the first place, because that at least can give mankind some pull.  Gods may well operate on their own level of rules, and be forbidden from directly interfering with the mortal realm because it creates chaos.  Indirect contact from the gods is another grey area that can be misinterpreted, even usurped by false prophets.  Of course, the definition of what a god even is opens up all kinds of thematic ruminations (again, Japanese RPGs might kill god all the time, but the argument could be made that the god killed is not God god or what have you, just a super-powerful denizen.) Either way, the role of gods as watchers, judges, or directors of fates needs to be established, even if they don't play a major role in the story.

2. What is exchanged for religion needs to be addressed. Religion either forms or is an extension of morals and ethics, especially in primitive societies. It is often the first attempt of mankind to make sense of that which makes no sense.  While myths are the first science, often attempting to explain phenomenon as-yet undiscovered, religion and spirituality attempts to answer the questions science never can. Do people pray just to exalt their god or gods, and obey heavenly laws in the hopes of being granted a reward?  Or do characters pray for power, for magic, or other favors?  And which ones do the gods agree to?  Why does the religion exist in the first place?  Many times, religion strikes a chord by addressing the major problems people have. If you are a warrior whose livelihood depends on not dying in battle, you're probably not going to be thrilled at praying to some namby-pamby god of peace. You've got to get the attention of the not-dying-in-war god! Honoring one's ancestors might be important for obtaining past histories, or even so one can be welcomed as a proper family member when one dies and joins the spirits on the other side.  Note that the reality of these things existing is not as important as the beliefs they instill: odds are, to your characters, the god or gods exist. I also have to point out that if miracles like smiting and the like occur, that's gonna do an awful lot for convincing people the god or gods are real (provided the miracle is specific enough, but again: false prophets can jump all over that.)  If there are multiple gods fighting over worshipers, things would definitely get interesting. People usually embrace religion because it fulfills a need.  Note that this is not necessarily the presence of a comforting deity, but may well be allowing one to become a part of the community surrounding that religion.  You might all be headed to be circumcised and dance in a drum circle, but damn, you're part of something bigger than yourself!

3. Environment and cultural values affects religion. People in the desert might worship rain.  But then again, people in a river valley might, too, because the annual river flooding means their crops are good this year. However, in the desert, I bet the storm god is always a good guy, while in the river valley, the storm god has a reputation for being wrathful if he's not appeased. An abundant agricultural society might put gods of fertility and crops first, while a nomadic warrior tribe might value a god of war. What the society values as ethical is influenced by AND influences religion. When mankind is living-hand-to-mouth, expect to see a lot of tribal totems, polytheism, and morals that make no scruples about killing. The less time spent worrying about a full belly is more time to contemplate one's navel.  To put it another way, civilization and morality only goes as far as one's ability to eat.  Talk to anyone who has known real hunger. Day three, you might be willing to steal and break a law you'd never conceived of breaking.  Day five, you might be willing to kill.  A society facing this constantly would have a god, a belief system, or a set of mores that are okay with this.  Conversely, a society where hand-to-mouth is not a reality for the majority would shake a finger at such primitive behavior.  Having said all that, there's nothing worse than a slap-dash religion that makes no sense within the context of the established civilization.  I have to invoke Paolini's "Religion of Ebul" here for a second, with the priests cutting their limbs off just cause. I don't wanna say no one would join that religion, because there's always someone desperate and sad enough to joint the most obvious idiot-cult, but cutting one's limbs off serves no purpose in the world as Paolini has presented it.  You'd be useless to your society in just about every sense of the word, and religion, largely, is about making connections within society.  Please realize that while belief systems can influence and control society, they can't utterly gum up the works of society's operations, because when they do, people tend to do two things: rebel (Henry the 8th, Lutherans, Protestants, Puritans) or become fundamental (the Spanish Inquisition). The medieval churches of Europe grew crops and bred dogs and had a lot of economic power.  They were useful in other ways to society aside from just the whole "Yay God!" thing, and a believable fantasy religion takes this into account.

4. The role of ritual is one of the most important. Ritual is a huge, huge thing in human lives.  Lack of ritual almost always guarantees a lack of civilization. Rituals reflect or symbolize what the society holds as important, what a culture values.  That is why judges wear black robes, why there are ceremonies for inaugurations or military awards, and why we have funerals. For example, a society that promotes death as the most meaningful act ever, one more meaningful than birth or marriage or anything else, is probably going to have warriors sculpted in ritual to believe that with every ounce of their being (and will probably make you wet yourself.)  If you like life, but it's meaningless to them, would you wanna face a warrior of theirs?  How about a thousand of them?  Rituals of birth, coming of age, courtship, bonding, and death exist in just about every culture.  Disregarding a ritual or doing it wrong can be quite the faux pas, especially if cultures are colliding.  (Throw vengeful opposing gods into the mix and watch the sparks fly.) Depending on how stringent that culture is, it could mean exile or even death (blasphemy laws in Pakistan carry the death sentence, for example.) Modern day disregarding of ritual in say, dating (courtship) might not be that big a deal.  But try spitting on a coffin at a funeral, and someone's head is gonna roll. A friend told me once  that the surest sign of a society on the brink of collapse is a society that tolerates everything.  Rituals dictate what society tolerates. As creatures of habit, we like rituals.  They are comforting, and can be personal habits or hugely communal events.  Ritual gives significance to the insignificant. They are the infrastructure of a society, the software of our brains; they can change, but if they crumble altogether, everyone's in trouble. Ritual is heavily tied to what defines a culture's values and morals, and surest way to become outcast or insult someone is to screw with their rituals. If a god is involved, and says "Do these rituals right or I'll smite you" the pressure gets even worse. For more on the role of ritual and its resonation in religion and culture, I highly recommend The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.

5. Religion is highly structured, so don't be stupid about it. Fantasy religions can kind of say anything; you just have to be consistent about the message.  If you've taken the time to establish that the Sky God says don't touch a woman until she's married to you, and you have rituals that constantly reinforce this message, and everyone who considers themselves upright moral citizens agrees that not touching women is the fair and right thing to do: don't have an ethically-minded hero touch an unmarried woman and not think twice about it. Or, have an unscrupulous bastard do it and not get in trouble when someone catches him. There'd better be some punishment on the way. Otherwise, why'd you bother telling us Sky God no likee the touching? Also be aware of iterations within the taboo.  Is an accidental touch or the brushing of fingertips just as bad as full on canoodling? Because if so, that tells us a lot about the society, especially if it involves a rich noblewoman/chief's daughter versus a peasant girl.  Conversely, if a guy kisses a girl and is subjected to three days blackballing, that says a lot, too.  (Blackballing is one of the most incredibly hurtful and powerful tools a primitive culture has at its disposal.) Taboos within religion trickle into secular life as well.  The biggest offense fantasy religion tends to do is take all this time to establish religion, and then not make it matter one bit outside of the church/synagogue/mosque walls. Religion and spirituality are powerful, powerful forces, because they affect beliefs. If people in the real world can blow themselves up or set themselves on fire because they believe a spiritual text, what the hell do you think could happen in a fantasy world where magic and dragons and gods might have the same spirit of conviction?

I just read a pretty interesting book about the healthy emotional development of young girls called The Triple Bind.  In a nutshell, it says that three contradictory rules are causing self-destruction among young teenage girls.

Rule#1: Fulfill the traditional "girl" expectations -- look pretty, be nice, get a boyfriend -- while excelling at "girl skills": empathy, cooperation, nurturing, relationship building, and family foundation.

Rule#2: Succeed at "boy goals" -- get straight A's, be a super athlete, be aggressive, be competitive, win acceptance to Ivy League, etc.

Rule#3: Be 100 perfect, 100 percent of the time and make it look effortless.  Alternative roles that previously offered escape like beatnik, tomboy, intellectual, hippie, punk, or goth have been co-opted, consumerized, and forced into a single narrow definition of what a woman should be.

I realize this is a far cry from what I usually write about, but one chapter of the book was dedicated to how YA champions like Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries and the popular Gossip Girls series were actually reinforcing this unfair rule set.

A decent example was actually the movie Enchanted, where the author pointed out that even the deconstruction and subversion of the "traditional princess role" still played into the Triple Bind. At the end of the movie, Giselle is supposed to run her own business, provide financial security, raise a child, and do all her hair and makeup every day so she pleases the eye. And the entire time, she's got to be cheerful, nurturing, and sweet (despite that scene where she actually expressed anger.)

Probably the best example was America's Next Top Model, which has been defended to me by those who claim it's progressive because, among other things, a plus-sized model won the competition some time back. Nonetheless, it seemed to perfectly sum up the Triple Bind. The show's press release says "Participants are asked to demonstrate both inner and outer beauty as they learn to master complicated catwalks, intense physical fitness, fashion photo shoots, and perfect publicity skills."  The models are pressured to make it all seem effortless; they must both fit the mold and break the mold, and no one can ever tell her when she must do which (this includes Tyra Banks and the judges). A voluptuous girl is told by the judges to both glory in her unusual body but also compensate for it. The show's own theme song, "Wanna be on top?" encourages aggression, but when girls are scathingly cat-like to each other they can be kicked out for lacking "inner beauty". Conversely, no matter how unique the girls attempt to be, they ultimately must be obedient to the highly commercialized and sexualized desires of the client.

The contestants struggle with the Triple Bind: look sexy -- don't be a slut. Be yourself -- but please others.  Radiate confidence -- but don't be arrogant. Be ambitious -- but don't be a bitch.

At first, I was like "Okay, come on, that's a reality show."  Then I got to a chapter on self-erasing identities that examined YA adult literature trends.  And I quote from the protagonist's journal of Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries:

STARTING TODAY I WILL
1. Be nice to everyone, whether I like him/her or not.
2. Stop lying all the time about my feelings.
3. Stop forgetting my algebra notebook.
4. Keep my comments to myself …

And I had to admit, as harmless as that list looks, rule number 3 is the only rule that doesn't contradict one of the others. Triple Bind.

The book said that girls in my generation are kind of past this Triple Bind idea, because it wasn't as highly commercialized as it is now. And believe me, the book went over everything: television, business, books, cyberculture, and school. The freaking Triple Bind is everywhere, and is heavily reinforced even in supposedly pro-feminism things like Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, or Juno..  Regardless of other steps forward, women are still marginalized in many ways, and far too often it's by themselves. After recently reading the latest Twilight YA ripoff, I discovered major themes of "Girls, don't be smart around your man. Girls, all you want is shiny things and riches. Girls, you can't make assertive decisions without being cruel to those you care about, so don't do it. Girls, you have to always nurture, always; women nurture, that's what we do. Girls, you're super empowered even when you're playing within the accepted parameters defined by a patriarchal society. No really, you are!" 70% of literature is by women for women, so why are we telling ourselves this!?

I feel like I've largely escaped the Triple Bind: I in no way feel pressured to be an idealism because of what gender I am. But the idea that these three rules are largely accepted and enforced rules as far as society is concerned is rather astonishing to me. Really, the biggest one I've run up against is that when a women tries to assert herself, she's seen as a bitch.  And while I realize that reaction may have power over other people, it doesn't over me.  It's just the reaction I've experienced myself (and really, not very often, and only in extremely isolated incidents.) But I've seen women stigmatized by the workforce for having children: when the company knows your children will always come first, they will look to someone else to promote. A single mother is considered less competent and less dedicated than a man of the same age who runs marathons every morning. I encourage everyone to read this fantastic article by Anne-Marie Slaughter that I found incredibly eye-opening called Why Women Still Can't Have It All [link] which basically points out that until women aren't forced to choose between family and career, we will not achieve equal opportunity among gender.

But I guess I gotta ask: what about you, my watchers?  Do you feel like these rules are accurate? That they encompass your own experiences?  That you are trapped to be someone who because she can have it all, she must have it all? And that if you have to struggle doing it all you're some kind of failure? That you can't be kind without being seen as weak and can't be assertive without being seen as mean? That you can't be a mother without being condemned for a lack of ambition and you can't have a career without being condemned for neglecting your family?

1. Start with a concept. This is how most of my characters start, and they usually begin with two or three word descriptors. "Demon stallion" or "spoiled dragon prince" or "psychic dolphin". Characters as this stage are more anima than anything; they are forces at play in the primordial soup of story. When an idea is this new, I try not to focus on it too much. Ideas need time to germinate, and I've found myself disappointed in times past when the potential of the character was so much more exciting than the concrete reality of what they became. Since during this time I'm developing plot and main conflict, I try to move characters around and see who I gravitate towards. This helps story and character grow organically. It's during this time that I try and determine what the character struggles with, the yin and yang of their internal difficulty. For example, I was recently asked to come up with a character for an urban fantasy roleplay, with no real details about the world other than it would be similar to Buffy: contemporary setting, high-schoolers fight evil, etc. My only other bit of information was that each character could have a magical or supernatural element if they wanted. I immediately came up with the idea of an extremely stoic, gentle, laid-back hippie type that had strong values in helping people and being a pacifist. But he would have some kind of curse on him, something that would wipe away his conscious mind and turn him into something monstrous and out-of-control. Regardless of the trappings of this character (i.e., whether be became a vampire or a werewolf or possessed by a demon), at his core he had a fantastic conflict going. His concept was peaceful-guy-cursed-to-violence, and I was quite excited to see how he would cope, what his journey would be. (Too bad that roleplay never materialized, but whatever.)

2. Determine role and archetype. This is an important next step to figure out your ensemble. I've heard it said that sometimes writers can try to cram too many characters into a story when really they have a character who belongs somewhere else. Studying story structure like Hero's Journey and 20 Master Plots and TvTropes comes in handy here. If you've got two Lancers, or two The Hearts, or everyone is a The Stoic, maybe your characters need some mixing up. Character concepts are a lot easier to abandon or change at this stage. Also, creating characters for a novel is not as willy-nilly and full of wild abandon as creating one for RP (or it shouldn't be). Characters should have a point, and major ones have important roles to play in plot and in developing believably. Believe me when I say that telling yourself "Eh, this'll work itself out later" will run you facefirst into difficulty. This is more of a "homework" stage than any other, because it requires knowledge of literature and story structure. (At least for me.)  Knowing plot elements can sometimes develop your characters, too: "A baby-killer might be interesting … ooh! What if one of the characters failed to save a baby in the past?" And so on.

3. World-build for the character.At this point, I've unusually figured out major tectonic plates in story and world. Countries, races, politics, race relations, relationships between countries, cultures, beliefs, and so on all influence my characters. Of course plot and world can affect character and vice versa, so don't think any of this is some kind of one-way thing. For example, my "spoiled dragon prince" concept. I started asking questions. "Why is he spoiled? Why's he a dragon? What kind of royalty rules?" I eventually figured out that my prince was as spoiled because his people's ability to transform into dragons made them demi-gods, and that they were worshiped by a strict caste system. The power of the regency and their caste system created ripple effects in the world-building: their country was highly xenophobic, with heavily controlled borders, and countries on the outside saw the dragon people as crazy powerful and not someone you'd want to mess with. Then I thought "What if someone did want to mess with them? What if they decided 'You know what my army could use? Dragon soldiers.'" My first major piece of plot arose out of world-building for the character.

4. Create an arc for the character. By this point, I'm filling out a character sheet. Likes, dislikes, flaws, fears, things that will help me figure out the why of what the character values and sees as important. These ideally provide story stakes. This is also when I have to figure out the change that will occur in the characters and (hopefully, but not always, damn you, Tokotsi) how it comes about. Plot by this point is usually fairly figured out; I keep an outline in a text document that can be changed if the need arises. But I keep my outline vague enough to keep room for organic changes; you never know when things will develop and surprise you during your actual writing. My characters need to be pretty concrete, but not necessarily the story. I usually don't name my characters until this point, because I like to keep them as forces for as long as possible. Naming a character brings them to life, and it's kind of a point of no return for me. Almost all of my characters have secret meanings in their names, and I'll spend hours looking up things just so I can feel clever. But that's a writing quirk of mine, not a hard and fast rule. None of these are.

5. Play with the characters. One of my favorite moments in starting a novel is the chance to get to write a character defining moment. The first time the character shows up, they behave immediately in a way that establishes them. A lot of writers seem to struggle with this, and I suspect its because they forget to play with their characters. Roleplay taught me how valuable it is to just put a situation in front of a character and see how they'll react. I tend to talk to myself in the car or when I'm cleaning, acting out characters. And just letting them interact with each other, or with problems. I've gotten quite a few good scenes and pieces of dialogue by doing this. Other writers say they interview their characters or act as a therapist for them. Whatever you're doing, do it a lot. You have to know your characters inside and out, so that their behavior is believable and heartfelt. Strong characterization is one of the most important things in writing, and you need to practice the skill of characterizing as much as possible.

I'm not exactly sure why there appears to be such a warzone where characters are concerned.  Maybe it's just because I don't swim in the soup of fandom or fanfiction (and in a roleplay sense, have only returned recently), but I guess I just find the whole thing entirely baffling.  Roleplay and fanfiction become these massive tiers of Serious Business that are destructive to the creative process. They stagnate and shame while simultaneously churning out high emotion, all the while distracting anyone who wants to learn from shit that will actually be useful to them if they want to write.

I feel the need to give a disclaimer that A) I think fandoms can be incredibly stupid even at their best, B) fanfiction that is "not horribly written" is usually being labeled as such by people who don't and can't know better because their point of reference and experiences are so lacking, and C) even as a writer, I don't understand how character becomes such Serious Business.

I suspect in part it's due to so many youngsters on this site searching for a sense of identity, and things like roleplay and fanfiction allow exploration of other identities. In a sense, we can see what it's like to be someone else and if we like it or not. But I think the big disconnect, especially when it comes to being a good writer, comes from when there are no repercussions in the world the character inhabits. If the rule becomes "My character, in character, right or wrong", this threatens everything and eclipses a fundamental element in character: growth.

I role-played a lot when I was younger, and found it to be one of the best things a young writer can do to explore character.  But roleplay taught me how to have characters that deferred to power (which translates to deferring to plot) and deferred to other characters (which translates to character arc or growth), two things that you absolutely have to understand and grasp in order to write a good story. If you have characters that never suffer setbacks, disappointments, challenges to their worldviews and preconceptions, or what have you, you're on a one way track to disappointing your reader. I was very lucky as a teen to have a roleplay group made up of people who wanted to be actors, and understood that the first rule of improv is the first rule of the creative process "Say yes."

Say yes to tension, say yes to your character being pushed around, being in the wrong, being unfair, humiliated, defied, and denied. Say yes to struggle, to difficulty, to being cruel, to being sorry, to bad ideas, stupid mistakes, and apologies. Say yes to the character hurting and being hurt, say yes to growth, to driving your character beyond their capacities. If you can't say yes to these things happening in roleplay or in fanfiction: you are wasting your time. You will never write convincing, sympathetic characters.

And maybe that's another point of disconnect: the reader is all that matters in writing.  In fanfiction, that should be the rule, but it rarely is. And most writing suffers for it, either because the "My character, in character, right or wrong" terrifies anyone who might want to write that character (how many flame wars in fanfic communities start because Sonic was OOC?) In roleplay, too often social rules get in the way, and it becomes a contest of whose character can posture the most  Ultimately,  "getting a character right" means that you check off the requisite boxes to make sure you get the character's so-called details right. Which is not as important as "characterizing": making sure your reader gives a shit. Your OC and your ego do not matter in writing. I always approach things from the point of "How can this character win over a reader? How can they still be sympathetic even though he/she is doing bad, selfish things? How can they be hurt and learn from that hurt?"  I have to wonder what the thought process for others is. It must be like "How can I look the most awesome? How can my character come across as the coolest guy ever? How can I posture better than my roleplaying partners or that idiot who wrote that fanfiction that portrayed Link so bad?"

I mean, for starters, for all the screaming about not stealing characters, no one blinks at stealing a copywritten character. I think I saw a stamp that was like "All fan characters are original characters!" and it was like "You poor, deluded bastard." I take issue with the standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants problem inherent to fanfiction, but I've already ranted about that. I will say that fanfiction tends to cripple character as an element, either because it offers a colorful candy shell for the less confident to convince themselves that their ideas don't suck, or because the fandom as a whole wants more of what was in the video game, movie, TV show, or book and doesn't want to see any originality outside of that. (Or an extremely limited amount of originality, hence my use of the term 'crippling'.) This comes back to "My character, in character, right or wrong", which falsely expostulates that it is more important that a character be "true" or "pure' rather than make a journey.

Playing around in someone else's world is sort of a grey area, but that brings me to what I cannot understand. If you're writing in someone else's literary world to learn how to write: stop it. Make your own world and learn how to convey its rules; stop leaning on the collective consciousness of a fandom. You're better off, just trust me on that, and better you start early.

If you're playing around to explore character, as any decent roleplayer should, than remember the golden rule of role-play: it's a freaking game. Awesome or idiotic, at the end of the day, you've got a roleplay post to show for it. Your roleplay character is no more important than a character in a book. They're simply efforts at expression and communication. If your character is bad at expression or communication, they should suffer the slings and arrows inherent to that. Don't real people suffer them in Real Life? Don't you think that makes them sympathetic to a reader who knows that selfsame suffering? Good roleplay drives a character to explore what will make them break and rebuild. (I also don't understand how it's okay to write about Harry Potter's eighth adventure or roleplay in Tolkien's world, but if people steal your theft, you're going to flip your lid.)

Maybe for some it's identity theft. I guess that's about the only way I can explain it. Most teenagers are searching for identities. People using character as a coping mechanism will shoot you in the face, and since most of them around here are angsty teens in the first place … they're probably coping. I guess I'm just astonished at the length people will go to assert their right to be unoriginal power-players, which serves as a direct counterpoint to the fervor with which they will go after someone else for being unoriginal or a power player.

Perhaps most of all, this definition distorts the purpose of good character so badly I'd be hard pressed to articulate it. (I'm kind of all over the place with this entry, in case you haven't noticed.) Character is not something you use to tell the world how great you are. When that happens, you get crappy story and probably accusations of either Mary Sueism or of soapboxing on an issue. Character is not gold to be hoarded by you, in order for you to say "I did it!  I made it!  It's all mine and you can't have it!" Character is something meant to be shared with others. Characters inhabit psychological and mythological archetypes in order to teach. Character is not something meant to be immovable or uncompromising. Character is more than the sum of its parts: not a collection of idiosyncrasies like collecting toast and kittens, and god help you if the character isn't collecting toast and kittens every time they show up. At its heart character is story and struggle, and struggle is more important than whether the character says or does the "right" thing in the "My character, in character, right or wrong" rule.

And ultimately, character is unique. No amount of theft changes that. No one can write Harry Potter like Rowling did. He's hers, and he can never be taken from her. God knows there are enough fanfic writers out there who have tried. The person "stealing" your totally awesome character can't steal the experiences that you've breathed into them. Your STRUGGLE. Your viewpoint is (one hopes) entirely unique. The story you tell will be yours and yours alone, should you ever get around to writing it.

Whether it'll be any good, or a story worth the telling is something entirely different.

EDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook [link] for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!

1. No one cared that I wrote. I say this in kind of the sin of omission sort of way. Looking back on growing up, no one in my family paid attention to the hours I spent in front of a keyboard. My mom never picked my brain about plots, my siblings were more likely to mock my prose than be curious about it. My pursuit was ignored, treated with apathy, as opposed to being actively cast down as "stupid" or "a waste of time". While I'm sure I used this "meh" reaction to self-flagellate and feel bad about myself, especially as a teen, in hindsight it provided a remarkable amount of focus. Not only that, if my murder-mystery mother and historical nonfiction father had read my wild tales of fantasy and provided feedback, it would have been either the empty encouragement of a parent or off-target, crushing criticism that (for the most part) wouldn't have been valid because they're neither writers nor Ideal Readers. Silence was my encouragement. It was a place where I could listen to what I was trying to say and do without distraction, said distraction including the "You're so wonderful because you put words on a page, you smarty you!"  That's not to say that receiving encouragement as a child to write is a bad thing; I had to have received a certain amount of it or I never would have pursued it. But let's face facts: I was a terrible writer for most of my existence (I'm slightly less so now), and if the terrible flaws within had been encouraged, I might have been taught something wrong for writing was right to do. By well-meaning folks who loved me. I never wrote to satisfy anyone but myself and my sense of what makes good story. If I'd grown up in a different environment, I might have ended up writing for someone else's validation. Learning how to work alone taught me self-sufficiency and, eventually, confidence.

2. I lived in the middle of nowhere before the Internet. We got dial-up in my house right around the time I was 11 or 12 years old. I was immediately distracted by the fact that The Lion King had gobs of fanart and roleplay forums, and by the grace of God missed the fanfiction bus. Nonetheless, rural Texas doesn't offer a lot in the way of writing groups or even writing enthusiasts. When I say my parents ignored my writing, that includes not reading what I begged them to. My friends also liked me, but not to the extent that they were willing to slog through 100,000 words of awful writing. And as well neither of them should have. I didn't learn to start rewriting until around 18 or 19. With no rewrites as recourse, I just wrote new stuff. Loads of it. My first real grasp of rewriting came in revamping worlds and plots, as opposed to line edits or reworked scenes. I started big at first; it wasn't until later I learned that the real miracles occur at a sentence level. But because I was in a vacuum, I had to learn to teach myself. And really, time at the keyboard is the most valuable time you will ever spend as a writer. Hearing what others have to say can be valuable, but never as valuable as the act of writing. Even now, I definitely understand that critique is a double-edged sword, and if you're not discerning enough, it can wreck the heart of your truth. A young, callow youth with no point of reference may well be streamrolled by a friend or a writing group telling them "you can't write about dragons; dragons are boring" or "this is cheap knockoff crap". I was at my most vulnerable as a teen; a bad experience could have shifted a tectonic plate in my skill. Instead, I was isolated and cocooned, left alone until I grew wings. After writing 500,000 some-odd words, there was no way I couldn't, and my experience gave me armor for inevitable criticism.

3. I roleplayed in Real Life. I started real-life roleplaying when I was probably 9 or so. I remember suffering the slings and arrows of my older bother's GURPS group (a bunch of teenage boys who were, I'm sure, just thrilled to have a bratty girl-child in their midst). I played just about everything, Dungeons and Dragons, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, and so on.  Roleplay taught me the value of story elements like characterization, pacing, tension, and plot, without any of the recourse that would have been tied to my soul on the page. It was, in short, a place of total safety that never got above itself. You were not a badass when you steamrolled everyone else in the scene. Instead, if scenes were memorable, or worth reviewing, it was usually with mutual enthusiasm akin to fangirling from everyone who was involved in the story. While there was the typical one-upsmanship and anti-social, angsty Mary Sues, eventually (around 19 or so) I learned that the best scenes occurred when everyone was in sync. When everyone wanted the story to happen, and it stopped being about individual forces. It taught me my most valuable lesson: the relationship between reader and writer. And that a writer owes, above all else, story. When I wanted my characters to do this or do that and look awesome and cool, the session got boring, often tedious and always frustrating. I learned that there wasn't any such thing as "winning", there was just character and story. Once I let go of that, things opened up for me. Roleplay certainly offers some negative problems, usually within the realm of power-playing and one-upsmanship, but finding someone or someones that don't pull that crap can be the best thing ever. Especially when you find yourself willing to humiliate and degrade and set back your most beloved character. That's great training for plot and empathy, as well as character arcs.

4. I roleplayed on forums. Hands down, roleplay was the best thing that ever happened to me. And despite the incredibly inherent stupidity of it, I look back very fondly on my Lion King roleplay. Forum roleplay is unique in that it has all the perks of regular roleplay with the added ability to mess with prose. It's up to you to paint the scene or reaction for other people. If you do it wrong, the poor communication fails the situation. Again, it doesn't become about one's crappy writing; it becomes a rebuke in how to effectively communicate. (Having said that, I cannot read the word "oculars" without pissing my pants laughing, because no one who uses that word ever uses it correctly, and it always means someone's trying too hard.) Another thing I often noticed was that way, way too many roleplay scenes started on forums involved a character aimlessly wandering around, not doing anything, and definitely offering anything but conflict.(I called this the "Wanna chase butterflies?" setup.) I was incredibly bored by this, and created villains and tricksters who wanted to cause trouble. Who liked seeing a rise out of other characters, were willing to be mean, or at the very least, willing to yell at aimless character that they were getting in the way of their super-important task. It taught me the value of characters needing to be proactive, to have goals, and the value of a catalyst. A catalyst is what drives characters to go beyond their means. And I was surprised to find that a lot of people were delighted when their resident badass got put down and had to deal with being helpless for the first time, or when the world's friendliest leopard (I feel the need to reiterate this was Lion King roleplay) was driven to fury and outrage when faced with terrible cruelty. That's not to say some people weren't outraged that their Best Character Evar was being humiliated or forced to, gasp, compromise, but those people didn't last long. They were ousted by more cooperative people or straight up black-balled when it became clear they weren't worth the trouble. I think a lot of people were looking for a way for their character to face the best and worst of themselves, but they didn't know how because of societal pressures (no one wants to be That Guy). Cooperation is a necessary part of roleplay, and it translates to how the elements of plot and character cooperate to tell story. And just like a story where the characters refuse to do anything and the plot goes nowhere as a result, dealing with belligerent players who are only interested in showing you how totally awesome and badass they are, you learn real quick why Mary Sues are annoying and loathsome no matter where they show up.

5. I wrote terrible stories. That's not to say I still don't, but I can at least say there's a marked improvement. But yes, of course I wrote shit. I wrote it for ten years. Maybe more. But it was the mountain I had to climb, and aside from the terrible writing aspect of it, I'm glad I did. Actually, proud that I did. Not proud enough to show you a bunch of manuscripts that will never see the light of day, but proud enough to call myself a writer. And this might be the biggest lesson anyone learns: that it's okay to write crap. Now, it might not be okay to write it and show it to other people, write it and brag that you are pure genius, write and claim that you've achieved a Herculean task just by getting words on the page. And definitely it's not okay to write it when the world and characters aren't yours and claim 99.9% of the work belongs to you because you're subtle, dammit. But I've run in to too many people who want to know what it takes to be a good writer and look like they're doing it for all the wrong reasons. Because they want love, fame, affection, praise, or validation. They can't write because if they don't get those things after the excruciating effort of writing, they'll just die. I am always, always baffled by people who want to show a rough draft. It gets me every time. Because my own rule is "When it's good enough for me, then you get to see it." Too many people write what is marketable, not necessarily what is true. Their exposure to other literature and whys and how are anemic at best, and even nonfanfiction can be pale imitations of overly rehashed ideas. But for the life of me, people, it's fine to write crap as long as you're writing. And yes, God save me, I guess that includes fanfiction (but good luck with that; my biggest objection to fanfiction is it's environment, see #1-4.) A writer is someone who has written today. No one says you have to show it to anyone.

It's often said that criticism is more fun to both write and read. But lately, Fifty Shades Of Grey's existence made Stephanie Meyer look like a well-written, intelligent, and erudite author, and it's all fanfiction's fault. So for the sake of not lowering standards, and to raise a battle cry for quality and craft, I'd like to analyze why I think My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a great show for me.

I won't talk much about the fandom, although I have been highly entertained watching it build. Hype backlash and all that is inevitable when something is popular, but I will say that FiM appears to inspire people to a kinder, gentler sort of fandom, as opposed to the sort of tribalism seen in purists and non-purists in types like anime or comic nerds. However, most of my experience is limited to TvTropes's articles and Youtube, so if there is a seedy underbelly to the FiM fandom it's quite possible I haven't encountered it yet. And probably am not willing to ever get that deep.

I scoffed as much as anyone when FiM happened. I've been a shameless, idiot fan of My Little Pony since the 80s, and even with nostalgia filtered glasses glued to my eyes, the original show was a goddamn acid trip. Bizarre, and cursed with the basic plague of shows meant for girls: not a single memorable character of note to be found, but lots and lots of pink. Some of the plot-lines and sheer darkness of the show have aged it into an almost Yellow Submarine-esque sugar apocalypse. (And if you don't believe me, head on over to Youtube and watch Firefly's Adventure.)  Then those things went away, and when My Little Pony came back it was worse than ever before. Watching any of the shows that happened between My Little Pony Tales and FiM violates the Geneva conventions. It is glurge, of the sort that will first give you diabetes, then cancer, then force your trembling and unwilling hand to lift a gun to your temple for sweet, merciful release. All conflict vanished, the biggest problem anyone on Ponyville ever had to worry about involved cakes and parties and a lot of giggling and cheering and songs, and no one spoke above a four year old's intelligence.

My Little Pony condescended in the worst way, both by insinuating that this was all that could be expected of girls, and by pointedly jeering at its own concept every single second. Watch any part of any of its 2000s cartoons, and I guarantee you will hear evil whispering, "What else were you expecting from ponies?" It's no small wonder Hasbro wanted a retool. And thank god they got Lauren Faust. FiM is smart, deep, and surprisingly heartfelt in its commentary. And sometimes I still have a hard time believing that, because ponies. That was pretty much all that they ever needed to keep me coming back.

Commentary on feminism: Bronies aside, this is the greatest thing ever for the target audience for the show. When I was growing up, the last few alternative ways to be acceptably feminine hadn't quite been thoroughly commercialized. Nowadays, it very much is, and a lot of sociologists, psychologists, and academics are somewhat concerned about what this means. Women are defined largely by the Triple Bind concept, three contradictory rules:
Rule#1: Fulfill the traditional "girl" expectations -- look pretty, be nice, get a boyfriend -- while excelling at "girl skills": empathy, cooperation, nurturing, relationship building, and family foundation.
Rule#2: Succeed at "boy goals" -- get straight A's, be a super athlete, be aggressive, be competitive, win acceptance to Ivy League, etc. (Note that these rule directly flies in the face of the first one; girls can't be aggressive and empathic, competitive and cooperative etc. all at the same time. And no one ever seems to agree when a girl is allowed to be one and not the other.)
Rule#3: Be 100 perfect, 100 percent of the time and make it look effortless.  Alternative roles that previously offered escape like beatnik, tomboy, intellectual, hippie, punk, or goth have been co-opted, consumerized, and forced into a single narrow definition of what a woman should be within those highly commercialized parameters.
FiM at least puts forth the idea that there are many, many different ways to be a woman, and that all are equally valid. That a booky nerd is no less feminine than a diva fashionista, and that a rough-and-tumble tomboy is no less of a girl than a shy, demure debutante. Especially considering the plethora of pressures that exist to tell girls what's acceptable for a woman, especially among other women with the concept known as "slut-shaming", I'm amazed and delighted that FiM manages to make the commentary that girls are great no matter what they do. Especially after more or less saying the opposite through its previous incarnations for twenty some years. (And it wasn't for Hasbro's lack of trying, trust me; Faust and her team really have to given serious props for pulling off this brilliant commentary while still under pressure from a lot of old-school marketing that said little girls wouldn't like a white Celestia because everyone knows little girls love pink.)

Commentary on gender roles: Herein I shall discuss the brony phenomenon. Because after the whole feminism thing, I couldn't be more enchanted with this aspect of FiM. I have to confess when people hear about the brony thing and are baffled by it, and say stuff like "Are … are they gay?" I'm dismayed. Because guys are under pressure from society to be a certain way, too, and it's not fair. Nowadays, if you say stuff like "Girls can't race cars; racecars are for boys!" you'd probably be shouted down for being politically incorrect. But a guy likes ponies? "Fag." What the hell? FiM shakes up the status quo in a big way. Naturally, by having characters like Applejack and Rainbow Dash embrace more "male" (for lack of a better term) industries like farm work and sports, respectively. But Spike, the Token Male of the show, wears aprons, enjoys baking, cleans, and hangs out with a bunch of girls. Not only is he not even the same gender, he's not even the same species. And yet, the relationships are born of equality, and enjoy equal measures of respect, courage, and empathy. Spike is definitively male and brings male energy to the show. Sorry, but after seeing an all-male panel show up to tell Congress about woman's reproductive rights, I couldn't be more thrilled at the idea of a show teaching young kids "Everyone has a valid opinion and a right to be respected, regardless of gender or societal expectations of that gender." So hell yeah. Bring on the bronies. I hope ten years from now we have thousands of them in public service running on the Love and Tolerance ballot.

Commentary on philosophy: I'm about as big a cynic as its possible to be, so much so that sometimes I get angry at myself for grinning like an idiot after certain episodes of FiM. Nonetheless, in this day and age, it's expostulated that negative is wiser. That to be hopeful, and positive, and happy, is to be a fool. Despite all of us in our heart of hearts desiring positive energy to be sent our way with a smile or encouragement, it's become the norm to do the opposite. (Especially on the Internet.) FiM has been associated with the New Sincerity movement, a basic rebellion of happy against prevailing modes of postmodernist irony or cynicism.  And without a doubt, FiM is unapologetic in its sincerity. Admittedly, a world of magic and candy-colored ponies might be easier than our world, but the only major difference between their world and ours is how we choose to respond to conflict. The wisest person knows that most conflicts arise from exactly what creates problem in FiM: misunderstanding, lack of empathy, honest mistakes, misread or misinterpreted behavior, and above all, fear. And that the way to solve those problems are what Twilight Sparkle writes to Princess Celestia about: we can solve our problems with mutual respect, understanding, selflessness, courage, and tolerance. It's hard not to admit the show has a point once in a while, especially after a Sonic Rainboom.

Commentary on Child Stigma: Similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender, FiM enjoys a wide adult demographic. Because it's actually intelligent, and doesn't speak down to its audience. Now, while children's programming has gotten amazingly better since the old days of 80's cartoons, it has suffered from some censorship in a lot of ways. (For example, I grew up with Batman: The Animated Series, which was the last show that allowed real guns to be used in a children's cartoon. At least in terms of Batman, every other subsequent show has had laser guns or poison gas guns are a bunch of other fantasy crap. Not real guns.) FiM overturns a lot of the status quo by suggesting that, yes, girls are capable of handling the end of the world. (Hard to believe Japan's ahead of us on that one.)  And I don't mean in terms of a show for teenagers; FiM's target audience is 7-year-olds.  And it doesn't talk down to 7-year-olds. Think about that for a second. How many shows can any adult watch that's targeted at 7-year-olds and not consider shooting themselves after ten episodes? How many shows at all expostulate ethics being its own reward in a sincere way? I can't think of a single adult show that actually does that. It kind of goes back to the idea that cynicism is wiser, and optimism is just for silly little kids. FiM puts forth the idea that kindness, generosity, laughter, honesty, and loyalty aren't foolish precepts at all, but human ideals that lie in the heart of our greatest philosophers, leaders, writers, and artists, and that every once in a while, we should damn well remember that it's awesome.

EDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook [link] for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!

1. They don't have flaws. Flaws are the first thing that should be explored in character, at least after the first flashes of inspiration have passed and you start moving into more concrete turf. People say Mary Sues are defined by lack of flaws; the flip side insists that giving your character "issues" won't make a character any less of a Mary Sue. Now, my definition of a Mary Sue doesn't involve flaws or the lack thereof; a Mary Sue, to me, is defined by the disproportionate amount of attention given to a Sue by the plot and the priorities of other characters. So, yes, it possible for a Mary Sue to have legit flaws and still be a Mary Sue. However, the difference between "issues" and a character flaw is what role they play in the character's development. If a character is a cutter, and constantly whines about their lousy, black-shadowed lives, and that's all they do: that is a character with issues. If a character is a whiny cutter whose self-hatred drives them to find a better way and moves them to grow and change: that is a character flaw. The flaw is self-hatred, not the cutting. Flaws cut down their bearers or are overcome by them; the middle ground is flaws make the character suffer repercussions.  If our cutter sits around telling people they cut because they hate themselves, and every single person around them goes "You poor thing, have some chocolate", that is not what you want. If someone is a jerkasshole because they hate themselves, and someone justifiably smacks them around or tells them to shut the hell up, the jerkasshole has suffered repercussions for his self-pity. Characters worth knowing and rooting for are not victims; i.e., not people who sulk and feel sorry for themselves; remember that the hero element of any character is watching them strive for something better. If any of you have been following my Kit Farson stuff, one of Kit's big flaws is fear. He's afraid of everything, especially other people, and he's either shy and anti-social because of it, or angry to cover up his fear. Kit struggles to overcome his fear and do the right thing, but his fear earns him repercussions: he's bullied because he's shy, he gets in fights because he gets angry, and he's very often left all alone because he's anti-social. This flaw keeps Kit from things he might really desire in his heart of hearts, like respect and true friendship, but he is actively trying to get past his flaw in order to get those things.

2. They are narcissists. This is a big one, especially here on DA. I suspect it has to do with so many folks here on DA being teens or tweens, learning for the first time that you are not the center of the universe, not as special as you thought, and that being a good person sometimes means you have to put other people first (don't worry, some people never figure that last one out.) I certainly had characters when I was that age that were free of societal cages; they could insult people, and walk all over authority figures, and they were empowered like I wasn't. But, of course, to the rest of us, this kind of behavior comes across the same as when you see a spoiled teenager. This gets worse when you have characters with things like a prophecy and hero designation and "speshul" markers like telepathic wolf companions and such. When you combine "speshul" with jerk, we grind our teeth. None of us our special, and if we do become special, it's rarely because of providence. Lots of characters fail because they are jerks inside and out; we don't want to get to know them. They demand the world be a certain way instead of shouldering the burden to change it themselves; they push others out of the way to further their own goals instead of extending a hand; and are very often cruelly insulting while demanding respect and empathy. If your character is anti-social and crazy, they better get their asses roundly kicked at some point (unless they're a catalyst, and then you'd better A) know what that is and B) not have them as a protagonist.) And take the time to at least balance them out with endearing traits only the reader can see. Moral absolutism is another aspect of narcissism, when the character equates their point of view with "right". This happens a lot with Mary Sues, and can really get scary as hell. As Billy Joel said "The only people I fear are those who never have doubts." Show me someone who is so right they're willing to kill over it, and I'll show you a dictator-in-the-making.

3. They never learn. This is a favorite of people who create the "Screw the rules!" characters. The crazy people who do whatever they want, live by their own rules, and aren't bound by petty things like "empathy" and "responsibility". You're supposed to feel sorry for them if they do suffer a setback, like getting punched in the face for being outrageous, but don't ask them to change. They are who they are, man! While there is a strange reinforcement of Heroic Sociopathy, I guess because people like the idea of not ever having to compromise, it really gets annoying when their vantage point is portrayed as justified. And when you combine this with the "crazy for the sake of being crazy" motivation, it's god-awful. And way more popular than it should be. If you have ever roleplayed, I guarantee you have encountered this character type before. If you're roleplaying to explore character and growth, and you're playing this kind of character: stop. This type of character is called a catalyst in writing, a character that forces change out of other characters, but never changes themselves. While this is a legitimate force to have in storytelling, I really hate seeing people insist that their never-do-anything-wrong character is really a deep and nuanced protagonist, someone who has to change. How can they change if they're never aware of doing anything wrong?  If they don't care that they have? If they react to repercussions by delivering one of their own that's ten times worse? A character that never learns is never wrong, and never changes. It's that simple. The character who insists they're doing right and doesn't care who gets hurt: that's a villain.

4. The author is afraid to humble the character. This happens a lot whenever Mary Sues are around, or at least it's a sure sign that a character has something like Plot Armor or an Author Tract protecting it. The character never fails in their endeavors, never doubts, never fears, and most importantly, is never rebuffed, set back, or punished by external forces. Now, a Mary Sue will simply tromp right through such things, but many authors will have the character quietly dodge the obstacle or never have the character confront it at all, and still claim that their character really went through something life-changing. It's having cake and eating it, too, without the satisfaction of sacrifice on the characters part. Rather like Bella Swan never having to confront the dark side of vampirism: she's never forbidden from it by her father, her new state doesn't alienate her from her family, nothing is said about her setting herself up to watch her Mom and Pop shrivel and die, and definitely no one ever says anything about the werewolf child-grooming her kid. Repercussions are a huge part of character growth, but the instinct of most young writers is to shy away from it.  (And I know why, because most are still teens living at home, dealing with the frustration of having your own ideas without the freedom to act on them. So you write about characters who can go where you can't and don't have to deal with the frustration you do.)  Especially if you are roleplaying in order to explore character: if you are not doing this, you're missing the point.

5. All their change happened before the story. This one was actually pointed out to me by an old roleplay buddy of mine while we were discussing character. How many character profiles have you read or seen where so-and-so is an assassin, who suffered years of Training From Hell, and killed a dragon, and lost his one true love, and got really bitter and anti-social about it. But they're the main character in a story that mysteriously, somehow, can't be written. It never seems to occur to folks that that character's past would be a novel in its own right. Not only that, it seems to be the habit to just put stuff into a backstory for the hell of it. "And then, I beat a whole bunch of pirates!" "What do pirates have to do with our story? We're in the middle of the Old West." "Cause … cause killing pirates is cool." Character can start with a simple concept, but don't get so dazzled by it that you forget the journey. Most stories are about watching characters suffer; a favorite saying among my writing friends is "I'd never want to read about anyone who wasn't at the end of their rope." If you have a demure smug jerkass whose totally awesome at fighting and kills stuff all the time and goes home to sleep with his true lurve-4ever girlfriend … that's not a hero I'm interested in. And don't think having him go home and cry about all the people he killed makes him "deep"; it doesn't. Character is nuance, and a lot of that nuance is in the journey.

I feel the need to ask this question of my followers, since most of you are my target audience. The people I write for, YA fantasy-wise.
Part of this is venting, because I'm doing rewrites and currently being put through the wringer for a number of things, namely that my story has three major lead characters, multiple POVs, nonlinear storytelling, and an extensive backstory that is revealed throughout the course of the novel as opposed to an infodump at the beginning. I've been told that "kids can't keep up with three POVs, they'll get bored or confused," though whether that means teens or tweens I'm not sure. While I've gotten great line-editing and some decent suggestions, I'm getting aggravated that I'm being accused of giving too much credit to my readers.
There seems to be a bit of a generational gap between me and my critiquers, because I tend to regard YA readers as intelligent and hungry for a world that is as imerssive and detailed as it is capable of a good story. I trust that as long as my story is interesting, my readers will follow me, even if I don't get to the point or answer everything right away.
My crtiquers are of the opinion that young readers are salivating ADHD technoheads constantly on the lookout for the next distraction, in demand of total entertainment and stimulation at every waking moment. If the book doesn't instantly deliver that, I don't have a hope.
Personally, I don't believe that three characters are hard to keep track of, not for a generation that plays Mass Effect and can memorize all 600+ Pokemon (like me.)  I don't think a cavalcade of fantasy places and terms are impossible fare, especially not if there's a glossary at the back of the book. I realize there's a necessity in place to strike a balance between exposition and getting to the point, but I feel like I'm being asked to compromise for the sake of readers I'm not trying to target. In addition, I seem to be the only one of my compatriots that is aware of the concept of fanfiction: that there are kids out there willing to dedicate hours of their lives to reading stuff way more poorly structured and badly written than any of my stories. Not that that's a justification; but it is an argument for "kids are lot more patient than we think."
So, that's my question. How patient are you with a book? What turns you off? What makes you stop reading? Do you demand compelling, immediate, cut-to-the-bone plot, or are you wiling to hang out with the characters a bit? Is it more important that the plot starts on page one, or that we get to know the characters and places first?
Please comment, because I swear I'm the only one in my group who actually has conversations with their target audience.

I rarely talk about books that I like; most of the time I just bitch about what bugs me in writing that doesn't work. But having just seen The Hunger Games movie, I thought I'd do an analysis of why I like Suzanne Collins's trilogy, and just what makes it awesome for me.

I was partly inspired because I went to the movie with a member of my writing group and her friends, who spent most of the pre-movie time talking about the romance aspect of the books. Meanwhile, the Alamo Drafthouse played highly appropriate clips from Running Man, Battle Royale, and, of all things, dystopian-themed Lazer Tag commercials from the 80s. When I mentioned that Hunger Games had elements of Stephen King's The Long Walk in it, I received a few blank stares, and someone said, "Well, it's impossible not to borrow from other stories, you know." (Thereby completely missing my point.)

I won't talk about the romance aspect of the book, mostly because I don't care. Romance as a genre I tend to avoid, because it so very often manages anti-feminist and misanthropic messages. Not that Collins herself is guilty of that; in my opinion, that was just not what the story was about. I feel that anyone who was outraged that the romance got a backseat in the third book is missing some serious forest for the trees, so screw that noise.

Collins effectively makes brilliant and relevant social commentary. That is why I love her series. The movie did a good job touching on the major themes of the book in different but highly effective ways.  For those of you who've read the books, nothing I mention about the movie is going to spoil things for you. If you haven't read the series, don't bother reading this.

Commentary on violence: This is the biggest thing Collins comments on, and in my opinion, it is the greatest message of the series. It deconstructs the role of violence in society and how we, in real-life, are just as complacent about it as the Capital fops. There were several moments in the movie where I thought "Holy crap, it's CNN or Fox News." Human anguish and pain are sensationalized, filtered through marketing and other economic systems (commercialism, sponsorship, etc.), and received as entertainment by a complicit population well aware of said suffering. The difference between dystopia and real life is not the presence of violence, but our level of closeness to it. Collins is pointing out that we aren't that far from it, not when the latest school shooting, an ordeal just as vicious and cruel as any Kat goes through, which result in the brutal deaths of children the same age as Hunger Games competitors, is given a dispassionate click of a mouse or a five-second lead in. Collins asks us to experience the fear and the frustration and empathize with Kat, while simultaneously pointing out that we are the Capitol. We are the crowd watching, anticipating death and trivializing it. We, just like the society in the first book, shrug our shoulders at the status quo, because the alternative is too much trouble and the complacency is so easy and fun.

Commentary on society: The Reaping scene in the opening of the movie draws heavily on the short story by Shirley Jackson, The Lottery. It's a magnificent homage to another dystopian piece of literature. There is a social contract in place that makes people offer up their sons and daughters as if they were paying taxes, but the social contract is corrupt. And while awareness is there, anything beyond that is nonexistent. Not just because a brutal regime is in place to enforce it, but because the society accepts their lot. This corrupted social contract is shown again when the tributes parade in chariots in front of huge crowds, an effective nod to our real-life history, that we as a Western society really used to watch human chattel battle to the death for our entertainment. And that that entertainment was used as a way to control society (bread and circuses.) (This is also done deliberately by Collins by the country being called Panem.) The awareness without action reflects our real-life armchair outrage, as the Kony 2012 debacle most recently proved. We can be aware, cluck our tongues, even rage against the machine as characters like Sinna and Gale do, but without action our feelings are ultimately useless.

Commentary on media: Gale has one of the most pointed lines in the film when he insists to Kat that the Games would have to change, "If everyone just stopped watching for one day!" The coverage of the Hunger Games is a massive and obvious metaphor for the 24-hour news cycle, both on cable and the Internet. Both manufacture sensationalism out of human tragedy and suffering, both can be distractions from the real issues at hand, and both are devoured by a population that feeds the beast. Like the Games being a distraction from the fact that children are being asked to murder each other, the latest vitriol from a pundit or a polemic often distracts from the real issue being an unfair tax code, corporate plutocracy, or civil rights.  We don't ask our media to tell the truth (like, for example, there's a reason Fox News doesn't exist in Canada, because in Canada there's a law against lying in news). We just keep watching. If we punished the system that does us no favors, we could change it. But we don't, and in Collins's world, that is why the Hunger Games still exist.

Commentary on classism: This was more heavily felt by me in the film, just because the visual contrast of Kat's poor, trash town compared with the sleek opulence of the Capitol was much more visceral. Nonetheless, the moment where Kat climbs on the train and sees food in abundance reminded me of the starving millions all over the world, and those who have never used the Internet, seen a laptop, or used an iPhone. Again, we are meant to see things from Kat's point of view, and realize that her upbringing has been disenfranchised and poverty-stricken as a result, but Collins again points out that we have more empathy for Kat than we do our real-life fellow man. And the only line that separates the two is the virtue of knowing the story behind the individual. If the Capital is not meant to represent rampant, mindless consumerism at its worst, I don't know what is. The concerns of the upper class are not the concerns of the poor, and even though they're asked to give tribute, they ensure their own start with a leg up on the competition. I chose to interpret this as the metaphorical opportunity level a rich kid starts on versus the opportunities open to a poor kid, say, looking at colleges. While the chance is there, just like in the Games, that the odd, unexpected underdog can rise to the top, over the years, some have won more consistently than others. But really, it can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways, another brilliant facet in the series.

Commentary on morality: No dystopia can be written without challenging a moral status quo, and The Hunger Games is no exception. However, Collins points out a real life truth: that cooperation on a human level is possible even in the worst of circumstances, despite societal machinations trying to manipulate otherwise. Especially in American discourse at the moment, society is screaming in moral absolutes, insisting that cooperation is a weakness and acquiesance to "the other side". Kat manages not only cooperation with the little girl Rue, but friendship and respect. Her ethically sound behavior in her treatment of Rue's death not only spares her life later on, but sparks a deep chord in the Districts watching, inspiring some of them to action at last. Collins (and here I'm not sure if she even meant to do this or not) is pointing out that sound ethics and morally correct behavior will resonate with the society that receives it. Just as it will echo bad morals and poor ethics. The attitude of "I've got mine, screw the rest of you" is rejected by Kat even in the midst of a deadly free-for-all, and it is not ruthlessness that wins her the day, but compassion, cooperation, and integrity. Collins evokes the doomed moral victors of real-life, like Sophie Scholl and The White Rose, aspiring to greater justice and igniting a cause.

This is why I love this series. Because it is more than the sum of it parts; it is evocative, thought-provoking. Unlike trash like Twilight who managed the message of "Like OMG izn't troolove da greatest evar!?!?" , Hunger Games asks "What is your role in society? How much of a product of your society are you?  When it comes to the needs of total strangers how much of yourself are you willing to give?  To risk?" It holds up a mirror to how we live, and shows us reflections that are chilling in their lack of distortion.

EDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook [link] for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!

1. You will have to reduce your story to one page. This is called the query letter, what you write when you try and land a legit agent or publisher. You basically say "Hey, this is what my story's about, how long it is, and why I chose you to look at it."  It is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult things a writer will ever face.  All your nuance, your subtle build-ups, your "yes, buts", and your "no, wait, there's more" all have to be condensed to three paragraphs or so. No query letter is really allowed to be longer than one page, because no one has tl;dr worse than a literary agents or his or her minions. Not only that, queries show off your writing style and what you value in terms of story. A good query gets somebody to simply look at your real writing. Sometimes places allow you to send your real writing right off the bat, but they are few and far between.  For example, I sent out my urban fantasy to 45 agents and was only allowed to send immediate writing to about 10. Writing a query letter in its own right is an art unto itself. You think writing a rough draft is hard? Try boiling your story down to its absolute distilled essence afterwards.

2. You will have to summarize your story's emotional stakes in 3 to 10 pages. This is called the synopsis, and it is among the most hated of things I know of.  (It's definitely got the top spot in my book.) At SCBWI, when requests for a synopsis are heard, we all hiss and seek shelter under the nearest rock. A query can sometimes have the "trailer" appeal to its writing; there's a definite sensationalist bent that can make things easier (more fun?) to write.  A synopsis is just a summary that, while inherently bland, has to capture all the emotional stakes and critical junctures of the story. Except instead of being allowed to do it in 200 pages you have 3, or 10, or whatever an agent asks for. Again, this is tl;dr at its worst, and it's a hoop you have to jump through if an agent requests it. Synopsis are much rarer than queries; not all agents will ask for one. But, as another example, I got trapped when someone read the first three chapters of my urban fantasy and asked for a one page synopsis. (Then rejected me after I turned it in snatched bald.) Synopsis are difficult because they ask why things are important, and you might have two or three sentences at your disposal before you're moving onto why the next thing is so critically, world-endingly important to your protagonist. Again, I see people wringing their hands over just getting words on the page, and it's like "Oh, you poor bastard.  You have no idea, do you?"

3. You will have to rewrite, suffer critique, rewrite, and suffer critique. Writing is rewriting, as they say. Yet again, the rough draft is the big deal to so many people, and there's a whole other mountain after that mountain.  Putting a rough draft out for critique is begging to get your ass kicked. That's usually why I finish a rough draft, leave it alone for six weeks or more (what I call incubating) and then go back and fix things I have a problem with.  Then, and only then, do I give the manuscript to another set of eyes.  (With a rare exception, and she knows who she is.) I will fix things and give another round out to other people, and they'll find more stuff wrong.  I fix it, send it out again, and more stuff wrong comes back to me. My favorite is when people tell me to fix stuff I've already fixed, or start asking questions that means stuff that has thus far not needed to be fixed needs to be fixed. Major fixes usually leave me on the floor, whining, but minor fixes I'm usually so relieved that they're small I'm too grateful to be indignant or egotistical. All of this is filtered through my own valuable critique sieve, so I have to sort out what I think has merit and what I think is blowing smoke, and the whole time I pray that I'm right and that I'm not being some terrible blowhard by refusing to incorporate someone's crit. The experienced writer can probably get away with one draft and one or two polishes before they'd ready to submit. I'm not there yet.  (Although even among my SCBWI group I'm considered pretty picky about my own stuff.)

4. Someone will hate your work. Everyone has their detractors.  Even Stephen King and J. K. Rowling. The amateur writer, I suspect, has no capacity to tell the difference between someone who thinks your work needs work and someone who hates it because it's about such-and-such. Or, their egos and ability to write depend far too heavily on someone else's opinion. Criticism is fun and hatedoms are popular pastimes. The biggest demon roaring at someone from the keyboard is "Ohhhh, someone's gonna hate me." Well yeah.  It happens to everyone. I hate Meyer and Paolini and Cassandra Clare and Erin Hunter. Obviously there are people out there who don't. I have people who hate my journals, who insist I'm a prissy, arrogant jerkface who thinks she knows better than everyone.  (I do.)  It doesn't stop me from saying what I have to say, because if there are people out there who can promote some kind of hatred, racism, classism, or what have you, and they are allowed to dedicate all their energy to it, then I can write about writing and about dinosaurs fighting each other. In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that bad. And yes, as much as I hate Warriors, it's not the kind of crap the Westboro Baptist Church spews. And really, if I've busted my ass trying to make something the best it can be, I don't have to have to apologize for it. Not everything I write will be beloved by the world or everyone's cup of tea.  Good thing I'm writing for myself first.

5. You will hear "You're not allowed to do this." I recently joined a writing group, and was surprised how much I heard things like "You can't have a prologue. Literary agents hate prologues, so just don't do it."  "You can't have a forty-year old man in these scenes.  Kids won't read about adults." "This is too controversial for your targeted age group. Kids can't read about stuff like this.  Or at least dumb it down and fog it up so they can't understand what's going on."  Perhaps because of DA's presence in my life, I was surprised to hear how lazy, insolent, and deprived teens and kids are when it come to literature. It was one of the few times I felt compelled to speak up to defend my writing, because I had seen books with prologues, adults as major characters, and with controversial subject matter. Once I realized that many members of my writing group were parents of young children, special needs educators, teachers, or librarians, it started to make a little more sense. Their environment was entirely different from my own, and the disconnect was that they had different ideas about what children's literature should be. (Lamentably, many had the attitude that low standards was the only way to avoid confusing or boring children and teens, and consequently probably didn't appreciate when I mentioned that America's poor global education standards should not be allowed to play tyrannical dictator over how challenging and complex children's literature is allowed to be.) There is a difference between ideas and critique, and you will have to learn to tell the difference. Good writing is good writing; it is not good because it lacks a prologue or has nothing but kids in it. Many, many people will tell you you can't do something because it doesn't fit with their ideas. The most aggravating thing about this is that it doesn't stop them from being able to make valid critique, and the game lies in separating ideas and opinions from crit that will genuinely help your writing.

For those who care, my book The Sarcastic Guide To Writing is now available through Amazon for $8.  [link] 80 pages of stuff: World-Building, Mary Sue Avoidance, and more. In addition, two exclusive essays I wrote just for the ebook about the e-revolution and 30 tips on how to be a successful writer. It's free if you own a Kindle and/or are a Prime member, cause I'm boss like that.  Even if you don't buy it, tags would be appreciated and all that stuff.  And if you do buy it, you have a chance to get back at me by maybe leaving a review.

Spoilers herein.

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Trilogy Cycle has had such an impact on my development as a writer that I feel I'd be remiss in not addressing his mess of literature one last time.  With the release of the fourth book, it's time for me to close a door. My anger has fled, my fury abated, to be replaced with gleeful schadenfreude that makes me dance a prissy jig. All up and down my hallways.

I predicted two things about Paolini's final installment: one, that the cancerous subplots he continually introduced throughout three books would be impossible to wrap up in a satisfactory way, because far more talented writers than Paolini have failed to do so; and two: that the easily wowed youngsters who fell in love with his first book would eventually age and outgrow his vapid prose, derivative world-building, and poor characterization.  They would awaken, be exposed to better literature, and learn that Paolini is everything you'd expect from a 15 year-old-author.

I was so right I could've been a prophet in some derivative fantasy novel or something.

Paolini locked himself into an ending 12 years ago.  I don't know about the rest of you, but most of the ideas I had twelve years ago are either extinct or unrecognizably evolved. That includes any plots I may have had. I gotta say, it has to suck to realize you've shackled yourself to an idea you outgrew probably two years after you thought of it, let alone 12.

My prediction was that the book would become a base breaker: that denizen that sharply divides fans into love-it-or-hate it territory, with a bone-strewn and vicious no-man's-land between. Judging by the current reviews on Amazon, this appears to be so. Many of the loyal fans, throughout the series, held on with one strident argument.  "Just wait 'til the last book, man.  All our questions are gonna be answered, you just don't even know!"

And now, we do know. Hee!  We know. We know that Paolini is disappointing, that half the crap he wrote about had no bearing on the story, that his romances were forced, that even he couldn't keep track of that super awesome magical belt and ring, and that maybe it wasn't worth all those screaking sentences and clumsy adverbs to get to the end of it all. And as someone spouting Cassandra Truth for ten some-odd years, it's immensely satisfying.  I make no claim to take the moral high ground or what have you: this is full on glee at the failure of someone else. I am a weak, weak person, and you may scold me as you will. But the long-winded, bloated Hindenburg crash finally happened, and it was glorious.

I will say that Paolini did make some pretty mature choices as far as his endings, choosing not to keep his main heroes together romantically.  (What, you didn't see that coming by the end of the first book? Wait, you cared?) I was actually impressed that he went through with it, because it offers that the rewards of heroics do not always bear sweet fruit. But apparently combining that with Galbatorix's chronic Offscreen Villainy and an anti-climax boss fight (at no point does he ride his badass black dragon) is a perfect fan outrage cocktail.  While I admit that I do not have record-breaking book sales, I can at least say I would have had Galbatorix jump on Shrukain and have a sky battle. I mean, at some point, you have to reach to bottom of your barrel of bad ideas. Of all the no-brainers Paolini's come up with, that one had to be the crown jewel.

I've seen some reviews that say that this series will be around for years to come, and become classic literature.  If you'll allow this fantasy lover one last piece of prophecy: no, it will not. Because a story is only as good as its ending. I read review after review of heartbroken fans who said the book left them cold, bereft, heartbroken. That, despite all the objections I would have had, they still loved the world and the characters and were stunned at the ending they all came to. If the book has a reputation for having a poor ending, it seriously takes the edge off the desire to slog through pointless chapters and bad prose. Herman Melville's Moby Dick got famous about a hundred years after his death, and that was because whaling as a major industry was dying, and people were looking for a voice that would preserve a way of American life. I don't think dragon fantasy is going to suddenly vanish, and even if it does, there are more skilled contenders out there.

Paolini certainly has the rest of his life, and all the free time in the world, to become a better writer. I expect his next book will sink like a stone if he doesn't. (Either that or he'll realize that the teat of Alagaesia is begging to be milked yet, and will go back to it.) Paolini had slick marketing and a premise with high juvenile appeal, both of which depended on him being 15. He's not 15 anymore, he's 28, and that crutch is gone. The demand upon him to deliver is just going to get bigger.

But regardless, I will gleefully sit and watch the reviews pile up and the TvTropes dueling begin.  You suck, Mr. Paolini, and you always have. The fact that you managed to sell so many books is merely a testament to your marketability, not your skill as a writer. I salute you, sir, for delivering on that bad ending I predicted so long ago. Because honestly, if you'd pulled out of that nosedive, I'd've been forced to admit you had some merit and maturity. And you have no ideas how difficult that would have been. So I'm grateful, sir, truly grateful.

Thank you for sucking, and teaching me how not to suck. Thank you for making me angry every time I looked at your books, or read them, so much so that that anger propelled me to my own keyboard to write something better.  Thank you for leading millions of teenage authors astray like a twisted pied piper, into that ashen land of regurgitation and derivativeness, from whence no literary agent or discerning public would ever allow their terrible story ideas to escape. Thank you for reminding us what happens when standards are poor and marketing is good. Thank you for populating your novel with paper-thin characters that were cooler than they were truthful.  Thank you for being so terrible that the wisest and most cynical among us would learn at an early age how to do proper literary critique, to take apart story and understand why certain things don't work no matter how much you try to force them, like romance between an elf and dragonrider farm boy. Thank you for making your dragons exactly like every other dragon ever.  And thank you for showing us what Star Wars would have looked like by way of Lord of the Rings and Dragonriders of Pern, because, you know, we really wanted to see that.  And most of all, thank you for birthing a generation of writers that would exclaim "His success be damned, I will never write that shitty!"

EDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook [link] for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!

1. Do your damn research. I can't stress this enough.  We live in the freaking Information Age, and the concept of Googling is an alien one to too many people.  While I could easily go on a rant about anti-intellectualism, I'll rein it in and say that cliché' is largely anachronistic.  People use them because they're familiar, not necessarily what's true. When I started world-building for my Western steampunk/cattlepunk trilogy, one of the characters was the equivalent of a Chinese immigrant worker.  So I read everything I could get my hands on about what it was like to be a Chinese immigrant worker.  Wikipedia articles, fiction, and non-fiction.  I also read authors like Lawrence Yep, whose actual, real ancestors were Chinese immigrants, and that directly fed into his historical fiction.  Cliché' fills in what the author fails to describe.  Template races like elves and dwarves and dragons are this, big time.  If you don't tell us a dragon is a picky eater, capable of teleporting, and spits acid, then we are going to assume your dragon sits on mounds of gold, eats virgins, and breathes fire.  However, if you DO tell us all that, you've more or less avoided cliché.  Of course, when authors take the time to explain their dwarves live underground, are stoic, and like battle axes, we tend to weep tears of blood.  Going back to what mythological creatures really were back in the old days when people seriously thought they were real can reveal surprising depths.  Tolkien's elves are anachronistic; their cliché' exists because Tolkien set the precedent.  Elves before that were not tall, forest-dwelling immortals who were better than everyone (look up the antics of the Sidhe sometime.)  It's just been absorbed to the point of cliché.

2. Combine it with something else. One of the biggest problems with cliché for new writers is that new writers emulate and regurgitate.  This is a perfectly natural and acceptable stage in learning to be a writer (or really, any artist.)  It's just that people get weirdly protective about their ripoffs sometimes. Aside from that, there's plenty of people willing to jump on a bandwagon. The effluvia Twilight created is still dripping out of the professional publication scene. We've all seen vampires, werewolves, and zombies. If you're using the cliché', we're yawning already. If you're just dying to do it, do a Mad Libs list of things that interest you and combine it with werewolves.  Werewolf steampunk.  Werewolf spies.  Werewolf punk rock stars.  All of those sound pretty interesting and non-cliché. The biggest problem I see when it comes to originality is a highly limited resource pool.  This person has seen one werewolf movie, the werewolf movie everyone in the world has seen, falls in love with it, imitates it, and gets angry when people accuse them of being unoriginal when they write those exact werewolves. Get me someone who reads Napoleanic wars historical fiction, plays Japanese RPGS where the players overthrow God, and watches spy thriller movies, and I bet that person's werewolves are going to be something worth reading about. But show me someone whose only exposure to werewolves is Twilight, and I will show you someone writing an angry letter to Universal Pictures about how they ripped off Twilight. [link]

3. Explore what's been done. This kind of ties with Rule#2, but only because it's another facet of limited resource pools. I honestly don't know who would get into their head to write a paranormal romance where a girl falls in love with a shallow hot guy, but I can guarantee you that somewhere out there, right this very minute, someone's writing one, someone's publishing one, and someone's reading one. And odds are, they're not aware of the plethora of that story that's been done to undeath and death again. Meyer famously stated once that she didn't read about vampires, thereby, I'm certain, unleashing a cavalcade of young female writers upon the world that will think that not bothering to research is the only way to free the muse. The other argument I've heard is that people don't want to read the kind of stuff they're writing because they're afraid of absorbing the idea.  I call bullshit on that immediately, because ideas are a dime a dozen (see Rule #4.)  Again, the big problem I see constantly is that people don't have enough ideas, and stay too far within the realm of what's already been done before.  It's kind of a garbage in, garbage out sort of thing; if you're limiting yourself to where you're somehow "allowed" to get ideas from during your creation stage, you're crippling your possibilities. If you've ever read a book where the characters and setting and plot all behaved exactly as you thought it would, with no surprises or reversals along the way, that's an author who didn't bother looking at every other book within his genre and comparing it with his own.  Be unique, people.  It's the mold-breakers who become timeless.  Meyer might have gotten popular, but Jane Austen did it better, and her stuff is still in print. Old women can still tell their kids about Pride and Prejudice.  I got a feeling Twilight will go the way of lower-back tattoos and bellbotoom jeans, quietly filed away with all the other teen fads in the closet of regret. While I'm on that subject, remember Goosebumps?

4. Learn the definition of derivative. Whenever I hear people defending crap like Paolini's Inheritance series with the line about "Every story's been told before!" I wanna sock 'em in the mouth. There seems to be a hugely skewed misconception about what is the difference between derivative and borrowing. Derivative is boring and cliché'.  End  of story. Derivative is not carte' blanche to be unoriginal, and I have no idea who would want to try so hard NOT to be original.  Derivative is not an excuse for having hackneyed characters and a predictable plot just because "it worked for Star Wars and Indiana Jones!"  First of all, Star Wars and Indiana Jones pulled off whatever they were trying to pull off, broke the mold, and set a precedent, three things that being derivative inherently fails to do. Second, you're trying to steal thunder and it's failing miserably because people know how that story ends.  I cannot stress this enough: you are not clever or cool or a fanboy among fanboys just because you're being derivative. You're being an idiot, and this kind of crap puts you firmly within the realm of imitation. Derivative, again, largely happens because people haven't exposed themselves to a large enough resource pool.  If Paolini had read anything other than Lord of the Rings and played anything other than Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 15, I will eat my freaking hat. "Borrowing" is not derivative, though it's often mistaken for it.  Borrowing usually occurs when writing gives nods or thematic waves to stories or premises similar to it; Fire-Bringer and Watership Down are both animal stories ; they are in no way similar to each other despite both being stories told through animal characters.  They touch on similar themes, share elements like prophecy, militarism, and cooperation, and both make use of things like folk hero stories and giving the animals their own culture. If Fire-Bringer's plot had been about a deer who foretells doom and leaves his home with a band of loyal followers to eke out a new existence and fight for females from a band of militaristic deer, Fire-Bringer would have been derivative of Watership Down. It probably would have been popular if it was, because Watership Down was successful.

5. Don't fall into the "speshul" trap. Oh, man, I really need to address this, especially in the face of DA's artists comments.  I see so much crap posted about "speshul" stuff, mostly within the realm of characters.  "Don't steal my Pokemon trainer!  Don't steal my angsty hot teen with superpowers!  Don't steal my sparkledog!  Don't steal my horse, my Warriors character, my wolf character, my tiger character!  THEY'RE SPESHUL!"  Honestly, I wonder how many people have bothered to use DA's own search function using a two-word descriptor for their own character just to see what pops up. This rule is double-edged, because it espouses that you both are and are not as original as you think you are.  The only danger comes from when you think you are a hundred percent totally unique and sitting on a goldmine character that, if discovered, will rob you of the next Harry Potter phenomenon. (Allow me to break it to you gently that you are not and probably never will be.)  You are not "speshul", your story is not "speshul", and if you think you are, you're a dingbat.  My case in point would be searching for any animated wolf cartoon on Youtube and trying to summarize five of their plots distinctly. If you give two people, say, a tiger character, and both said people have a large enough resource pool, you will end up with two different, unique tiger characters.  One of them might be a ronin samurai with the ability to shapeshift into a tiger.  The other might be a tiger who can cover his body in flames and fights hunters to keep his forest safe.  But, if those same two people are both in a Warriors funk and that's about the limit of their resource pools, I can guarantee you both are going to end up with similar characters and might accuse each other of stealing. No one person can execute a character or plot quite like another person, and therein lies true uniqueness. But, it's very easy for people to delude themselves with a hall-of-mirrors thing and tell themselves their characters are unique despite being replicas of (take your pick) Buffy/Sephiroth/Cloud/Sonic/Firestar.  Characters and stories only become truly unique when one's own personal and unique experience is breathed into them.  Someone might steal your character, but they will never be able to write the story you have. (Also, I wonder if these screechy people are at all aware that any amount of notable success with their ideas and stories will unleash unchecked and exploitative imitation anyway.) I also have to point out that resource pools are affected by age.  I doubt the average Warriors fan has even heard of or would be capable of enjoying the fantastic Tailchaser's Song, because it's an adult tier book.  You absorb different things at age 7 then you do at age 14 or age 20. It's important to give yourself time to hone an idea, because you may not yet have encountered the right idea to make your own reach its fullest potential.

EDIT: If you like this journal entry, check out The Sarcastic Guide to Writing ebook [link] for exclusive content on world-building, character, and dialogue!

I have always snickered at the NaNoWriMo's.  I've never participated, because I've never needed to: I wrote my first novel when I was 14, and have averaged about one every year since.  If you think that makes me smug, I'll point out that one really good way to get a writer's habit is to get six inches of titanium surgically inserted into your crooked spine.  When writing becomes about the only thing you can do without screaming, you take to it rather readily.
In light of my 24-Hour Comic ordeal, ol' NaNoWriMo is looking suspiciously like it, except drawn out for 30 days.  I realized I've never weighed in on the contest, and figured I needed to toss out 5 criticisms.  It's become tradition at this point.

1. Writest Thou Crap. This is the big encouragement of NaNoWriMo, intended to train a writer to understand that not every word laid down is gold.  To just write, and not fret that a scene's not coming together or what have you.  But really?  This is what you wanna do?  Strain to crap out a half-baked idea so that at the end of things you have an unreadable mess?  Not only that, but writing is rewriting, folks.  The magic doesn't happen in the first draft, it happens after two or three passes and final polish.  A writer, in order to be successful, has to learn to stifle the demons on their shoulders and inner critic. Some days, you just can't manage to do that.  But if you pay attention and work at it, other days you will write without compunction.  There is no magic feather that will make you never doubt. Without fail, every time I hit my 2/3rds mark, whether it's a first draft or a polishing pass, odds are I hate my work and everything about it. I've done it often enough to know that it will happen, and that all I have to do is work through it.  NaNoWriMo appears to be this magic feather, when all it's doing is encouraging you to be madcap about a novel.  A NOVEL.  If you don't know now that a novel is one of the most difficult creative journeys out there, allow me to say that NaNoWriMo is like preparing for a desert trek by grabbing a water bottle and seeing how far you can run before collapsing.

2. It's all about the 50k words! This is the big goal, and it makes me snicker.  Most of my projects are 100k words; if anything, I write too much. But this miffs me nonetheless; word count really doesn't matter.  If you want to tell an engaging story with a sweeping plot and memorable characters, you can do it in 500 words.  Or 200k words. Word count is just that: word count. What matters is things like pacing and characterization and diction; tools of the craft that allow the writer to tell the story. NaNoWriMo encourages you to write a grocery list, as long it's just words; that strikes me as foolish.  Honestly, the things that have taught me the most about all the aforementioned is a short story.  When you have 17k cats to herd instead of 100k, you learn what's important.  What if your story idea can be told in 40k words?  What if it needs more?  In NaNoWriMo, screw it, because 50k is what you're doing and odds are the project won't get written or rewritten beyond that.

3. People are with me. Maybe this is one of the big appeals of NaNoWriMo. The beleaguered writer thinks "Oh, I'm having a hard time here, but somewhere, somewhen, there are loads of people right now having the same problem as me!"  First of all, writing is not a communal event.  It's called the loneliest profession for a reason. If you need a place to commiserate that badly, join a writing group or something like the SCBWI, and do your best to rein in the psychic vampirism. All writers are alone; deal with it.  We can talk about our ideas with best friends, go to fellow writers when we're having a problem, or celebrate with friends when we finish, but you're alone at that keyboard.  You're also alone in your head trying to figure out plot knots and character problems that will satisfy you and only you; sometimes someone's else's opinion can be as unwelcome as a match in a room of dynamite. If you need NaNoWriMo's deal because of the social aspect: you're doomed.  You will never write successfully.  The rest of us write because, as it's said, we can't not write. If writing is anything other than that to you, my money is on you spending a lifetime hemming and hawing and talking people up about this great idea you've got.  But will never write down anything more then the 50k drivel you attempt to lurch towards one month out of the year.

4. NaNoWriMo provides self-discipline! Oh, this is my biggest bone of contention with the whole thing.  You're waiting to sit down and get your ass in gear?  When you can do it right now, today?  This very instant?  But you won't, because you can't prioritize? TV is more important, friends, real life responsibilities, anything you can come up with.  But NaNoWriMo, yeah!  That's the day!  That's the month!  You'll prove it to the world that you can do it!  My big question: what the hell are you waiting for? NaNoWriMos always, always strike me as undisciplined .  I have never in my life talked to a participant that had A) any writing they were willing to show, B) any writing outside of their attempt, and C) enough experience with craft that I could talk to them about the most effective way to characterize or pace out a scene. Lurching up to occasionally mash your meaty hands against the keyboard for 30 days doesn't make you a writer.  Writers write.  Consistently.  I've heard it said you have to write a million words before you start understanding how to write, and as someone who probably has close to that under her belt, I can say that it's true. Just like you don't gain skill in drawing because you scratch out a horsie once in a while, you will not become a novelist by completing 30 days of writing.  Not only that, your competition is already out there, writing while you're not.  To say nothing that they're probably querying and receiving rejections.  What?  You thought writing got easier after the first draft?  You poor fool; the first draft is the easy part!  And you're already making it hard!

5. NaNoWriMo says "Aiming low is the best way to succeed.". This is a genuine thing from their website, and I cannot think of a better way to get me to froth at the mouth. Lately, novels compete with video games and television, and I can't help but feel like that's what most people sit down to emulate when they wanna write a novel. They don't, y'know, actually read anything, especially not a  novel that's been in print for more than 20 years.  The world does not need more crap.  It does not need more Meyer, Paolini, and Clare.  Just like we don't need another Transformers movie or another remake of movies that were timeless the first time around. I've read several NaNoWriMo blogs that say people felt bad for not hitting their goal for a day or the month.  Let me tell you, while novel writers might deal with deadlines at a professional level, they will never have to deal with a 30 days write-a-whole-freakin'-novel deadline.  Ever.  That is a recipe for shit. Which is another thing I've read on NaNoWriMo blogs: at the end, people feel bad because all they've written is crap.  And that to me is the ultimate in negative reinforcement: the completion of a novel is a high like no other. It's like touching a star, the realization that you've done what thousands can't and never will. But that kind of satisfaction comes from real hard work, true dedication, and commitment to the project and one's craft. If you think NaNoWriMo will let you get around it, you're fooling yourself.  

And seriously, novel month has Thanksgiving in it?  A day or even possible week guaranteed to conflict with your writing?  Who the hell thought that up?  Why isn't it in June or July?

I guess I ain't been quite right since the whole 24-Hour Comic thingie.  I'm looking for inspiration: books, movies, songs, whatever.  Inspire me!  Post your favorites.