Worlds

In whatever you write, you have to write in a world.  Rules and laws of physics may be different than the one you live in like Alice In Wonderland.

In Avatar you see lots of different wildlife and plant life that are similar but different than the real world.  Making a world different makes the reader want to explore.  A world could be historical or futuristic.  It could be malicious or heaven.  It could be as small as a grain of pollen or as large as a universe.

Whatever it is, the world encompasses the traits of a character.  It will either challenge or help your hero.  The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland, Planet of the Apes and Aliens all had malicious worlds.  The heroes had to explore and survive the worlds they were in.  They were also extremely fictitious worlds.  Meaning that they were environments we would not recognize just looking at he world we live in.

Sometimes you do want a world based on this current world we all live in.  Stargate SG-1, Sanctuary For All, Superman, Batman, Ironman...etc all took the real world and altered it slightly by adding creatures, characters and sometimes things that just defy the laws of physics.

I think defining your world first could prove to be invaluable to bring your piece of literature into a consistent and visual experience.  It could take a second, or several weeks to accomplish this.

Flamboyant Characters

I've never made a flamboyant character.  Yet they stick with me.  For instance Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV was very flamboyant, talkative, inquisitive, even pushy.  He was Henry's companion among his friends as a prince, and loved his company.  Yet as a King, Henry rejected him.  Self-absorption does not begin to describe Falstaff.  Shakespeare makes us love and pity this character.  Tragedy is often a trademark with Shakespeare.  But how unforgettable was Falstaff.

Another unforgeable character was Dr Zachary Smith of Lost in Space.  Focussed on self preservation, he was both a villain and a help to the rest of the characters.  Sometimes it seemed he would switch roles several times in an episode.

Dart Vader in Star Wars was also self absorbed but in a non funny way.  But when I look at The Empire Strikes Back, Vader's ways of dealing with his crew is almost comical.

An actor who has played several flamboyant and self absorbed characters is Christopher Lee.  He has played Dracula, Count Dooku, Saruman from what I remember.  His wiki page gives a good account of his work.  I've always enjoyed his work.  He was my favorite Dracula, and I hate horror movies.

These characters are desperately flawed.  I just want to sit them down and teach them a lesson or two.  Kill them with lecture.  Change them to conform.  But that's their allure.  They do not conform.  They will not conform.  They are monolithic monuments to the Ego.  Something for the heroes to deal with.  Causing the reader to place in check his own desires and will.  They are an Aesop's Fable of self absorption.  And yet we can learn a great deal from them with their monologue antics.

Characters

To any story there has to be characters.  The problem I encountered is the two dimensionality that happens to characters.  What I mean by two dimensionality is the lack of depth.  So much so that they seem like paper cutouts.  My main character and the villain I hated because they were so two dimensional, and this just happened. I really wanted to relate to my characters.  So I had to do some back stories on these.

I wrote out a paragraph on each depicting what they hated and liked.  This gave some ways of responding to other characters and the environment.  This exercise helped me to know how to think about characters.  Funny thing is that afterwards, it was easier to write the story because the characters in my brain acted almost on their own...... :-o

Michael Angelo is said to free his sculptures from the rock they were in.  Meaning he looked at the rock with a sculpture already in there and just freed it.  In much the same way, freeing characters by defining them is remarkable.  You can put two characters in a room and just watch the conversation as you write it.  It seems that characters do the work.

In Viewing Creation: Encounter, I had an international crew all with their own personalities.  And then the aliens had their own background as well.  Since I got them defined I found that the interactions came naturally and the things I had to keep in mind were the circumstances they were in.

Funny things about characters though.  Anything can be a character, from a person to an inanimate object like a chair or a ship.  Characters have attributes that define them so the sky is the limit (and sometimes beyond).  Their attributes can be anything you can imagine as well.  You could have a duck trapped in a cat's body if you wish.  Sounds like a setup for a comedy.  And I think that is a wonderful thing.  Let the childhood imagination take flight.

Social Injustices

You know the great thing about SciFi is that you can write about current social injustices and do almost anything you want with them.

Star Trek in the original series had many social injustice themes.  From mixed relationships to bullying to nuclear holocaust have been portrayed.

In my novel, Viewing Creation: Encounter (free ebook), I recognized several social injustices.  Prejudice against foreign people is prevalent in our United States society.  So I intentionally had an international crew for the UES Encounter.  The black human is often prejudiced against, so I made the heroes buddy a black man and the prevailing race of the aliens (Qars) to resemble black humans, with some differences.  Threat of bombings anywhere, is a type of social injustice, but also a political statement.  I depict a bombing in the Preface to introduce the foe for the story.  Another biggy today is religious intolerance.  Its regnant in this society.  Everyone judges everyone on this one it seems.  From those who have a religion to those who don't, from those of one religion to those of another.  In the story the tension is depicted.

So SciFi gives a very malleable venue to tell your story.

Genre selecting

I love comedy, drama, and some romance.  While I really enjoyed some comedians books (like Dave Berry, Bill Cosby et al.) they are more exaggerated non-fiction than fiction.   Not something I would like to write or have the talent to.  But mixing up comedy, drama and romance seems good for a story.  Keep the reader entertained. Another piece of literature I like are story of morals as in like Aesop's Fables.  Driving home a point or an idea is very attractive.

Two genres in particular are attractive to me, science-fiction and murder-mystery.  I guess because the ideas of exploration and investigation are almost synonymous, and curiosity is a great hook.

Of course great stories of Star Trek, Space 1999, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica (old and new), Star Gate, Star Wars are great influences.  They provide a range of story telling styles form the old single plots to the modern multi-plot stories.

Needless to say my favorite genre is actually sci-fi.  So that's what I'm currently writing in.  But mixing up stuff seems like fun too.

To write or not to write

There is an Ezine article that gives some reasons why to write.  I'm sure they are trying to get people to write.  Publishers then would have something to publish.  They give reasons like, "Its your dream", "You just might have a story worth telling", "Nothing ventured, nothing gained", "If you're not creative enough to write fiction, write something else", etc.  I really don't like any of these.

But why write?  There are tons upon tons of books out there.  Many free, many cheap, and some from mainstream authors.  But its not about them.  Its about you.  Why did Michael Angelo sculpture? Why did Leonardo Da Vinci create?  What made them start?

For me its time.  Its time to set thoughts to paper (or formatted text on computer memory).  Mid life, I suppose, where one contemplates their own value and how life has gone so far and where its going.  I want to leave a mark on this Earth.  A dent in the soil if you will.  Something to say I was here.  Something other than bathroom or subway graffiti.

OK.  Well that'a a why, but why really?  If your determined to make a difference why writing?  Why not art?  After all a picture is worth a thousand words.  Apart from giving in to laziness, are we afraid of a thousand words?  If were not afraid to write, ask yourself why writing and not some other form of art.  For me its a crusade of sorts.  I'm a visual learner.  I like theater, I like movies, I like plays.  More than that I like plots, characters, scenarios, ACTION!  Hmmm, getting carried away there.  What I'm trying to say is that there are few, oh so few, visual writers out there.  What do I mean?  There are things I hate about writing.  I hate long prolonged descriptions that lead no where.  I hate detailed that's meaningless.  If your going to tell a story, and that is what writing is, then tell the #$%^&%# story.  So many writers are so detailed they loose my interest very fast.

We all have imagination.  Some people prefer to visualize a scene, some to hear a scene, some like the meticulous meaningless details.  The fact is we are wired differently and we like to learn differently.  So whatever writer you are there is an audience out there for you.

So why write?  For fun? Well fun is a complex thing.  It may not be fun to write, but the finished product may be fun.  Exploring characters and new worlds may be fun.  Creating alternate realities or what if scenarios involving thermal nuclear devices, or just a simple yes or no in an "be my spouse" question.

Inevitably, "my dear Watson", any creative venture is an expression of yourself.  Of what you are and what your connected with.  And its no different for writing.  To read a writer's work is to explore the their soul.

A good piece of literature is like a sonnet, or a symphony.  It brings you from doldrums to excitement, fear, tears, and manipulates your emotions.  The more emotion you express in your writing the more the readers and responses.

Why do I write?  I write for the love of writing.