The Girl Who Writes the Future

Posted on February 23, 2015 by fsdthreshold

Here’s a little interview between (heh, heh!) the blog (B) and Fred (F) about “The Girl Who Writes the Future,” currently running in Cricket Magazine.

B: Part 3 of this story is on bookstore and library shelves now. What about people who missed Parts 1 and 2?

F: They need not despair! With a click here, they can read Parts 1 and 2 on Cricket‘s web site. Cricket is posting the parts about a month behind their published appearances. Don’t forget that Cricket is available for tablets now, too. As I understand it, there are additional features and there’s extra material in the digital version.

B: Readers have been excited to see the reunion of you and artist Emily Fiegenschuh for a Cricket story. Has that been fun?

F: It’s always wonderful to work with Emily! You can (and should) read her blog post about sketching the characters here! It’s been a true collaboration this time, as I’ve seen some of her artwork before writing later parts of the story. I tailored one scene in particular to a picture she’d already painted (the cover of the November/December 2014 issue). She stays quite faithful to the characters as their young creators described them. I try my very best to do that, too. But yes, it’s fun conferring with Emily about what certain things should look like, about what I had in mind with a particular place, etc. And it’s always exciting to see how she depicts things I’ve written. There’s always a surprise or two!

B: Is there anything unique about this Cricket story, or unique for you as the writer?

F: Absolutely! First of all, this was born out of a project called Crowd-Sorcery, which the editors thought up — and it is a brilliant idea! The youthful participants on the magazine’s web site (who most often also read Cricket) created the characters for this story, as well as many fantasy words/objects/concepts that appear. So it’s been a privilege and a delight to work with other people’s ideas, to be faithful to them as I weave them into a coherent story. Some of the combinations have been unexpected. (I don’t want to give any spoilers!)

But also, this is the first time in my history with Cricket that the early parts of the tale have gone into production before the later parts have been written. When I started out in 2000 (wow! That long ago?!), I would write the whole story on speculation and send it in, and sometimes the editors and I would send it back and forth several times, working and re-working it before it was even accepted. And then it would be a year or two until it began to appear in the magazine. This time, Part 1 was published before I’d written Part 4 (of a total of 6). That indicates a high level of trust on the part of the editors. I’m truly honored for their confidence that things will work out. I don’t take that lightly. It’s scary in a way, because the early parts of the story cannot be changed. Till the end, I was gritting my teeth, hoping I hadn’t forgotten some crucial fact that would throw everything off-kilter. I think everything got accounted for; I think we brought the story in to a safe landing — by grace, fear and trembling, sigh of relief!

What’s especially fun about deliberately writing the story in parts like this is that I can give a little arc to each installment and end it with a kind of cliffhanger. Back when I didn’t know where my stories would be divided, of course I couldn’t do that.

B: The prompts for Crowd-Sorcery encouraged the young contributors to build on one another’s ideas. Did some do that?

F: Yes! One of the best instances of that was that one Chatterboxer created a certain magical place and gave it a name. Then another participant came along and used that place in a poem. I worked that poem into the story, so it was a nesting of ideas. I really hope all the kids who posted ideas are still with us, still reading along. It’s fun for me to imagine how they feel when they discover that an item, place, or character they thought up appears in the published story.

B: So only three of all those hundreds of submitted characters are in the finished story?

F: No — actually, I think there are seven. In addition to the main three elected by all the Chatterboxers, some of the runners-up have made cameos. The kids who developed those characters won’t know about that until they read it in the magazine! (The editors put a list at the end of each part honoring the kids who contributed ideas or characters. Because kids use nicknames on the web site, they’re thanked by nickname rather than any form of real name — but I suppose the kids know who they are!)

B: What was the hardest thing about this project for you?

F: There were two. One was having to narrow down all those fantastic character submissions to lists of 10 – 15 finalists in each category. So many of the entries were so creative, fun, clever, and well-written that it was awful having to single out just a few. Emily and I, each in a different part of the world (I was in Ukraine for some of that), pulled some very long days and nights as the deadlines drew near, but we read every single submission. Independently of each other, we made a list of about 20 – 30 “favorites.” Then we compared the lists, and when we were lucky, the overlap in our choices could become the finalist list for the kids to vote on. In some cases, one of us went to bat for a character that the other hadn’t chosen, and sometimes we had the magazine’s editors help us break ties, etc. Those editors were also extremely helpful. If one of us felt strongly about a character, we erred on the side of putting him/her onto the ballot. What added an extra challenge was that Emily and I work in different media: she’s a visual artist, I’m a writer — so she would notice characters that would be fun to draw, and I would favor characters that would be fun to write about. So it should be clear that we knew there was no such thing as finding “the best” characters. With so many good ones, there was a lot of personal preference involved — ours, and that of all the kids who voted. Hopefully we had enough people voting that the characters best-loved-by-most made it into the story. But we want to stress just how much we also admired the ones that didn’t, and we keep urging kids to use those characters in stories of their own. There’s nothing to stop anyone from writing a story!

The other hardest thing was holding down the word-count for each installment. We had so much intriguing material to work with that this could easily, easily have become a very long novel. But we just didn’t have that kind of space at our disposal. I did a lot of weeding and shrinking of my manuscripts before turning them over to the Editor-in-Chief.

B: Well, it’s a terrific idea that Cricket had, and we’re all elated that it’s been going so well. We’re glad there’s talk of doing similar projects in the future, perhaps in other sub-genres of fantasy, with other writers and artists.

F: It’s all about helping kids discover the joy of creating their own stories — and seeing how stories take shape, how accessible the process is. You don’t have to be magical or a professional or an adult to write or draw. Stories change the world. They can make it better. Anyone can be a part of that!

B: I was going to ask you for concluding thoughts. Were those them?

F: No, this is: THANK YOU to everyone involved in Crowd-Sorcery, from the editor(s) who dreamed it up, to those who helped and discussed it along the way, to the web-wranglers and voting system administrators, to Emily, and especially to all those kids out there who joined us. I am on my feet, applauding you!

 

 

 

 

A Foreshadowing of Signs and Shadows

Posted on February 11, 2015 by fsdthreshold

Here’s some fun stuff. Julie and I have each done a painting recently, both depicting scenes from my fantasy novel Signs and Shadows (which is under hopeful consideration on an editor’s desk — everybody pull for good news!). It’s a tricky thing to make pictures of your own work. Tolkien was determined not to draw his characters very clearly or close-up, because he didn’t want to interfere with the reader’s images gotten from the text. I’m willing to go there for a couple reasons: 1. Because I’m such a poor, untrained artist, my paintings don’t tell you much about what the characters look like, anyway. You’re still free to imagine quite a bit. 2. I consider any depiction — including my own — to be simply that: one artist’s rendering. I enjoy how different artists draw the same characters in very different ways.

So, anyway, here are the pictures. Snippets from Signs and Shadows are sprinkled throughout. I hope you like this glimpse into the world of the Hearkens!

Title: Our Ancestral Home, by Frederic S. Durbin -- acrylic, February 8-9, 2015

Title: Our Ancestral Home, by Frederic S. Durbin — acrylic, February 8-9, 2015

Here’s the same thing in natural daylight:

This is an earlier version, before refining Meghan (the figure at left).

This is an earlier version, before refining Meghan (the figure at left). In these digital photos, the brush strokes are much more obvious. I wish I could show you all the painting in person!

We passed through a grand gallery where the walls opened out, the ceiling flew into invisible heights, and our stairway climbed a ramp over a wide chasm that plunged far into the depths; somewhere below, I heard the river again. I thought this might be an interstice between wings of the Hall — a space between the gigantic “hat-boxes.”

Our Ancestral Home, detail: upper left quadrant.

Our Ancestral Home, detail: upper left quadrant.

To our left, at a distance I would not have thought possible indoors, a person traversed another ramp-stairway above the void, that stair climbing in the direction opposite to ours. I could see the figure by the glow of the lantern he or she carried, though its light was more deeply blue than Coil’s.

Here's the same view under artificial light.

Here’s the same view under artificial light.

I walked close beside Constance. After the pleasant boat ride and the joy of getting past the gate, the enormity of being inside Hearken Hall was settling upon us both. The darkness didn’t help; nor did the countenance of the red-eyed creature who received us. If Paddy hadn’t followed him, I would have been convinced there was some mistake.

Here's the upper right quadrant.

Here’s the upper right quadrant. That’s a stone angel projecting from the wall above and behind the figure with the lantern.

I thought for a moment I heard a flurry of whispers all around, as if the walls were speaking . . . or as if the lingering spirits of uncounted generations of Hearkens were discussing us.

Here's the same view with artificial light.

Here’s the same view with artificial light. I like how the green lamp casts a shine on the landing at Coil’s feet.

“Affairs have worsened.” Coil looked as if he would have said more, but was perhaps unwilling to speak in front of the policemen.

Constance, finished with wondering in silence, said: “Aunt Morlinda told us we’d be safe here.”

“She didn’t say exactly that,” said Paddy. “She said we wouldn’t be safe elsewhere. But safety is a relative concept; I’m afraid it’s a very distant relative of ours.”

Constance Hearken, and in the background, the Lady Gwendolyn Isabella Hearken -- the Lady in Red. Really, the brush strokes in the deep blue are not nearly as obvious in real life!

Constance Hearken, and in the background, the Lady Gwendolyn Isabella Hearken — the Lady in Red. Really, the brush strokes in the deep blue are not nearly as obvious in real life!

I grew up supposing . . . that there was no force in all the world more formidable than my sister Constance . . .

Under artificial light.

Under artificial light.

And as our grand finale, here is Julie’s painting:

Working title: A Return to Hazel Lane

Working title: A Return to Hazel Lane — watercolor, January 2015, by Julie Durbin

Leaning back on my elbows, I admired the way light speared the thick shade on the far bank, where wild blackberry bushes choked the trunks and kept our pond mostly private.  . . . It was a pool of water in a pool of sunlight at midday. That intrigued me, the infusing of the two — light filling another medium, like a giant green jewel. In this glowing realm, tadpoles swam, strider-bugs walked like the Lord on the sea . . . In the gloaming, when the frogs sang and the crickets fiddled, it was the most enchanted place I knew. But it was not fairy country; it was safe and quiet, the moon never wearing a witch-ring, and no stones standing in the woods. Paddy had chosen it with care.

Watercolor, January 2015, by Julie Durbin

A Return to Hazel Lane

“Anyway,” I said, “you’ll fill your sketchbooks where we’re going. It’s wild old country up that way.”

And there you have it — a shadow of the Signs and Shadows to come!

New Year, New Book, New Tools

Posted on February 8, 2015 by fsdthreshold

Warmest wishes to all in this year 2015 — not brand-new anymore, but still newish. It’s high time to pump the bellows and coax the embers of this blog up into a cheery blaze again.

It’s been a good year for stories, right? We got our third Hobbit film, and what a wild ride it was! I know opinions vary on the choices Mr. Jackson and crew had to make in adapting the book for the screen, but the fact remains that it’s a great story — and for as long as we humans have had great stories, our storytellers have been adapting them — telling them in different ways at different times for different audiences, readjusting the focus, the perspective, even some of the particulars. The Big Stories can take that solid handling and rehandling — not only take it, but thrive on it. The Hobbit is Big enough. The little hobbit’s shoulders are broad enough. And I contend that the filmmakers were quite true to the spirit of the book; they hit all the important notes. Most of all, the deeds of little people matter. Even if you’re not descended from kings, you have a part to play; you change the world each day you live in it.

Good year for stories . . . if we’re counting the past year from right now, we also said goodbye to Parenthood on TV — wonderful, brilliant show. As a wise person I’m married to said of one scene: “That’s what Hallmark movies are trying to do.” It was a good year for Downton Abbey. And we’ve re-watched most of that single greatest TV series ever produced, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They did not write shows like that before Buffy, and they have not since — though some are, unquestionably, very good. Julie and I have had many a deep discussion about story itself, life, or theology, launched by ideas presented in Buffy.

I’m working on Part 6 of the Crowd-Sorcery project for Cricket Magazine, “The Girl Who Writes the Future.” Part 3 is on shelves now, in the February issue. If you haven’t seen any of it yet, the editors are making it available for free viewing on-line. Part 1 is up on www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/crowdsorcery — scroll to the bottom item on that page and click on it. On the tablet version, in Emily Fiegenschuh’s illustrations, they’ve included some animation that moves! I saw a clip of Araceli Lumine’s black-feathered cloak billowing, of Lumine opening a chest, and of the cloudy ink billowing across the pages inside The Book of Shadows.

I’m making steady progress on the new book, too, the sequel to Signs and Shadows! I have to say, it is truly exciting and a joy to write a sequel, because you go into it already knowing the characters intimately. You’re not building from the ground up anymore — you’re building from the heights of Book 1. I cannot begin to express how much Julie is helping me with this book. First, she clamors for the next chapter. She reads and re-reads older chapters. We talk about the characters at least as much as we talk about the other people in our lives. She keeps composing piano music inspired by the book, and she “plays me into” many of my writing sessions. If I don’t deliver at least one new chapter each weekend, I hear about it. Some writers, I well know, have spouses who begrudge those hours that writers spend at their work of tuning into that faint, oft-broken radio signal that is the story and doggedly trying to get it down in fixed form. (Or again, as some famous writer said, it’s the task of “staring at the page until the drops of blood from your forehead form words on the paper.”) I am blessed beyond words, beyond imagining, with a help-meet who really gets it and loves it. With awe and trembling, “Thank You, Lord!”

I’m eight chapters into the book now — just over 20,000 words. And I’m really enjoying my first experience with a program called Scrivener. Most of my writer-friends have been lauding its virtues for several years now, but I’m ever the technophobe. I balked at what seemed like something that would be so hard to learn that it would distract me from the act of writing. And yes, when I’d watched a couple days’ worth of the tutorial, I kind of went tharn. But then it got through to me that you don’t have to use all of Scrivener any more than you have to use all of Word when you’re writing something. You use what’s useful and necessary to you and your project. For a long project like a novel, Scrivener is a Godsend, because you can handle your book like a whole, or you can handle it like individual chapters. You can click to view note cards associated with those chapters. You can keep a whole slew of notes on the project, rearrange them in any order, and delete the ones you’re done with, just as I like to throw away book-related memo papers I’m done with. You can put your research materials right into Scrivener, too — so you can be writing on a chapter as you’re looking at your notes on 1880s period clothing, etc. Really cool stuff!

One more exciting bit of news: I’ve been selected as the Writer-in-Residence for Spring 2015 at my alma mater, Concordia University Chicago! What that actually means is that on March 10, God willing, I’ll be on campus to conduct a workshop with the creative writing students, have some less structured time to answer their questions and chat about writing, eat lunch with some of the English faculty, and even do a reading and book-signing open to the public! If you’ll be in the Chicago area then, please stop by!

So that’s the state of the writing as we venture farther into 2015. Blessings to you, dear reader, and see you back here soon!

World Fantasy Convention 2014

Posted on November 11, 2014 by fsdthreshold

We’re back from our nation’s capital, and what a fantastic weekend it was at the 40th World Fantasy Convention! This was Julie’s first time to attend, and it was wonderful getting to introduce her to “my people.” She enjoyed meeting them and becoming able to put faces with the names she hears so often — and everyone was certainly thrilled to meet her!

The weekend’s top story: it’s official now — my novel The Sacred Woods is going to become a published book! We’ve known about this since June, but it’s taken awhile to work out all the details. On Saturday, I signed the contract with Saga Press, the new fantasy imprint of Simon and Schuster. Look for the book to hit shelves in Summer 2016, Lord willing! Ahead lies the joyous task of final edits and determining the physical characteristics of the book. I am greatly looking forward to working with the Saga Press team!

Signing the contracts for THE SACRED WOODS at World Fantasy 2014 (Arlington, Virginia) with my tremendous agent Eddie, whose efforts brought the deal about.

Signing the contracts for THE SACRED WOODS at World Fantasy 2014 (Arlington, Virginia) with my tremendous agent Eddie, whose efforts brought the deal about.

Along with my amazing and indispensable agent, credit for this deal must go also to Navah Wolfe, my editor at Saga. Navah first read the book back in 2009 (?) — around that time, anyway, when it was first making the rounds. She was then in charge of a children’s imprint and had to pass on The Sacred Woods, since it’s for a somewhat older audience. But she never forgot the book, and this past summer, out of the blue, she contacted Eddie and asked if it were still available. She had become editor of Saga, and was now in a position to make an offer! Since June, she has worked with Eddie from her end to make the deal happen.

At my reading on Thursday, I read the beginning of The Sacred Woods, and it seemed to be well received — I actually had a modest but dedicated audience! I am immensely grateful to the folks who showed up to support me, friends old and new.

Reading

Reading

I wish we’d taken more pictures. I’ll just have to describe things. On Thursday evening, Julie and I were dinner guests of Saga Press. It was delightful to eat and visit with editors Joe and Navah, plus other Saga authors and artists — all really personable, down-to-earth people. On Saturday, we were guests of JABberwocky, the literary agency that represents my work. Both dinners were truly enjoyable!

This was one of the best years for the layout of the convention. Everything was easy to find and reach, all within the same building. I can hardly describe the wonder of taking a glass-walled elevator — or looking down from the escalator — and seeing the host of fascinating, erudite, creative folks arrayed across the various floors of the hotel, sitting, standing, chatting . . . living legends of the field, young writers just learning their craft, great luminary editors, anthologists, visual artists, book collectors from the far reaches of the continent, all here, all spending a few precious days together. Julie finally got to see in person that it’s not a gathering of people dressed like Gandalf and Glinda (though there’s nothing wrong with that, either!); it’s more like if you could hang out with Tolkien, LeGuin, L’Engle, Aristotle, Algernon Blackwood, the real Gandalf and Glinda, your favorite professor, the people who run your favorite indie bookstore, and your best friends from college . . . you get the idea. One friend of ours describes World Fantasy as like being back in college again: immersing yourself in the world of ideas and staying up till all hours talking with really smart, fun people.

The hotel's lowest level had a grand piano that cried out to Julie. Her compositions for my SIGNS AND SHADOWS made its debut at World Fantasy 2014 in an impromptu concert. Some of the hotel staff stopped to listen appreciatively and praise the pianist.

The hotel’s lowest level had a grand piano that cried out to Julie. Her compositions for my SIGNS AND SHADOWS made their debut at World Fantasy 2014 in an impromptu concert. Though it wasn’t intrusive, lots of people at the nearby reception got to enjoy some background music, and some of the hotel staff stopped to listen appreciatively and praise the pianist. Great times!

The mass book-signing session on Friday night was great fun! I divided the evening between signing a few books myself and being a total fan boy, towing Julie around through the grand session where all the writers sit along nearly endless tables, where fans and collectors cart in dollies and boxes and mountains of books. I’d brought a boxful of books from our shelves at home, knowing their authors would be present, and I got most of them signed. Every author just finds a place wherever s/he can, and the chaos only makes it more fun. You have to wander around to find people; and that leads you to discoveries of writers you didn’t know were present. It helps you bump into old friends on both sides of the tables, so it’s as much about visiting as it is about signing. This event is the one time of the weekend when pretty much everyone at the convention is together, so it’s the best time to track someone down.

It was a ton of fun explaining to Julie who the various writers were, what they meant to me, and she was a great sport. She manned my table, too, while I went to collect the personalized signatures of a few late-comers. And there was still time for me to settle and sign some copies of Dragonfly and The Star Shard. Fun, fun, fun! The conversations were the best. Old friends were very happy to meet Julie, and it’s always great to catch up with these people who love books. It was a joy to be at home.

The National Mall, November 2014

The National Mall, November 2014

What else? I should jot down some of the notes from panels, the snippets of wisdom and rumor that can lead to good story ideas and better craft . . .

The sheeted ghost (wearing a shroud) is a product of the Industrial Revolution. Before that, cloth was too expensive to use for shrouding corpses, and ghosts appeared as shadowy figures, etc.

Read Bradbury’s “The Wind.”

S. T. Joshi thinks Nazareth Hill by Ramsey Campbell is the best ghost novel ever written.

Arthur Machen’s “The Terror” was the source of The Birds.

China Mieville’s Embassy Town is a love letter for linguistics aficionados, beautifully done.

Language is the closest thing we have to smell in a text. (This was from a panel about using other — especially imaginary — languages in stories. One advantage of using words from a different culture we’re writing about is that it’s one of the best ways to evoke nuance on a sensory level — like smell.)

A study done in Spain: acquiring new words stimulates the same part of the brain as sex, drugs, gambling, and good food. Yep! I’m not condoning half of those things, but new vocabulary is exciting — that’s how we’re wired.

Using a new, invented language in your book takes the reader back to pre-language: it makes us a baby Klingon, for example, taking in the world, learning for the first time. It’s transformational. It tells the reader to re-learn. Over-consistency in language seems fake; real languages aren’t that consistent. Languages are messy.

The Washington Monument

The Washington Monument

From usage, natural shortcuts in language occur — even in artificially created ones, such as Klingon! The real Klingon experts have noticed that: people who use the language are beginning to invent slang and simplifications! It’s morphing, alive, like every other language that people use!

Play against the stereotype, and the plot will move forward.

I want to know about the alien-language speech impediments — about their equivalents of “y’know” and “umm.” I want to know about two of the same kind of alien who can’t understand each other because of dialectic differences.

Fred at the WWII memorial -- Pacific theater: the war moved from Pearl Harbor, battle by battle, island by island, to mainland Japan.

Fred at the WWII memorial — Pacific theater: the war moved from Pearl Harbor, battle by battle, island by island, to mainland Japan. A young Japanese couple were there at the same time as us, solemnly taking this monument and its engravings in.

In some ways, race is an illusion. If you walk across the world, you encounter gradations: everyone looks like they belong in a particular region. Aspects change subtly as you walk. People only change radically (physically) when you fly or take a ship from one part of the world to another, seeing none of the people between one group and another. Only with radical shifts do differences become apparent. We humans seem to have a need for distinguishing “the other,” so we’ve developed the concept of race. It’s mostly real because we make it real.

The hardest thing to believe about the old Star Trek is that everyone loved each other. That’s what took suspension of disbelief, not the technology.

Technology in fantasy: if you have a huge library in the story, account for who made those books, and how, and out of what.

The World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.: lots of water evokes the oceans crossed for battle.

The World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.: lots of water evokes the oceans crossed for battle.

Technology advances step by step, with little improvements made over time. But medieval Europeans didn’t think they were making progress; they thought they were going downhill from the classical times of Greece and Rome. Petrarch idealized and advocated a return to a “Golden Age.”

It was interesting how the WWII Memorial also reminded Julie and me about our two halves of the world, the places we've spent time. Here's Julie in front of her half.

It was interesting how the WWII Memorial also reminded Julie and me about our two halves of the world, the places we’ve spent time. Here’s Julie in front of her half.

Writers love to write about castles ruined in battles; but show us something in a story that’s abandoned because it’s obsolete! That would more accurately reflect the world.

And here I am in front of my half.

And here I am in front of my half.

Long ago, people in China built a three-story water-driven astronomical clock! Mechanical figures on it would move and play musical instruments. It was built to provide state-of-the-art horoscopes for the potential newborn emperors — the stars at the times of their births had to be carefully examined to see if the princes would become good rulers.

Before steam, there was water: old Chinese technology was built on water. “Waterpunk” stories, anyone?

The steam engine was first built to “magically” open the temple doors. The ancient Greeks had coin-operated temples: drop in a coin, and the lights would come on!

Intriguing tree and the Washington Monument

Intriguing tree and the Washington Monument

Examples of technology that allowed amazing victory over overwhelming odds:

Agincourt: the long bow

The Battle of Britain: radar

(And don’t neglect non-military technology! Remember household technology, etc.)

Remember that there is no one single lifestyle that was “the Middle Ages.” Things varied from place to place, and the 12th century was very different from the 13th, etc.

Touching the Washington Monument

Touching the Washington Monument

“Flintlock fantasy” — a new sub-genre: Napoleonic era technology and attitudes in a completely different secondary world! Revolution, overthrowing old monarchies, etc.

Portray human attitudes toward new technology. People hang onto the past as long as possible. Sometimes a new form of technology is not yet refined enough to catch on for many years — not sufficient equipment to produce it.

Obelisks, giant Greek temples . . . the National Mall is eerily like the ancient world . . .

Obelisks, giant Greek temples . . . the National Mall is eerily like the ancient world . . .

People view new technology through the prism of the old. Early drawings of cannons showed them shooting arrows. It took awhile to develop the cannonball. Early ideas for trips to the moon involved shooting projectiles out of cannons.

We think freaking out over new technology is a modern phenomenon. It isn’t. The first reactions of people to the “huge” numbers of books in monastery libraries was the same as when the train or the car was invented. People were overwhelmed, wondering how it could be, whether it was natural and right . . .

The White House

The White House

Before anesthesia, one quality of a good surgeon was the ability to work quickly.

So be careful not to treat characters and issues of past ages only with modern sensibility. Be aware of what people in those times thought and believed. But at the same time, be aware of what readers now are thinking about. Find the balance. To quote Field of Dreams: “He’s not gonna want to load the bases, so look for low and away. But watch out for in your ear.”

The Vietnam War Memorial Wall -- we found the names of a member of our church and of an Illinois boy who fought alongside my cousin. Crowds of people there on the sunny Sunday were leaving roses, honoring, mourning, remembering . . .

The Vietnam War Memorial Wall — we found the names of a member of our church and of an Illinois boy who fought alongside my cousin. Crowds of people there on the sunny Sunday were leaving roses, honoring, mourning, remembering . . .

The Dark Is Rising — sounds like a good book. Welsh names.

“I write books that I cannot otherwise read.”

The Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

Beer history: people didn’t understand what yeast was, exactly, but they knew it worked. One medieval translation of “yeast” was “God is good!”

“The more specific they are, the more universal they’ll feel.”

Guy Gavriel Kay says that we put too much emphasis on books that have shaped a particular writer, when in fact, we’re shaped by a whole ring of influences: age, generation, place, gender, etc.

A sight we won't soon forget: a small group of Vietnam veterans were visiting this statue, taking pictures of one another in front of it. One of the men was in a wheelchair, missing his right leg. We who have not known war cannot begin to imagine what it's like for those who serve us, or the scope of what they give.

A sight we won’t soon forget: a small group of Vietnam veterans were visiting this statue, taking pictures of one another in front of it. One of the men was in a wheelchair, missing his right leg. We who have not known war cannot begin to imagine what it’s like for those who serve us, or the scope of what they give.

At the time of Tolkien’s passing, his stacked manuscript of The Silmarillion rose from his desktop and was literally held in position by the ceiling.

Solving a big problem in a story — achieving the victory — must come with consequence and real loss for the characters. If you don’t do that, you’re lying to the reader.

It’s not hard to kill a character. What’s hard is to make it matter.

Guy Gavriel Kay says: “I was killing characters before it was fashionable.”

He intensely dislikes our modern smugness toward past cultures, the belief that we’ve finally got it right, that we have the most enlightened understanding of medicine, philosophy, government, the roles of men and women, etc.

The Korean War Memorial

The Korean War Memorial

Make sure places aren’t static. They’re always changing. Reflect that!

The characters reveal the setting. It’s exactly the same place, but different characters will react differently and even SEE different things. Think of Erebor for Bilbo vs. Erebor for Thorin!

Howard Pyle, The Wonder Clock — a tale for every hour of the day.

The platoon wearily, warily patrols, unearthly under their load of gear and rain ponchos.

The platoon wearily, warily patrols, unearthly under their load of gear and rain ponchos.

Charles Vess made an excellent point: our minds are like hard drives. All we’ve absorbed at our ages is in there. Don’t think too hard — just let the ideas flow. “At my age, I don’t like to think.” And we don’t have to. We’re better off not over-thinking. The book knows what shape it needs to take.

Vigilance, fear, courage, determination, loyalty, a devotion to duty . . .

Vigilance, fear, courage, determination, loyalty, a devotion to duty . . .

The REAL Stardust is the one with Charles Vess’s illustrations, before Neil Gaiman re-sold it as text only (and this assertion came from a reader, not from the artist, who is a model of humility and gentle wit).

Note how the figures are reflected in the wall among the etchings of faces there, so many men and women of service, a great and silent company.

Note how the figures are reflected in the wall among the etchings of faces there, so many men and women of service, a great and silent company.

Patrick Ness, The Monster Calls.

Republishing a backlist gives an author the chance to write new introductions, edit, and undo things the original editors insisted on.

“That’s a whole kettle of fish of a different color.”

Liz Gorinsky points out that there may be 5 or 6 or 7 different “best” versions of a book, depending on the kind of edit it’s given. Some editors give it a world-building edit, some give it a character edit, some a romance edit, etc.

Farnsworth Wright, Weird Tales.

Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl.

Adamant ghosts walking, far from the fields they died in, forever in the fields they died for

Adamant ghosts walking, far from the fields they died in, forever in the fields they died for

Caitlin R. Kiernan feels that these are THE three scary novels of the last fifty or so years (in no particular order):

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski

Ghost Story, by Peter Straub

The Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

Peter Straub agrees with us that “fantasy” best represents real life, because we constantly experience the uncanny. As he put it: “The unimaginable happens all the time.” Historically, writers — “real” writers, not ones labeled as “genre” writers — could use the fantastic, the grotesque, the macabre. These were legitimate tools. The ghettoization of genre is a recent phenomenon (and fortunately, I think it’s all changing again).

I was impressed with how big this temple is! It's really an imposing structure.

I was impressed with how big this temple is! It’s really an imposing structure.

Kiernan wrote Chapter 7 of The Drowning Girl when she was really sick with a high fever. The chapter became the heart of the book. The fever freed her from doubt and second-guessing.

Grand structure

Grand structure

As a communication major listening to writers talk about how they don’t think about the audience while writing novels, Julie had some interesting thoughts about a dichotomy in types of writing:

Poetry vs. Rhetoric

Art vs. Communication

Artist-centered vs. Audience-centered

Beauty/Makes you feel vs. Action/Makes you act; persuasion

From the front steps of the Lincoln Memorial

From the front steps of the Lincoln Memorial

“All books are fantasy,” says Caitlin R. Kiernan. “It did not happen.” That’s in perfect agreement with what I’ve always said: that if we’re going to label the “fantasy” section, that “fantasy” sign should be hung over the entrance to the bookstore. At the very least, this is true of fiction books, no matter how carefully researched and realistic they are.

The Great Emancipator

The Great Emancipator

Gary Wolfe says a lot of people read Gormenghast and then realize it’s not a fantasy at all.

Frazier’s The Golden Bough collected all sorts of superstitions from many cultures — things people believed.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Natural athletes rarely become coaches. They can’t explain or teach what they do. The good coaches are the ones who have had to learn it.

At the Lincoln Memorial

At the Lincoln Memorial

It’s much easier to create a sense of wonder about things that aren’t seen up close, that are only hinted at.

Nancy Kress has written 33 books so far!

Writers who started writing and publishing very young: Asimov, Tanith Lee, Moorcock, Bradbury. Beagle was 19 when he wrote A Fine and Private Place.

16th President

16th President

Picasso model: very focused from the beginning, knew he would paint.

Cezanne model: experimented with various forms, discovered his real work much later in life.

Both arrived at greatness.

Immortal words

Immortal words

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro says that writers tend to start writing horror later in life.

She says first novels (and novels by younger writers) tend to have rushed endings. But you have to let the reader catch up with you. Take the time that the ending needs.

Nancy Kress says the pace in her stories has slowed down as she’s aged. She wants to put more of those details in, all those things that make the characters and story more real.

At the Lincoln Memorial

At the Lincoln Memorial

LeGuin said her writing got leaner and more spare over time, because: “You can’t take everything with you as you journey on.”

You have to change and make progress over time. You have to keep breaking new ground.

Grand, solemn space

Grand, solemn space

A writer never forgets a shortcut, which is not a good thing. Don’t take shortcuts that aren’t good for the book.

Yarbro says, “If you feel it’s getting easier to write, you’re doing it wrong.”

It took her 21 years to get one particular project sold. So don’t give up!

Kress made the point that you have to be better at the beginning of your career than at any other time, because you’re competing against recognized names. If two stories of equal quality come in, one from an unknown, one from a recognized name, the publisher is going to go with the name.

Our captain through the stormiest seas

Our captain through the stormiest seas

Down from the mountain; by grace, with courage and care, back into the work!

 

Hallowe’en: Festival of Frights and Memories

Posted on October 21, 2014 by fsdthreshold
Hallowe'en 1996

Hallowe’en 1996

I appreciate Hallowe’en more with each passing year. There are good reasons the holiday is so fiercely and fondly embraced in the U.S.: mainly, it’s a celebration for all ages. For the very young, it’s about masquerade and pretend; it’s about games, great treasure-hoards of candy, and spooky thrills. But it’s as we move onward from childhood that Hallowe’en sets its claws deeper into us. Its influence is inextricably tied to the season. Autumn is the time of memory. Spring is resurrection, excitement, commingled hope and sadness, and the ache of new growth; summer is all about living. Winter is grim survival, head down, teeth set against the wind, prayers for warmth. But autumn . . . the time of rarefied beauty, when all the trees and hills are glorious and tragic, when the wind and the thin sun sing their arias of death, and darkness lurks a half-glance away . . . that’s the time when we stand still, catching our breath and counting it as it slows, knowing those inhalations are finite, that the harvest basket of them is not nearly as full as it was when we started out.

My oak tree, Illinois, front yard

My oak tree, Illinois, front yard

We stand beneath the crimson leaves, and we are rightly awed. Life is a gift, and we are given an abundance of moments infinitely valuable. Autumn helps us recognize their brevity and their beauty.

It’s striking how the progression of Hallowe’en/Thanksgiving runs before Advent/Christmas. The first set looks ahead to the second. Hallowe’en, like Advent, gives us a world in darkness, a world of horrors and mortality, a people huddling, haunted, and hunted. With Thanksgiving/Christmas, light and help arrive. Feasting can begin. Christmas is all about joy: looking back with fondness, looking around in glad fulness, looking forward in sure hope. But Hallowe’en . . . Hallowe’en allows us to hear the dark chords in the music. It’s the time at which we can gaze into the fire and glimpse that from which we are saved. Theologically, it’s a holiday of marvelous richness. Nostalgically . . .

Dave (the cat), 1995, Niigata, Japan

Dave (the cat), 1995, Niigata, Japan

See, that’s where Hallowe’en bridges the gap between children and adults. When we grow too tall for trick-or-treating, it occurs to us that Hallowe’en is mostly about what we remember. It’s not just the times we recall — the family and friends (though those are certainly a part of it); rather, we remember the things we imagined . . . the things we did and how we felt while doing them. We remember how Story intersected our lives. Hallowe’en is a deliciously personal holiday, because generally speaking, we begin to enjoy it most as we begin to leave our comfort zones. Am I right? I’m betting most of your best Hallowe’en memories involve adventures — and people you chose to be with. Those might have been family members, but not necessarily so. Hallowe’en is the holiday of Not-Necessarily-So. I’ll wager that your memories involve borders and danger, or the possibility of danger. They’re memories from the edge of light, when you began to understand that you could and would get hurt out there, but you went anyway, out to where twigs snapped and howls echoed over the hills. You went because it was worth it. And it still is. Hallowe’en is the holiday of beginning to grow up. It’s when hobbits turn fifty. And yet . . . and yet . . . it’s the holiday of never growing up, not in the ways that lead to loss.

Mask I made from "paper-clay," Hallowe'en Night, 1992, Niigata

Mask I made from “paper-clay,” Hallowe’en Night, 1992, Niigata

So here are a few of my best Hallowe’en memories from my years in Japan.

I first went over in October of 1988, and that is the year that I was first writing real, grownup stories — not imitations of movies and my favorite books anymore, but actual stories. That summer (just after college, and on the threshold of Japan), I wrote two long short stories, “Iowa Mud” (accepted by the delightful Midnight Zoo, but never published because the magazine folded before my story appeared) and, even before that one, “Maybe Tonight.”

Now, “Maybe Tonight” has never been published, and rightly so: I’m sure it has plenty of flaws. But what it really is is a performance piece. Read aloud under the right conditions, it works — as I found out that first Hallowe’en night in Japan.

Mouth of Fire, 2001

Mouth of Fire, 2001

That autumn, I was in our Orientation for the volunteer mission program that took me to Japan. I lived with a Japanese Christian family in Tokyo and studied Japanese language daily at the Tokyo Lutheran Center. For a Hallowe’en festivity, some of us gathered in the tiny apartment where two of my fellow volunteers lived — in the Takenotsuka neighborhood, if I remember right. I don’t recall exactly who was there — mostly girls, and two of our students, a teenage boy and a young working lady who arrived late. Brenda was there, and I think Marit and Chris . . . who else? The group included Nancy, one of our directors, 27-ish in age to our typical 22-23-ish. Young people. Goodness, how young! I was dressed as Ed Grimley, and I looked, sounded, and acted disturbingly like him. My co-worker Dave (not the cat of the photo above) was wearing an enormous purple Afro wig. That’s all I remember about the costumes.

Anyway, there were about a half-dozen of us, and the main event of the evening was that I’d been asked to read “Maybe Tonight” aloud. Just one story?, you ask. Yes, well, it was upwards of 10,000 words — plenty long enough for an evening’s entertainment, after the talking and eating — kind of like watching an hour-long holiday special. We sat in a circle on the floor, close together because the place was so small. I think the only light was from a candle or two. Dark shadows filled the corners and crowded around. The near-endless city of Tokyo rumbled and rattled outside.

“Maybe Tonight” is the story in which Henry Logan made his debut — the mortician who went on to become Uncle Henry in Dragonfly. In “Maybe Tonight,” he’s a little crazier and with a wicked streak. I won’t give away the ending, but the story is about a young man named Lester who has driven a long way to meet Henry Logan and interview him for an article he’s writing. Lester is extremely nervous by nature, and he arrives in the small Midwestern town at night, during a thunderstorm. A worsening flood strands him there. Through details he observes, through things he hears, little by little, Lester realizes that the dead in this colorful little borough don’t stay dead; further, he learns that he’s agreed to spend the night in Logan’s funeral home, where there are a couple recently-arrived corpses who are most likely not going to remain inanimate. The few townspeople Lester meets react differently to what is happening. The mystery deepens, and the tension mounts. It’s a silly story in some ways — playful, darkly humorous. But it amounted to one of the two best reading-a-story-aloud experiences I’ve ever had. It was a LOT of words to sit through . . . but the audience never grew restless. They behaved in all the ways a performer hopes for, huddling closer, yelping at the scares, laughing at the jokes . . . The best moment was when, because the story was long, I offered to skip a bit, and Nancy yelled, “Just READ!”

Yeah, that was fun. It was my first grownup story, a Hallowe’en performance I’ve never forgotten, with some great friends, all settling into the wild adventure of living in a new land, around the world from home. Maybe I should dust off “Maybe Tonight” and do something more with it.

Me as Eliot Ness, Hallowe'en 1989, Niigata. Instead of a badge, I'm flashing my Tokyo train pass.

Me as Eliot Ness, Hallowe’en 1989, Niigata. Instead of a badge, I’m flashing my Tokyo train pass.

I think it was the same year as the Ness photo above, 1989 — my first Hallowe’en in Niigata — that I chose to decorate my apartment as a cave. I’ve never been so ambitious again on any Hallowe’en since. For that, I got a whole bunch of construction paper of various colors and cut out literally hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites. These I taped to the ceilings and the bottoms of walls all through my apartment on Matsunami-cho. I think it took a night and a day (like the destruction of Atlantis). And what’s more, I acquired a roll of green, transparent plastic ribbon to serve as “drips” — streams of water trickling down from the stalactites — not from all of them, but from enough that walking through my apartment was truly inconvenient. I made a lot of tacos and invited my evening English conversation class over to eat and enjoy Hallowe’en. Although I explained the holiday’s origins, there are probably still some surviving members of that class who believe that All Hallows Eve is when Americans decorate their homes like caves and eat Mexican food.

Jack-o'-lanterns, 1989

Jack-o’-lanterns, 1989

I quickly discovered that, particularly in the earlier years of my time in Japan, big orange pumpkins were not available. As time passed, they started appearing in small numbers, but they were horrendously expensive. But if I wanted jack-o’-lanterns, I had to learn to carve the little green kind. These are slightly larger than a grapefruit — no bigger than a cantaloupe — and with tough, hard shells. And there were no special pumpkin-carving tools in Japan, because jack-o’-lanterns weren’t a thing. I was using large, cumbersome kitchen knives. My Japanese friends couldn’t stand to watch . . . but I never did get injured from pumpkin-carving (by grace).

1992. I always loved taking pictures of them on that kitchen table because of the eerie reflected light.

1992. I always loved taking pictures of them on that kitchen table because of the eerie reflected light.

These pumpkins in Japan, of course, are for eating. Shopkeepers would wonder why I was buying so many at once, and my friends would shudder about equally at the prospect of wasting good food and at the prospect of my producing a huge kettleful of pumpkin innards that needed cooking or preserving somehow. I remember making a vat of stringy, seedy, pumpkin miso soup one year, and my co-worker Scott tactfully remarking, “Mmm. This tastes . . . healthy!” As my friends got used to my annual custom, they started blending my pumpkin meat into better soups (hard to beat a rich, pumpkin-cream soup) or baked desserts. We tried roasting the seeds, but the seeds of little green pumpkins don’t work as well for that. The green pumpkins themselves are much more flavorful than the big orange kind. In Japan, they’re usually eaten shell and all.

Some sort of native, 1991. Actually, this was inspired by DANCES WITH WOLVES, and I decided my Indian name was "Under-the-Ground."

Some sort of native, 1991. Actually, this was inspired by DANCES WITH WOLVES, and I decided my Indian name was “Under-the-Ground.” Note the silhouette of a shoji window in the background.

It’s amusing to remember how I set out a jack-o’-lantern on my second-floor balcony at Mezon Matsunami, facing the busy street of Matsunami-cho. It was the only jack-o’-lantern, I’ll wager, in the entire city, flickering bravely in the dark October night. Passing pedestrians and drivers must have wondered, “What is that?”

2002: I found some unusually-shaped ones that year.

2002: I found some unusually-shaped ones that year.

It was always fun to seek out pumpkins each fall. I’d buy them mostly from farm grandmothers who had vegetable stalls in the market street. I’d deliberate over the pumpkins, picking out the sizes and shapes I liked, and the ladies would assure me, “They’re really delicious! These are sweet!”

Alien, 2001

Alien, 2001

“Why ‘Happy Hallowe’en’?” my Japanese pastor would ask me. “Why is it happy?” I’d give him my rationale about how applicable it was to Christian truth. I don’t know if he was entirely convinced. But I do know that the church at Shirone, at first skeptical of my idea for a Hallowe’en party, eventually embraced it so enthusiastically that they continued holding it every year long after I was gone, and it turned into a major church event, complete with a costume contest, games, and a deliberate Christian message and invitation to visitors to join the church members for any of their gatherings. I wonder if the congregation at Shirone still does that.

Gandalf, October 31, 2002, Niigata: a friend and I took this picture in the parking lot of a restaurant, and we realized that a great many customers from the dining room were pressed up against the plate glass windows, watching us -- and when I glanced up and saw them, they all applauded!

Gandalf, October 31, 2002, Niigata: a friend and I took this picture in the parking lot of a restaurant, and we realized that a great many customers from the dining room were pressed up against the plate glass windows, watching us — and when I glanced up and saw them, they all applauded!

During my year in Shirone, I lived in a very rickety, cold, second-floor apartment. Through the warmer months, I shared it with many spiders and earwigs, and even little frogs from the rice fields would climb up as high as my balcony. I’d find them clinging to my windows and frosted-glass door. Anyway, most of the apartments in that complex were occupied by Brazilians who had come to work at the local candy-and-cookie factory. It was a cheerful place to live. Parties went on quite often, with everyone’s doors wide open, the tantalizing aromas of cooking wafting everywhere, and people freely mingling, drifting from one apartment to another. Now, I had dressed as Mr. Spock that Hallowe’en . . .

Spock, Shirone City, 1995

Spock, Shirone City, 1995

I knew I was going to pass about fifty jovial Brazilians on my way to church for the Hallowe’en party. The volunteer before me had left a pocket-sized Portuguese-English dictionary in the apartment, and I was trying to figure out how to say “Hallowe’en” — or, failing that, at least “party.” But I needn’t have worried. No sooner had I stepped out of my doorway than I was exuberantly greeted with “Heeeyy! Mr. Spock! All right! Good, good!” and given many thumbs-ups. I invited people to come along with me to the church party, but they were having too much fun at the party that was our neighborhood. They were good neighbors, and we always got along well. After Mr. Spock passed them on his away-team of one, we were on even friendlier terms.

1993

1993

Those are the memories of Hallowe’en in Japan. No one really knew what it was about, but most were glad to humor me, and everyone likes a good masquerade.

1993

1993

The Japanese could relate to Hallowe’en because it’s so much like their festival of Obon, which happens in mid-August. That’s the time when the spirits of the dead return to Earth, and when people tell creepy stories. I’ve heard the reasoning that the hottest nights of summer are the best time for ghostly stories, because the chill of fear cools people down.

Could this be the Great Pumpkin that Linus waits for? Maybe he found a very sincere pumpkin patch in Niigata in 1995.

Could this be the Great Pumpkin that Linus waits for? Maybe he found a very sincere pumpkin patch in Niigata in 1995.

I haven’t shown you all my costumes from the Japan years. The scarecrow is missing . . . the dark-seeing Hurlim from The Fires of the Deep . . . and the nightmarish bird-creature, which is best left undepicted. The hour grows late, but here is one more:

The Terminator, 1992

The Terminator, 1992

For the last words, I’d like to quote from “Boo,” by Richard Laymon, the best Hallowe’en story I know of:

“And I’ll always remember trotting up those stairs and stepping onto the dark porch and walking up to the front door. Even while it was happening, I knew I would never forget it. It was just one of those moments when you think, It doesn’t get any better than this. / I was out there in the windy, wonderful October night with cute and spunky little Peggy Pan, with my best buddy Jimmy, and with Donna. / . . . / Now she was about to ring the doorbell of the creepiest house I’d ever seen. I wanted to run away screaming myself. I wanted to yell with joy. I wanted to hug Donna and never let her go. And also I sort of felt like crying. / Crying because it was all so terrifying and glorious and beautiful — and because I knew it wouldn’t last. / All the very best times are like that. They hurt because you know they’ll be left behind. / But I guess that’s partly what makes them special, too.”

Happy Hallowe’en!

Hallowe'en 1996

Hallowe’en 1996

Loch Ness and the Greatest Summer

Posted on September 23, 2014 by fsdthreshold

Summer 2014 officially ended today. What a summer it was for us! It’s hard to top the summer in which you get married (2013, in our case) — and I suppose no summer ever really can. But if it’s possible (bolstered by how it built upon that one), then this one we’ve just come through was the best in my life so far, through God’s wondrous grace.

First of all, it was a four-month summer. Who, in adult life, is ever granted the blessing of focusing completely on important people and things for four months, and at the best, warmest time of year? We had the two months in Ukraine, a brief side trip to England and Scotland on the way home, and then most of two months back in our little town before our day jobs resumed for the fall semester. We are both extremely thankful for the flexibility our college work allows, and for my wonderful and understanding boss who gladly allowed me the summer term off for the trip to Ukraine, prayed for us while we were there, and let me pick right up where I left off in the fall semester.

A stone wall in Glencoe, Scotland

A stone wall in Glencoe, Scotland

In the previous (guest) post, Julie summed up our time in Ukraine very well. She was gathering her interviews for her dissertation, and we visited various simple (house) churches in several cities, sticking to western and central Ukraine.

A simple church gathering in Rivne, Ukraine

A simple church gathering in Rivne, Ukraine

(That’s a samovar in the picture above — a traditional vessel for keeping tea water hot.) As it turned out, I was able to assist Julie in more direct, concrete ways than I’d expected. A short span into our time there, she broke her ankle. It was a clean, simple break to the base of the tibia, and it healed well. But it did keep her in a cast and on crutches for the duration of our travels. So I put my best Japanese hosting skills to work. Fortunately, they’re about the same as Ukrainian hosting skills. Whenever guests would come over, I’d boil water, arrange cookies on plates, and bring out the right number of cups along with the tea, coffee, etc. I also got to be the grocery shopper, using little pieces of paper on which Julie would write out the phrases for me to say. I was amazed at how they worked, like magical keys. I’d say these things, reading them off the paper, and people knew what I meant! How miraculous language is!

A picnic with old friends, fellow Christians and missionaries in Rivne

A picnic with old friends, fellow Christians and missionaries in Rivne

(They’re posing deliberately in that picture, showing off the grilled pork — a fancier-than-usual picnic for the special occasion.)

A broken ankle couldn't keep Julie from grilling her specialty, marinated pork and vegetables.

A broken ankle couldn’t keep Julie from grilling her specialty, marinated pork and vegetables.

In addition to getting to help Julie on this long-planned research trip, I was delighted at the chance to get in a lot of writing time! I made great strides on the revisions of Signs and Shadows, and I finished the year-long revisions at the end of the summer!

One of my writing spaces in Kiev, thanks to Julie's gracious friend who hosted us

One of my writing spaces in Kiev, thanks to Julie’s gracious friend who hosted us

We stayed for about a week in England and Scotland on our return journey. It was truly a joy to spend time with dear friends in England, who were so kind and generous in hosting and entertaining us! We saw the Lake District there, and look! — William Wordsworth’s grave!

William Wordsworth rests in a quiet churchyard in the Lake District he loved, in the shade of trees he planted himself.

William Wordsworth rests in a quiet churchyard in the Lake District he loved, in the shade of trees he planted himself.

Here we are . . .

Us on Midsummer Morning in Cherkassy

Us on Midsummer Morning in Cherkassy

So anyway, Scotland . . . We rented a cool little car and drove up there from the Manchester area. We never figured out what make the car was, but it had a manual transmission and “smart” headlights and wipers: the lights would come on when the world grew dark, and the wipers would come on when the windshield got wet. So the car’s automatic energy went into those peripherals. The transmission itself was altogether manual.

Our little rental car, somewhere in central Scotland on our way back south

Our little rental car, somewhere in central Scotland on our way back south

Narrow, narrow roads! Stone walls to right and left! Sheep milling about in the road! Signs gleefully proclaiming, “Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road”! Other signs ominously warning, “CAUTION! RED SQUIRRELS!” But we survived, and by grace, we returned the car without a scratch. Thanks be to God!

Honestly, I didn't want to give the car back! I enjoyed driving a stick again. And I was fairly used to driving on that side of the road, from Japan.

Honestly, I didn’t want to give the car back! I enjoyed driving a stick again. And I was fairly used to driving on that side of the road, from Japan.

Winner of the Most Dramatic Scottish Landscape We Saw Award: Glencoe.

Glencoe

Glencoe

Pictures don’t do it justice. When we first drove into Glencoe, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It reminded me of the movie Inception, how reality bent, how the flat ground could be folded up at a ninety-degree angle to form a wall. I know that sounds like I’m just describing a cliff, but I’m not: the whole landscape just suddenly shoots up to the sky! What an amazing place, this site of the infamous massacre!

Strange cave in the cliffs of Glencoe; what history has this cave seen?

Strange cave in the cliffs of Glencoe; what history has this cave seen?

And sheep everywhere!

Sheep in the Highlands

Sheep in the Highlands

And stone walls . . .

A very typical sight all over England and Scotland

A very typical sight all over England and Scotland

And trebuchet . . .

Trebuchet

Trebuchet

No, just kidding — those aren’t all over the place.

Now, where do you suppose the above trebuchet and these stone stairs are? Hint: If Fred goes to Scotland, this is the one place you'd most expect him to go.

Now, where do you suppose the above trebuchet and these stone stairs are? Hint: If Fred goes to Scotland, this is the one place you’d most expect him to go.

LOCH NESS! LOCH NESS! LOCH NESS!

Here it is! The deep, dark loch, the abode of Nessie! We saw it with our own eyes and dipped our hands into its waters!

Here it is! The deep, dark loch, the abode of Nessie! We saw it with our own eyes and dipped our hands into its waters!

(We saw the loch, I mean — not Nessie. Of course I could see Nessie in my mind’s eye, raising a slender neck from the waves to gaze back at us.)

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

I took the photo below from the highest tower of Urquhart Castle, looking straight into the teeth of a fierce wind, straight down at the loch.

At the height of summer, the fierce wind over the loch chilled me and made me squint before its fury.

At the height of summer, the fierce wind over the loch chilled me and made me squint before its fury.

One of my fondest memories of Loch Ness is this:

Julie got to borrow this cool little motor-scooter, and she really had fun with its various speeds, its forward and reverse.

Julie got to borrow this motor-scooter, and she really had fun with its various speeds, its forward and reverse.

Urquhart Castle . . . I’ve seen it all my life in old black-and-white photos of the Loch Ness Monster. I never dreamed I’d be able to climb all over it someday — up onto its towers and down into its dungeon!

This is how the defenders of Urquhart Castle viewed the loch for generations.

This is how the defenders of Urquhart Castle viewed the loch for generations.

The cool motor-scooter again:

Such a nice accommodation -- free of charge, for the asking!

Such a nice accommodation — free of charge, for the asking!

Seeing the trees in Scotland, I felt I was seeing trees in Middle-earth.

A tree in Drumnadrochit

A tree in Drumnadrochit

I guess that’s pretty much the tale of our travels. But the best part of the summer was after we got home. I was finishing up the book, started so long ago, on April 22, 2010, at the McDonald’s in Niigata, Japan. The official date I have written down as having finished the revisions is July 24, 2014 — but in truth, I’m still revising little things, trying to get every nuance as good as I can get it. Parts of this book were written in Niigata; Taylorville; McKees Rocks; Pittsburgh (parks and cemeteries all over those last two); State College PA; Rivne and Kiev, Ukraine; and New Brighton and Beaver Falls, PA. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to our own Marquee Movies, who has read each chapter of the book this year and given me extremely helpful advice, urging me always to let the characters breathe. Julie has also been indispensable, helping me to get the emotional arcs right. I’m a guy trying to write from the perspective of two 19-year-old twin sisters: you can imagine how helpful it is to me to have Julie around to offer her insights.

Best of all: Julie, inspired by the book, has been composing a “soundtrack”! At her piano, she started exploring the themes of each major character . . . the action of the book’s various threads, particularly the climax, in its musical manifestation. This summer, as I sat writing on the back porch, Julie was playing this ever-emerging music. The story inspired her art; her art inspired my revision. As the fireflies winked, I would sit at the patio table, writing into the night. Julie would play on the keys nearby. The star formation known as the Summer Triangle, so prominent in the book, blazed in the sky. Dark pines surrounded our backyard, where the ghosts and visions of the story strolled daily and nightly. Endlessly, Julie read and re-read the book — she’s re-reading it still on her Kindle as she falls asleep each night! Endlessly, we’ve talked about the characters, about the implications of the book. It’s like nothing I’ve written thus far in life; it’s come so far, through the help of several generous people: Latin scholars, thinkers, story experts, sisters, fantasists, readers. I’m really excited about it!

If any of you friends would like to hear Julie’s music, please shoot e-mail to either of us. It won’t mean too much until you’ve read the book, but it is amazing music in any case. I’m thankful for it, and for all her encouragement and support. I’ve come full circle now: it’s been the best summer ever. The Lord is good and kind. Such grace!

By the way, the Cricket project has been going very well, too! “Crowd-Sorcery” is a crowd-sourced fantasy story in the making! All summer, young readers of the magazine have been thinking up characters — heroes, heroines, sidekicks, and villains — and fantasy words and concepts. They’ve been posting their ideas at cricketmagkids.com/sorcery. (You can also read my periodic prompts and updates, called “Fred Threads,” and an interview with the main character there!) Artist Emily Fiegenschuh and I have had the difficult but joyous task of reading all the character entries and narrowing down the lists to groups of finalists, which the kids then voted on. I am now writing a story, “The Girl Who Writes the Future,” which uses the winning characters. Emily is illustrating it. I’m including special items from the Fantasy Dictionary created by the kids. The story will appear in several parts, beginning in the November/December issue of Cricket, which should hit the shelves of newsstands and libraries about the middle of October. I’ll remind you again then — you won’t want to miss it!

One more look at Scotland: the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond -- really!

One more look at Scotland: the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond — really!

And again, Loch Lomond:

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond

The greatest summer comes to an end. But Hallowe’en is on the way! Long live the imagination! Soli Deo Gloria!

The southern shore of Loch Ness; we made a complete circumnavigation.

The southern shore of Loch Ness; we made a complete circumnavigation.

And a final photo:

Sunset over Loch Ness

Sunset over Loch Ness

Okay, one more!

Loch Ness, south shore

Loch Ness, south shore

Okay, this is really the last one! I began with a stone wall, and I’ll end with one:

Stone wall at cold Glencoe

Stone wall at cold Glencoe

 

 

 

Guest Post: What I Did Last Summer

Posted on August 14, 2014 by fsdthreshold

Hello at last! Yes, I intend to return to my blog more regularly now after the busy, wonderful whirlwind of summer. To start us off, here’s a guest post written by my wife, Julie. These are her reflections on this summer of 2014. I’ll be posting again very soon now, but anyway, here’s Julie:

What I Did Last Summer

A sudden, harsh loss of control. Perhaps you have felt it as a car, or a lightpole, or the ground raced toward your windshield. Or the moment you inadvertently hit Send.

I felt it in May, stepping out of the underpass into the glare of a city lit with summer fire. Not a step: a ramp. I should’ve known.

Crunch. I crumpled to the ground.

Sudden doom and what did I do, what did I do, oh crap oh crap, what did I do?  Images flashed through my mind: Lying on a gurney under a surgeon’s light –he’s armed with a power drill. An early flight home. All this travel for nothing. Oh…WHAT did I do? Look where you walk, you IDIOT.

Hands helped me up onto a chair once I let them. Tanya beside me, worried, trying to calm me. A quickly-assembled action team of post-Maidan Kievans.

My voice: “I think I’m okay now . . . “ and fade to black.

Tanya’s freaked out face came into view. “Why am I . . . wet?” I mumbled.

Wet naps on forehead and chest. A random blonde girl, checking my pulse and asking me EMT-like questions in decent English.

Looking back, I felt as safe and cared for on the street—by random citizens—as I did in the hospital. Perhaps they’ve had some recent . . . experience.

Only one frustrating but later hilarious comment from the first vendor-witness: “Oh, people always fall here. All the Americans fall here. Ten times a day they fall!”

Americans! I’m no stupid tourist American. Harumph.

Or maybe . . . I am. Now.

I was treated quickly and well in the hospital. The doctor saw my trail mix and water—my attempt to stave off lightheadedness and nausea—and told Tanya and Fred that we should’ve bought a Pepsi. Huh.

Casting room looked like a construction site. Joked with the cast lady about amputation when she marked me with an X. Don’t cut off the wrong leg.

“You’ll need to buy crutches,” they told me. Tanya and Fred started wheeling me out. “Oh you can’t get a wheelchair down there.” Consternation. Tanya ran down and brought back the elbow crutches—the only kind there. What on earth do people do if they don’t come here with a team?? I thought, grateful for mine.

***

It is even hard to sit with an ankle in a cast. Your balance is all off. One leg elevated, you can never really sit up properly, which means always feeling a bit drowsy.

Change of plans and timing. New ways of doing things. Hands and pits sore. Getting up in the morning and heading to the bathroom—a herculean task.  Everything—a  herculean task.  Turtle showers.

Terrifying steps are everywhere. Whether two or twenty, they are all terrifying.

I, who used to hail all the benefits of the squatty-potty, suddenly find myself completely incapable of using one. The worst thing.

I don’t miss it. What on earth do the sick, the invalids do? Stay inside, I guess.

How nice it is to have working legs!

***

Many interviews and my questions kept changing. Simplifying. Adapting. Always felt unsure of my effectiveness. Was this very professional? How is this supposed to work?

Months later, I’m still just starting to sift through recordings. Worried I should have—oh I should have transcribed earlier!!! But time rolled by, and I suppose most of the time, I wasn’t just watching it pass. When I wasn’t in migraine-hazes, (or recovering from food poisoning), there were people. Better to be available in the country that cost cash and time and fear and a bone—than to stare at a computer in solitary labor all day, I suppose. But I still worry about when I’ll find the 100 hours to transcribe and then analyze. It’s dumb, though, I suppose, to worry about that when God got us to a war-torn country and back without a scratch (save those I could’ve gotten anywhere).

***

My happy husband wrote and shopped. And did everything. Held onto me on many staircases, warding off my panic.

It was a gift—to not be alone in it all, and to know his light wasn’t snuffed while I worked on mine. I can picture him, sitting at many tables: Amy’s lovely antique in the living room and her desk-nook in the window overlooking many towering blocks of apartment. His makeshift desk in the mission apartment—I didn’t see him working at its kitchen table or big room table, as that always happened after I turned in for the night. Signs & Shadows unfolding all over Ukraine, adding to the list of settings in which Fred wrote this most recent story. I wonder what colors she added.

I know that journeying with my writer-man meant capturing feelings and images from the Maidan that otherwise would’ve slipped through my fingers. My heart grows ten times just being near his.

***

Swimming in people’s heads—I’m still swimming. Not only in ideas about worship and church, how things ought to be vs how things are, but also—a few precious bonuses. Stories from eyewitnesses. From modern-day potential martyrs. Stories from the soon-to-be or recently-been front lines. Oh the glory, the courage. And the mess and the decay and the confusion and the insipid evil. Oh God, save Ukraine.

***

July and August—months of love, loss, much laughter—and a lot of other things that don’t start with l.  Creativity together. A wonderful disappearance into imagination that I haven’t enjoyed in years—have never enjoyed with a boy of 48. And by “boy” I don’t mean what grumpy, tired women usually mean: a man who is selfishly immature. No, I mean a man who was wise beyond his years as a child and is imaginative and wonder-filled as a grown up. I am blessed and we are blessed.

I am not quite ready for summer to end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Pilgrimage to Maidan Nezalezhnosti

Posted on May 20, 2014 by fsdthreshold

Where does one begin trying to tell the story of so many lives, of such profound and far-reaching impact? Simply because I must choose a place and a time, I’ll begin it with an escalator ride up from the subterranean Metro station in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 13, 2014. It is the fastest escalator I’ve ever ridden, and perhaps the longest end-to-end. It rockets us up from the depths as if we are riding a volcanic eruption, up from the comfortable and anonymous darkness that is the same in any large city of the world, up into the brilliant sunlight streaming through the plate-glass windows at street level. The escalator spews us into sight and sound, into uncompromising clarity.

Beyond the Metro’s doors is the approach to Maidan, a word I had not heard until the previous winter. The Oxford Dictionary says that maidan is a noun meaning, in South Asia, “an open space in or near a town, used as a parade ground or for events such as public meetings.” It comes from Urdu, Persian, and Arabic words of similar spelling and pronunciation.

From this porch, before these columns, snipers fired down into the crowds.

From this porch, before these columns, snipers fired down into the crowds.

This is actually my second visit to the Maidan; my wife brought me here last June, when it was the stately center of Kyiv, a place she loves in a city dear to her heart. Today I am a visitor, like one who ventures into a battlefield in some far place and seeks to comprehend a tale to which he has no right. But for Julie, this is a homecoming of vying emotions, a spiritual reunion, and it is not easy.

A May morning, three months after the protests in Kyiv; Institutska Street.

A May morning, three months after the protests in Kyiv; Institutska Street. This was my first sight when we emerged from the Metro station.

The interspersed italicized sections in this post will be Julie’s reflections.

I keep finding myself referring to this visit as a funeral — you know that tight feeling in your throat and gut, that dread mixed with longing you feel when you just must go see that body lying strangely still, when you hate to while wanting to see the faces of others who feel what you feel? As we fly up out of the pit on the escalator, that’s exactly how I feel. I know it will not be the same Kyiv I remember.

A street of memorials

A street of memorials: barbed wire, tires, broken concrete, winter clothing, flowers, candles in colorful glass jars; here is a photo of the woman who was killed, one of the heroes.

Last winter, the world saw the Maidan as a place of fires burning in the night, of thick black smoke. The media buzzed with questions and answers, generally too few, often poorly informed. While the Winter Olympics filled our TV screen, Julie sat with her computer on her lap, poring through articles, reports, and opinion pieces, sending and receiving e-mail, doing all she could to keep up with the situation hour by hour. It was a terrible frustration to her that she could not be in Ukraine to lend support, to stand with the people she loves.

Relics of battle

Reminders of battle . . . a copy of the New Testament.

I understood then something of what was taking place. But it is today, when Kyiv thrusts me up into the light, that I begin to understand the Maidan as I wish more of us could.

A hardhat proclaims, "Liberty or Death."

A hardhat proclaims, “Liberty or Death.”

We step out of the Metro at the top of Institutska Street, an avenue that climbs steeply up from the Maidan toward the Parliament building. This is the street on which some of the Heavenly Hundred were shot down by snipers as they marched, either unarmed or armed mainly with wooden sticks, protected by makeshift shields of wood or sheet metal.

Lilacs bloom on Institutska Street.

Lilacs bloom on Institutska Street.

We notice at once that the Maidan is a memorial, but it is not only a place of the dead. The debris, the thousands of car tires have been carefully stacked and scooped into monuments and markers that do not block the flow of traffic.

Blocks and tires: barricades that may, at need, block and burn again

Blocks and tires: barricades that may, at need, block and burn again

But they are on hand, ready to be reformed into barricades if needed. Guardians of the Maidan are here in their combat fatigues — camping, maintaining, waiting.

Institutska Street

Institutska Street

Ukraine is famous for its buckeye trees, and they are in full bloom, casting deep, tranquil shade. Perhaps it is the buckeye flowers that are dropping white seed fluff that falls around us like snow.

The memorials go on for blocks; ancient Kyiv remembers its present-day heroes.

The memorials go on for blocks; ancient Kyiv remembers its present-day heroes.

Kyiv bustles on. Cars creep up and down Institutska Street. Sometimes soldiers move aside wooden barricades to let them through. Pedestrian traffic flows along the sidewalk: citizens of Kyiv going to and from work — shopkeepers, businesspeople, the elderly, priests . . . there are a few journalists with long-lensed cameras, sitting in cars with open doors, scribbling in notebooks. But at least half the people here seem to be pilgrims — some local, some from other parts of Ukraine, some international — families, couples, the solitary, the grieving . . . standing before the ubiquitous handmade monuments, reading the hand-lettered signs, searching the hundreds of faces in photographs — pictures fixed to trees, to fences, set on easels, covered with plastic against days of bad weather, ringed by flowers and candles in little jars of colored glass.

Memorials

Memorials

It has become a neighborhood of memorials lining streets for blocks in every direction: names, places, dates of birth, dates of death that are all during a few days in February 2014. Their faces gaze at us from the portraits — most solemn, some smiling, men of vision, men of talent. And one woman. Julie finds a young man from Rivne, a friend of a friend. Many signs extol the heroi, the heroes.

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Heroes of the Maidan

Still at the top of Institutska Street, I feel a wave of emotion at the sight of the many objects that were clearly a part of last February’s events: plastic hardhats, just like the kind I wore in my labor job, many of these cracked . . . a rusted barrel full of wooden poles like the handles of spears, weapons intended to defend citizens against armed forces. Gas masks, piled among the bricks and tires. Overcoats that sheltered people against the winter. This is not a battlefield of long ago; it is so recent that rains have not yet washed away the ash.

An instrument of inspiration: a block in the barricade against oppression.

An instrument of inspiration: a block in the barricade against oppression.

In addition to the nearly one hundred killed by snipers, there are several hundred wounded or missing. And there are thousands who stood in the cold, who were hosed down by police in the subzero temperatures, who suffered from tear gas, were bruised by rubber bullets, and beaten over the head with batons . . .

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Paving stones became barricades and weapons.

Most of all, I am drawn to the shields. They are three or four feet high, two feet across — heavy, rusty pieces of sheet metal with handles welded on. These stand in rows all along the street, leaning against fences, trees, barricades — not replicas, but real shields held in warriors’ hands three months ago. I cannot help seeing a parallel to war in the ancient world. Just to pick up and carry such a shield would take strength and fierce determination.

Rusted hand-held shields, now adorned with flowers

Rusted hand-held shields, now adorned with flowers

I think of Thermopylae, for these look very much like the Spartan shields as represented in the movie 300. I think of the connections between that fight and this one: a few hundred making a stand in a narrow place against a vast number of invaders, with a courage that most of the world would call madness. Thermopylae was the Hot Gates, the Gates of Fire, a strip of land between the mountains and the sea, where the Earth sent up heat and fumes.

Office chairs among the debris

Office chairs among the debris

At the Maidan, too, was fire and smoke. Here was a sacrifice that made the world take notice. Here, the Heavenly Hundred achieved with their deaths a victory like that of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, who held off the numberless Persian horde long enough for Greece to rally and to discourage the great eastern King from attempting to claim a land that would not yield. The Maidan, too, held through those days and nights of burning. The Maidan held, and a nation rose to its feet.

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The writing on this burned-out bus warns: “In case of shooting, this side is dangerous.”

As we walk down Institutskaya, it is all hallowed hush, punctuated by a few clacking, business-like heels. Life must go on, after all, and Kyiv isn’t sleeping. Businessmen and women, and local residents who are just trying to get on with their lives walk by while others stop, stare, bend down, read and try to process this thing that has happened in their beautiful city. In my beautiful city where I met with friends until past midnight, sipping coffee in one of the many cafes. Where we strolled one snowy March 1, past the very same buildings on a magical evening.

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Tires

We work our way down the quiet street to the Maidan itself, which is a hub of activity. Music blares over loudspeakers, some festive and light, some patriotic and solemn. The deep, haunting melody played at the funerals of the Heavenly Hundred comes on, giving the Maidan its truest soundtrack.

Looking down into the Maidan: at right, in the distance, the golden dome of St. Sophia's Cathedral

Looking down into the Maidan: at right, in the distance, the golden dome of St. Sophia’s Cathedral

It still smells like soot. And death. And life and honor.

The Trade Unions building, with the prayer tent in the foreground

The Trade Unions building, with the prayer tent in the foreground

Fire was definitely here. The tall Trade Unions building stands gutted and blackened, where the injured lying in the field hospital there perished in flame. [Reportedly, it was set on fire by police, as it had been the protestors’ headquarters]. Skeletons of a few trees spread stark, charred branches that will not bud again.

Charred trees

Charred trees

The buildings look smudged and weary. The stage is here, on which concerts were held and prayers were chanted during the protest. I think about the courage it must have taken to stand on that stage, for a thousand windows might grant sniper access.

The stage in the center of Maidan: a banner proclaims, "Christ is risen!"

The stage in the center of Maidan: a banner proclaims, “Christ is risen! Ukraine will rise!”

There are tent cities in the heart of Maidan, stations from various parts of Ukraine, here to maintain a presence, to lend support. Old men at a table play a game we cannot quite see. One soldier stirs a bubbling soup pot; another rests before the door flap of his tent. A pair of military pants dries on a clothesline. Near the stage, a small girl runs in happy circles to startle a flock of foraging pigeons.

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The prayer tent: people have been serving here for months.

The mood is a mix of funeral and carnival — funeral at the top of the hill with a certain bit of carnival down in the square, where vendors sell all kinds of Maidan “swag.” There is even a large carousel spinning incongruously down on Khreschatyk — right across from the tents.

Detailed rules of conduct were observed in the Maidan from the time of the protests onward: there is no drinking, no use of drugs, no prostitution, avoiding bad language. Behavior shall be orderly and organized. Those here shall be peacemakers, not aggressors.

Detailed rules of conduct were observed in the Maidan from the time of the protests onward: there is no drinking, no use of drugs, no prostitution, avoidance of bad language. Behavior shall be orderly and organized. Masks shall not be worn except for personal protection. Those here shall be peacemakers, not aggressors.  

A few nights later we are back at the Maidan, strolling and talking with an old friend of Julie’s. We come upon the blue-and-yellow piano, painted with the colors of the Ukrainian flag, a piano made famous by so many videos of a man who became known as the “piano-playing extremist” as he lifted the spirits of protestors through many wintry nights. Remarkably, it is still in tune – surely someone must come often to tune it! It is perched on the street directly in front of City Hall. Our friend and I look expectantly at Julie. “Aren’t you going to play it?” we ask. It is here to be played in honor of the heroes, for the love of Ukraine. Julie sits and plays a beautiful melody that she is making up on the spot, or perhaps she is receiving dictation from this honored pavement itself, from the near-full moon, from the grand and imposing Soviet buildings that watch over Khreschatyk.

Julie, playing the famous piano in front of City Hall

Julie, playing the famous piano in front of City Hall

Even though the hour is late, the soldiers before their tents glance up with approval, and a small crowd gathers to listen. I take Julie’s picture, knowing that this will be one of my longest-lasting memories of this place. It is fitting that the girl who worried and prayed so much for Ukraine during the dark time is here at last, playing for this land and people she loves. She has brought her gift of music, and tonight, Maidan gets to hear it. The melody drifts across the charred stones, floats over the tents, alive with the stirring of willows and buckeyes, with the voice of the Dnipro River. Ukraine is a country of music, of poetry, a place where the spirit can rise. These moments at the colorful piano are the right ending for our visit to Maidan.
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Khreschatyk

 

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

BY EMILY DICKINSON

 

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading – treading – till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through –

 

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum –

Kept beating – beating – till I thought

My mind was going numb –

 

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space – began to toll,

 

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here –

 

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down –

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing – then –

The Key to Character: Not “Must” But “Is”

Posted on April 29, 2014 by fsdthreshold

Through the revisions of my current project, and with a lot of insights from our own Marquee Movies, I’ve been learning a great deal about fictional characters over the last several months. I think I’ve come up with a good way to express a critical distinction.

For most of my writing life before this present draft, I’ve for the most part always written about characters who must do something: she must escape from the underground kingdom and rescue the captive children; he must save his land from the oppressive tyrant; he must rescue the princess and her family; he must solve the riddle and protect the innocent . . . must, must, must. My characters have been defined by what they must do.

Something fundamentally different is happening in my present novel. I’ve been working to keep as the driving force in every scene who the characters are. What is the character feeling? What is she learning about others, the world, and herself as she carries out the must? See, I’m not saying the must isn’t there. Of course the characters still have a problem to solve. But instead of the problem defining who the characters are (“the ones who must tackle it”), their approach to the problem reveals the characters. I’m learning to be deliberately conscious of what the characters feel in every scene, and I think — I think — that makes the scenes vastly more engaging, vastly more real to the reader. Time will tell, of course.

All my life, as a writer, as a writing teacher, I’ve dwelt and hammered on the principle of writing for the senses. What does the character see, hear, taste, touch, and smell? And that’s all good, but it doesn’t take the writing far enough. The real question is What does the character feel? When we readers know that, we feel it, too. Think about it: when someone tells us a story of personal experience, it’s the tales in which we feel what the teller felt that we remember long after the telling. Accounts of being embarrassed . . . angry . . . frustrated . . . scared half to death . . . overwhelmed with gratitude or love . . . those have power. Write for the senses, yes; but even more importantly, write for the heart. If you’re doing both, you have the kind of narrative that readers will feel viscerally and that they won’t be able to put down until it’s done.

This point was driven home for me when Julie and I saw the second installment of the new films based on The Hobbit. I’m a settings guy, so I’ve been in love with every glimpse the filmmakers have given us of Erebor, the Kingdom Under the Mountain. But Julie really saw Erebor for the first time when she saw how much it meant to Thorin to finally get there, to be home, to be in the halls of his fathers. She felt what Thorin felt, and it brought the setting to life.

In most of my previous writing, I’d been neglecting to pay attention to that spark. I love world-building, I love getting the details right, I love action and dialogue and atmosphere and plot and symbol and poetry. Oh, do I love places! Sometimes I’d get the character emotion exactly right, but I was doing it “through a glass darkly” — a flame moving behind me, reflected in the mirror. It wasn’t my focus or my concern. But to engage readers, it’s the most important thing.

Now, at last, I’m practicing doing it consciously, paying full attention to it. I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Now, this may be an area for discussion. In the past thirty years or so, the fiction industry has made a huge distinction between “literary fiction” and “genre fiction.” In general, the “literary” world has looked down on the “genre” world as being vulgar entertainment, a lesser art in which mere plot is all-important, while the “literary” story or novel focuses on a character’s journey: a rise or a fall, an odyssey toward maturity or a deeper understanding of self, an exploration of the human condition. I was appalled — absolutely appalled — a day or two ago, when I was reading a recent issue of Poets & Writers, in which a literary agent was being interviewed. The question was about what the agent looks for in a query, and the agent said s/he gave very serious consideration to “Is the writer coming from a solid program?” — meaning that, to this agent, it is extremely important that the submitting writer be involved with an MFA program. What?! A degree for the writer is a consideration in whether or not you like the story in your hands — in whether or not you consider the story salable? To me, that thinking is far more alien than Great Cthulhu.

To a degree, this dichotomy and snobbery is morphing, at least for most of us, thank Heaven. Tolkien and Lewis took some criticism from their scholarly peers for writing about elves and magic and the like — hardly stories of the proper gravitas befitting their education and position. But both have stood the test of time and have “come home” to a wider acceptance in academia. Lovecraft has found his way into series of classic, influential literature. Writers such as Margaret Atwood and many others blur the lines between speculative fiction and literature. Three cheers for the magical realists, Marquez, Borges, and the like! Let us shelve them in mainstream literature and love the fantasy they write!

In my observation, genre fiction is now being held to a higher standard than it was in, say, the pulp era. Readers today expect a character who feels, who learns and grows. Readers expect a depth of research and a degree of social consciousness, even in stories about Faery or other planets.

Here’s where my questions begin. Are we, as readers and writers, moving to embrace a new model of storytelling, or are we returning to an old one? Many of us on this blog cling to The Lord of the Rings as the best of the best; but Tolkien has been criticized for his lack of attention to character development. To use my title distinction for this post, LOTR abounds in characters who “must.” My Agondria stories have been reproached for being “like the Homeric epics,” rich in story and action but not full of overt, expressed character feeling like the stories of today. Do the Homeric epics fail to deliver character emotion? They must be doing something right to have survived as long as they have, to have inspired so many retellings. Did audiences of the past “feel” from different story cues? Has our way of experiencing stories changed with our culture over the millennia and centuries and decades? Does Shakespeare engage you? Do you feel what his characters feel? How about Dickens? And Julie raises a further interesting question: to what extent does our current cultural expectation of story have to do with the fact that well over half the readers and so many of the writers and editors are now women? Homer and Shakespeare and Tolkien were men; but it wasn’t men who wrote the Harry Potter books or Twilight or The Hunger Games.

Lots to discuss here. Talk amongst yourselves. Go! Heh, heh!