Subdued Intrinsic

You know what are fans? Fantastic. Not just because they are enthusiastic, and supportive, and all the other great fan traits, but because they can do something I can't. Fans can see character's faces.
Not me. I can many a thing about a written character, everything from clothes, to gestures, to hair color/cut/style. Height; I can see height. But I never get a clear bead on a face. Not for characters I read, and not even for characters I write. It's a really bizarre thing. If there's kissing, I can see the profile of a cheek, lips, maybe a shadow of chin, or nose, but I don't see eyes. If there's crying, I don't see mouths. My brain has quadri-sected (new word, own it) faces. Only the action-relevant quadrants appear in my mind's eye. It's like having a really sharp telescope that won't focus out of more than half a face at a time.

But, oh my gosh, fans! You guys are glorious! My friend Kara is an artist, so her whole reader world is images matching up with words in her head. My friend Denise will read a character I've written, and then DISAGREE WITH ME* about what he or she looks like, and I love that. You have no idea how envious that makes me. Fans read a character, and picture him or her. Fans see a character and say, "This character should be played by this actor/actress/puppy dog in order to fit my mental idea of said character." That's wondrous.

Then again, as long as I'm getting all the emotions the scene in meant to evoke, isn't it okay? It is. It really is. My little vague, flesh-colored ovals serve me pretty well, and in fact, it helps me to be open to the physical and visual interpretations of others, readers of my works, or works we both read. So, if you're ever in the position to ask me, "Who would you cast as "Character Character," just expect the best answer you'll get is a general approximation, based on puzzle piece glimpses of features jammed together from scenes all over. And we should both be cool with that, because I'm not blowing you off, or patronizing you. I'm just sharin', y'know?

*Holy Rainbow Suspenders, Batman! How much have we argued about Tristan? She thinks almost all of my casting possibilities/visual aids are too pretty boy, and I think most of hers look like meatheads. But we love each other. We try to find compromise. I think the closest we got was a young Travis van Winkle.

 . . . this statement goes for both my writing life and my regular life (not that they are mutually exclusive, but there's really not enough Me for both all at once).  Recently, I had some drama in my personal life, and my knee-jerk, passive-aggressive response was to dye my hair a color I liked much less than the color I'd already dyed it. The newer color is okay, but it doesn't make me squee with individualist joy like my fire-engine red color did. The fact that I did not cut off my hair indicates the drama wasn't as bad as it could have been; I tend to take a pair of shears to my beloved-long locks when truly despondent.  Hey, some people redecorate, I do stuff to my head.

Meanwhile, being a great admirer of fantabulous hair, ESPECIALLY on boys, I have just recently noticed a personal trend. When dealing with a Villainous Person, I am wont to ascribe unsightly follicular features, either by way of some sort of personal Karmic payback on the bad guy, or possibly as a literary cue, the same way classic Westerns always put the local madman under a black hat. The madman's hat, and my villains' bad--or worse, completely non-noteworthy--hair, both banners screaming UNTRUSTWORTHY.

That said, secret's out of the bag, huh? I might have to go back and improve the coiffure's of a few characters, just to keep you guys on your toes.

*Personal Note: Ants love me, fire ants in particular, whereas mosquitoes seem to find me a bland choice. Not that I give either of them more than fifteen minutes of daylight every 24 hours in which to find me, because as we all know, I hate the semi-tropical variety of nature where I live.  *sigh*  Where one will live for the sake of nearness to a wonderful family.

Personal Note: Yeah, it's a weird title, but it suits this PN . . . and I like Aerosmith. Okay, so if you don't know this, I refer to my closest beta readers as "My Ladies", because all of them are female. But! I do have male betas. Some of them are even man enough to be a Lady. Hence . . . well, you get it. So, for my babe-alicious boy betas, come on, rock out your frou-frou coffee and get with us. Some of us are even single. *waggles eyebrows suggestively toward Bri*

Also, special note. Kathleen Ortiz is being extremely gracious and hosting a contest: winner gets a Red Marker Deluxe go-over of his or her query letter, which is nothing to look in the mouth. Have a mosey over to Neverending Page Turner, and when you comment, tell her I sent you.

I feel--and this is an entirely arguable point--there are basically three main sorts of realistic bad guys in the realm of, well, anywhere really, but for the purposes of today, we're going with literature. Yes, generally all villains are tagged by their directly opposing the goals of the hero or heroine, but there's a lot to be said in there, and when writing a villain an author has to decide just what sort of animal she's working with, which species is best to set against her conquering hero. Yes, the antagonist can be any subset or combination of the three main types, but here's how I (disclaimer: usually) break down a a rival in any story I come across:

1. The Sympathetic Villain Yeah, many a romance novel can tell you, just as a hero can be "anti", a villain can have a little somethin' somethin' going for him to make us see where he's coming from. Either he lost the love of his life back in the day, or he really truly believes the hero is in the wrong (although the reader knows this to be untrue), but for whatever reason some little part of us feels bad for this bad guy. It's possible this madman is charming, beautiful, charismatic, or thrilling. Maybe we even kind of-just a little bit-want him to get his way. We definitely hope there's justice for him, too, in the end. Example: Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth.
2. The Unintentional Villain This dude just had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's not very smart, or attractive, or anything, really. He's usually at a loss, and if he does manage to cause trouble, it's almsost certainly accidental, something that just worked to his advantage, even if he didn't plan it out. He may have been the main henchman to someone with some real E-VILE potential at one point, but Master got blown out of the water somewhere along the way, leaving Igor flailing in his wake, trying to figure out how to get things done. And totally bombing. Example: Wormtail in the Harry Potter series.
3. The Irredeemable Villain We hate this guy from the get go, and for good reason. We know there isn't a 'good' bone in his body. He's creative, cruel, and unrelenting. He will crush the heroine like the insignifcant bug she is, body, spirit and mind. He would sell his mother to Satan to attain his goals, but not his own soul because he believes himself far too important to let a little thing like Hell impede his plans. Even when he has assured himself the heroine is no longer a threat, he'll still continue to torture her for ever daring to oppose him. It isn't good enough for him to win, he must win AND ruin life for everyone else. Example: Capricorn in Cornelia Funke's Inkheart series, and since he's so fresh in my mind, President Snow in Collins's Hunger Games series.

And there's that. These opinions are brought to you by adjustments to my own Big Baddie, Horace Huckleby, now that I know what his real damage is. He's still a disgusting little toad, true, but now he's a disgusting little toad of a different color.

Personal Note: Um, Happy Thanksgiving! May your families forget all the grudges for the day, and you have enough turkey to knock you all out, if they don't.

OHMYAPOSTROPHES!!!


The fabulous, probably-doesn't-think-highly-enough-of-herself Brianne Heavy has written a couple of tunes; the first, "Guardian", is inspired the first Dionadir novel, Silver, and the harder second is an untitled anthem for the trology's very own tortured bad boy, Ian.

GO. LISTEN. TO. THEM.

Personal Note: I just got Google Wave, have no idea what to do with it, and I need to make some mach-n-cheese, while I blog here. BEAR WITH THE NEOPHYTE!!

In the role of Drew Christian:

Logan Lerman*****Thomas Dekker

In the role of Melusine:

Saffron Burrows****Lena Heady

In the role of Delia Leighton:

******Cassie Steele**********Elisabeth Moss*****Olivia Thirlby****

In the role of Charles:

Andre Braugher

In the role of Cassandra Leighton:

******Ashley Benson*******

In the role of Jack Campbell:

****Anton Yelchin****

In the role of Matthias Locke:

*William Mosley*

In the role of Victor Solis:

****Jonathan Cake****

In the role of the 'mystery rescuer/Ian Smarrito:

****Matt Lanter****

In the role of Horace Huckleby:

***Rick Hoffman***

You'll notice the absence of Jules. She and Sebastien are the only ones I can't find the right actors for. And now, after all that posting and resizing I'm finished for today. Woohoo!

Personal Notes: At the bottom of the post today, due to its overwhelming cuteness, and the pixel blitz this blog is hosting today. Also, I have to post today, so it looks like things are rocking in two parts.

I'm not quite as computer savvy as I'd like to be. I'm a total internet junkie, one of those people who either keeps her email open in the back tab of her browser, or checks it thirty times a day, and I love the social networking, etc., but the programming aspect? Well, let's just say I wish I were more Geek Chic (my husband is; I married an adorkable). I have friends who would know what they were doing if I asked them to webmaster something for me, they just won't be asking me to lend my expertise, because I would break something (hey, there is power in knowing your limitation, too).

But you know what I can do? I can copy, resize, and post a few dozen pictures of people I think might be good fits for playing characters from the Dionadir trilogy . . . and yes, I know how egotistical that kind of sounds, but trust me, every writer I've ever know has tried to find an actor who embodies their character. It's not just me. All you writers, quit ducking and running. Own your arrogance.

In the role of Jocelyn Oliviero:

Margarita Levieva********Brooke Nevin*********Jessy Schram*******Kara's sketch of Joss

In the role of Sebastien Solis:

Kara's sketch of Sebastien for ref.

In the role of Tristan Solis:

*****Grant Alan***************Travis Van Winkle*********Christopher Egan

In the role of Bronwyn Solis:

****Deborah Ann Woll*************Zoe Boyle*****FeliceFawn, Aleksa*********Molly C. Quinn

Personal Notes: Outside of books, I am very hard to buy presents for. Not only am I one of those people who A. would rather have many smaller/moderate-sized presents than one big one, and B. would rather get nothing if it's not exactly what I wanted, but it took at least five years of gift therapy to train me not to have a panic attack when opening presents. I was always afraid of letting down the giver. You think I'm bad about it now? You should have seen me from years 16 to 20, when I was dating him.

So, if you look at us, my husband and I are obvious opposites. I'm colorful and chaotic and so obviously full of "look at me!" flair. N. is very laid back and kind of "everything I buy is black, brown, or white". It's been ten years, but I've finally introduced some color into his wardrobe.

Anyway, a random person on the street would probably look at us and sort of boggle. How? And then they would probably guess someone as traditionalist-looking as him would only be with someone as frenetic-looking as me for one reason. Yes, that one.

But I'm here to tell you, it is NOT SO. When it comes to love and privacy, I'm a closed book.

Which makes you consider surface people vs. under-the-surface people. One of the things I have to re-examine during this rewrite is "What are my main characters like on the surface?" vs "What are they like underneath that?" It kinda of comes down to motivation, one of my favorite subjects. But it also comes down to inherent differences like Boy vs. Girl.

Take for instance television shows. I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for just about anything that has a song and dance number in it, and that includes Fox's new hit show, Glee. Frankly, I don't really care about the characters (a first), but it's a show where people sing every week, awesome! N., has a slightly different view of it. He's thinks it's corny, and he openly mocks the shallow stupidity of the plotlines.

For you rare guys out there reading, ask yourself, "How do I react when someone I care about doesn't like/makes fun of/puts down something I like?" The answer is probably something like, I shrug my shoulders and move on two seconds later.

Not a girl. A girl will take your insulting the object personally. You are attacking something she takes pleasure in, therefore, you are attacking her. Whatever you say about it you're saying about her. Maybe this is some sort of weirdo, twisted, object-based maternal instinct to protect the things we care for, but that's how we roll.

It's not Mars and Venus. It's not even Manhattan and New Orleans. It's not The Rules (Gah, remember that?!? ACK!) but it's something to think about the next time you send your characters out on a date and the guy has some wise-crack remark to make . . . then again, if your chick is feisty and has a snark or two rolling from between her lips, that's okay. He'll get over it by the next paragraph. *snort*

Personal Notes: I am here to witness to you, my friends. You remember how your mothers begged you to eat all manner of green, possibly slimy things when you were younger, even promising you'd love them once you got older? Well, guess what? I'm older. I love Brussels Sprouts . . . after I drown them in butter.

I have a lot of relatives. By 'a lot' I mean my mom was the youngest of ten kids, and every single one of them took the Biblical directive "be fruitful and multiply" to heart hardcore, sometimes as many as five times. And since my mom was the youngest sibling, a good 98 per cent of my first cousins are old enough to be my aunts and uncles. There is too much Crazy to measure.

But first, about my Aunt Wanda. My Aunt Wanda was one of those hard-working, veggie-canning, produce farming kind of ladies, and most of the time she scared the Hades out of me. To understand this, you'd had to have met her, because part of the Fear of Aunt Wanda was the fact she had these unbelievably feline/Morticia Adams eyes. They were incredible, but super intense, and that made her stern, no-nonsense demeanor especially effective.

Aunt Wanda was not a woman who believed in wasting things. It didn't matter if you were ten or twenty, if you filled your own plate your eyes better be on the same page as your stomach because you were practically going to be licking that sucker clean. You were going to finish. I remember getting way too much for my then-40 lb. body to take in, but I sat there at the table, picking my way over my dish for two hours because Aunt Wanda had given me the Evil Eye and told me to. One way or another, I was going to see that meal through, by God! More, I was going to do it right. Aunt Wanda had three dogs, but did I get to shove off any of my unwanted food on them? Noooo. I had to do clear it myself.

Which brings me to how this has anything to do with writing. This IS a writing blog (mostly), after all. I'm writing my second novel. It's a sequel to my first novel, and by now I'm pretty tight with the mental workings of the Dionadir world. Not long ago I sort of polled my amazing, multi-national, intuitive teen beta readers about what they thought would happen next, and what they hoped would happen. Their answers kind of surprised me. They said they wanted it to get messy. People should end up broken and bleeding, emotionally speaking. The more victims, the better. One reader summed up, "I really want it to go there." She said this with an almost disturbing amount of zeal.

Wait, what? You want me to torture the people we all love? I know we all love them, because we've gushed over them together. Well, blog reader, yeah, they want me to take the characters so far out of their comfort zones they'll need a worm hole to get back.

At first I kind of recoiled at the thought. Then I recoiled at my recoil, because I remembered being a bit self-righteous on the same point when Meyer's Breaking Dawn came out and I thought she totally chickened out at the end of it. Nothing bad really happened to anyone. No one was ever in any real kind of danger. All those characters may just as well been wearing marshmallow puff suits for all the trouble they were facing, which seemed to me to be a total cop-out because the whole thing was set up to be epic.

So, okay, I kind of get it, now. Characters being your creations, you love them, and like anything else you 'birth', you don't want anything really, actually bad happening to them. The idea of causing long-lasting damage doesn't sit well. But I also know a little about forward progress and momentum. I know when a kid first learns to Karate chop a board his sensei tells him to aim for the space on the other side, not the board itself. If he concentrates on his end point being the board, he'll just break his hand. I know when a ballerina spins she must go several inches further around than what she feels is a complete turn, because if she comes out of it too early, it throws her balance off. In order to succeed, both must push the limits of what feels comfortable, and natural, and conclusive.

In writing, it feels wrong to stretch people beyond their limits, to risk snapping them. But following through is important. It's the only way to get where you want to end up.

Sometimes wrong is right.

Personal Note: I write really hard, by which I mean I'm probably much harder on writing utensils than I need to be. My penmanship has this sort of thick-handed girly grace that looks like the overweight cousin of my mother's handwriting. See below.

Now, onto the subject matter, in a majorly biased sort of way.

As with any other person who enjoys reading, I'm all for fantastic setting, rich world-building, and plots that just won't stop being awesome. That being said, if I don't think you did your characters justice I probably won't like your book, no matter the elevation of its higher points. If you've read my work you could probably have guessed that about me, as I write from a very character-driven viewpoint. I'm sure it doesn't help my lack of objectivity that I also believe getting your characters right has a domino effect for all the other aspects of your book. My opinions are cannibalistic; they feed on themselves like that.

So what are some things you can do to make sure you stay true to your people? Obviously any advice I can give comes from my own research and personal experience, but I'll take a shot anyway.

• It's basic, and for those of us who weren't blessed with a natural abundance of patience or traditional organizational skills, writing a fully-fleshed-out character biography kind of sounds like cleaning your room, but wow, does it actually do some good. I hate writing summaries and bios and outlines. My level of hatred for these things is right up there with cockroaches and making check-up appointments. I fight with myself constantly about that kind of stuff, but in the end I finally give in to the pressure of my literary conscience and do the freakin' things. Sometimes it's purely an exercise in making factoids easier to locate and sometimes it's a real eye-opener because suddenly motives and events stare back at you from those pages, screaming about themselves to make sure you get it right.
  
• Decide from the get-go what kind of person the character is. What are the most important things to this person? Not his motorcycle or that she's constantly craving strawberries; those are quirks, little things that round your character out. Does honor matter most? Greed? What hurts them the most? Being alone even in a crowd? Examine your character's core motivations and build from there. A person who feels as if he's the only one of his kind isn't going to be a social butterfly. The people who make socializing their main goal in life are the ones who feel too ordinary and hate it. If you can pin down the WHY of your character it will be much easier to write believable WHAT's for him or her (what she does, what she says, what she thinks) and it will certainly be easier to stay committed to WHO your character really is.
  
• Back to those quirks. Even thousands of years ago the Biblical-proclaimed wisest man on the earth, King Solomon basically said the King James version of 'there's nothing new under the sun' and the same still holds true. All the big, basic storylines and characters have already been written. What you start out with is a big, bland cardboard cut-out, a literary paper-doll, and you have to decide what sort of personality outfit goes on him or her. This is where you tread the dreaded line of Mary-Sue-ism. Make your character too perfect or too imperfect (with no redeeming, sympathetic qualities) and you've got a really bad case of BLAH! Nobody really likes perfect because perfect is unattainable and unrealistic. So, give your characters faults, fears, a few traits specific to them. Color that freakin' cut-out up, kids! Personally, I'm a big fan of paisley. *grin*
  
• But back up! You can't go too far in the "Unique!" direction, either, because then you end up with more than one character in a single body, which really only works in a very small sliver of circumstances (such as body-snatching or schizophrenia, in which case, hey, have a ball). Always apply the "Who am I?" test to each conversation. Are you making your character say something, maybe because you really want to get a point across and are afraid your audience might lose it in the shuffle? Would your character really fidget that way while nervous, or are you amping that up when it's not really called for?
  
• And last but not least, remember that everyone morphs and grows. In Silver I always thought TRISTAN had the wicked temper, but I'm learning it's actually his brother, SEBASTIEN. In the beginning I considered JOSS too weak and broken to stand up for herself, but she's surprised me; turns out she's stronger than everybody else and plays the most significant part in the ensemble cast making it out of a certain situation alive, and even better, while everyone else underestimated her (including me), she never underestimated herself. So, while the balance is difficult, you can't hold your characters back. The trick is learning everything about them beforehand so you know just when and where they'll grow.

So, there's that. Sorry about the long, long silence, but I had some inner demons to deal with. And some outer kindergarten T-ball games.