Biology of Horror – Gothic Literature and Film by Jack Morgan

Of all the resources I read, this is the one to which I most looked forward. It did not disappoint. I am writing what I hope is a comic and satirical urban fantasy. The Biology of Horror specifically addresses the relationship between horror (many elements of which are shared by contemporary works of urban fantasy) and comedy.

The writing was erudite, but still modern and accessible. Many of the concepts introduced were certainly academic and even “deep,” but they were well-expressed and accompanied by clear and concise examples that made the points easy to follow and invited further thought and speculation. The works referred-to and cited ranged from the traditional (but widely-read) early gothic (Stoker, Shelley, Bronte) to the early American (Poe, Gilman), to more modern writers (Lovecraft to King and everything in between). And every one of the book’s ten essays contained something of value from a critical or literary perspective.

Rather than address the individual impact of each essay on my thoughts and on my writing because, I will instead discuss four specifically. They were all valuable, but I have chosen the three that had the greatest individual impacts.

The first essay, Mortal Coils, introduced the idea that comedy and tragedy are closely-intertwined mirror images of one-another. He makes the case that while comedy depends on showing life and generation and regeneration, horror relies on images of death and decay and degeneration. The author further points out that this relationship is akin to the double helix of DNA (and similarly inherent to the human condition) in that the two continuously mirror one another and demonstrate an infinite cyclical pairing.

This essay was especially interesting to me in my attempts to provide a humorous context to vampires. Vampires have traditionally been thought of denizens of the gothic, but have been adopted by or absorbed into “my” genre – the newer fantasy sub-genre “urban fantasy.” By understanding the vampiric and how it fits into the overall function of horror as a literary discipline I can extrapolate how it might most effectively be “turned on its head” to function in a comic presentation.

The fifth essay – Acquaintance with the Night: America and the Muse of Horror – discusses features and voice unique to American gothic fiction and horror. I have three authors that are my “muses.” Two are American – Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen – and one is British – Terry Pratchett. None of them are horror writers, though both Hiaasen and Pratchett have lampooned stories with gothic elements. The works I am lampooning are, as a collection, almost exclusively American. As a result, it was incredibly valuable for me to really examine the American interpretation of the art form in a critical context.

The sixth essay – Dark Carnival: The Esoterics of Celebration – was arguably the most valuable of the bunch, at least in the context of providing insight for my project. The essay addresses the relationship between carnival, costume and celebration with the strange, the macabre and the unknown. This is important to my thesis in two ways. First, one of the main questions I explore is whether belief begets reality or the other way around. Many characters have names that might seem to define them or to contradict their true identity, and my own explanation of how vampires produce more of themselves addresses this issue. Second, individual characters rely on or study theatricality and symbolic representation. Both of these factors play extremely important parts in my narrative. To read an entire essay that specifically addresses such an integral concept in my book was truly helpful.

The eighth essay – Sinister Loci – explores the importance of setting in horror. I was very interested in this essay because I chose such an unlikely locale for my tale. Not only is a small to medium-sized Midwestern city a seemingly poor choice for a horror story (not small enough to invite true isolation or backwardness, not large enough for souls to be lost in a concrete jungle), but it’s also a possibly poor choice for a book in general (large enough that if you mess up details some readers will notice, but not a popular or well-known enough destination to make people want to pick up the book just because it’s about that city). As a result I was curious as to how it might fare according to the author’s description of “horrifying” settings.

As it turns out, Kansas city is not that bad, in part because it is so very unexpected as a setting for this type of story. The spread out design of the city itself affords plenty of opportunities for the isolation so common in gothic stories. The area’s history as a once-thriving gateway to the West also adds to its mystique, as does its role in the Jazz era. Its decay and more recent rebirth (the relics of which can still be seen in the downtown riverside rail yards, slaughterhouses and warehouses) also provide the very potentiality for violence, evil and death necessary for the achievement of the “eerie.” The fact that those places simultaneously look up to the brightly-lit grandeur of the city’s few sparkling skyscrapers and down on the widening lonely expanses of the Western plains just adds to the effect.

In all, this book was a fabulous read that I would gladly recommend to anyone writing either horror or urban fantasy.

Blood Read – The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture

Edited by Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger

 

Blood Read is a collection of essays that examine various portrayals of the vampire in “modern” literature. “Modern” is unfortunately a bit inaccurate in that the book was published in 1997 and I don’t believe any of the works cited were published after 1995. Vampire fiction has actually changed significantly between then and now, but the principles are still solid, and extrapolations on to modern times can certainly be made based on the theories and observations included in the text.

 

The most interesting segments in this book were the ones dealing with how vampirism itself has changed and evolved over time. While the basic trappings have remained fairly consistent, the “condition” of being a vampire has undergone significant alteration in keeping with the fears and stresses of each generation.

 

When society feared deviation from proper custom, vampirism was the result of not having been buried properly. When society feared death from contagious diseases like the plague and consumption, vampirism was a disease with symptoms that grew to mirror the symptomology of those other conditions. In prim and proper Victorian literature, vampirism is characterized by “deviant” or “inappropriate” sexual desires, including homosexuality and female sexual desire and aggressiveness. During the dawn of the atomic age, some pulp literature ascribed forms of vampirism to nuclear mutation or technological accident. When AIDS and other diseases sparked new fears of modern pandemics, vampirism once again became a virus.

 

While I had studied vampirism as it exists in various countries and diverse global folklore (nearly every culture has a form of vampire), I had never given much thought to how vampirism within a given mythology changed over time. I believe this is an important oversight to correct as I write my thesis, as understanding what shapes the literature is part of what needs to be parodied.

 

One of the main changes the vampire experienced between Stoker and now is his conversion from a solitary hunter to a predatory pack animal. Gone are the days when vampires lived alone in drafty castles on windswept hills or in dark haunted forests. Now, they reside in communal mansions with their kinsmen and thralls, operating within what have become established social strictures governed by “familial” and hierarchical rules and mores.

 

Vampires have also become distanced from their victims. In section of Blood Read that deals with historical vampire literature, the authors of the essays make the point that at one time, vampires chose specific victims and pursued them, wooed them, and took from them because of who they were, what they represented for the revenant. Over time, that specificity degenerated into more or less indiscriminate predatory slaughter. The most modern vampires have no intimate connection to their victims. This loss of intimacy is something else I had not considered.

 

While I hadn’t thought about the fact that current vampire literature lacked the personal connection between vampire and victim, I did write some of that in. One of my vampires has very personal relationships with two other characters. This was important to the story, and, as it happens, to the parody. I think this loss of intimacy, though, is something that I probably should make a “bigger deal” about than I have since, after further thought, it is one of the things that bothers me about modern works in the genre.

 

I have also not yet included the vampire “family” or “clan” aspect in my fiction. I need to do so as it has become an integral part of the contemporary vampire myth.

 

Overall I thought this was a well-chosen collection of very interesting essays. While not every essay was valuable to me as a writer of speculative fiction, most of them held some relevance for me. Other topics addressed included the emergence of more modern sub-genres, including contemporary gay and lesbian vampire fiction, vampires in techno-centric Japan, The language was predictably formal, but also strayed into the “boring academic” at times. I highly recommend this book for anyone writing horror or urban fantasy, whether it includes vampires or not, as I think that many of the statements and observations hold true for the broader genres as a whole.

In the Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez

 

In the Company of Ogres is the story of Never Dead Ned – who has died forty-nine times but gotten over it each time. Each death has left its physical and emotional scar on Ned, and he would prefer not to experience any more terminal conditions. To avoid dangerous situations as much as possible in his grim fantasy world, Ned gets himself assigned to an accountant position in the military. Unfortunately he does his job too well, so when the notoriously dysfunctional and dangerous “Ogre Company” again finds itself minus a leader, Ned is selected to fill the vacancy.

 

I discovered A. Lee Martinez when I read his first book, Gil’s All Fright Diner. In the Company of Ogres was not quite as good as its predecessor, but it was still entertaining. I was particularly fond of the portrayal of the goblins in the story.

 

Ned was an interesting protagonist because he was largely self-unaware. He had no idea what his history was or what he himself was capable of. He was likewise a stranger to those around him. The only characters who knew anything about him at all were the antagonist, who, for obvious reasons, never revealed much about him to us until near the end of the book, and the sorceress who was responsible for his serial resurrections. She was first close-lipped about his situation, and then died, formally silencing her.

 

A character who lives so completely in the “now” of the story had to be a challenge to write, but it was also occasionally a challenge to read. His internal monologue was based entirely on gut-reaction immediate responses to that which was going on around him. We had no context for his actions or emotions – and neither did he.

 

The other characters were more accessible, but mostly still not terribly sympathetic. The goblins were entertaining, as were the ogres. The three female characters (outside of the sorceress) were weird, inconsistent and lacked charisma.

 

Characterization was probably what I learned most about from this book in terms of my thesis. Ned’s background needs to stay hidden until the end because it’s an integral part of the story. One of my characters, Esti, is in the same boat. I cannot reveal too much about her too soon, because that gives away too much of the book. However, it’s a narrow line to tread to give the audience enough to relate to the character without revealing so much you ruin the surprise later. Martinez either succeeded or nearly did – and many of his techniques are ones I can use to accomplish the same thing. Having the antagonist know his history and drop subtle hints was very effective – and it is something I plan to do in my book as well.

 

An area where Martinez fared more poorly but that is important to me as well is in secondary character identity. I think secondary characters are really important to a story like this one where the main characters have so many secrets. Ned’s cohorts in the Ogre Company are split pretty evenly between those that “worked” and those that didn’t. The goblins, as I said, were very effective, as were the ogres. I really cared about the members of these two traditionally antagonistic races, in part at least because he revealed a great deal about their hopes, dreams, and personal predicaments.

 

The goblins were the quintessential underdogs, much-maligned and beaten down, and with tragically short life spans. The ogres were creatures expected to take and deliver damage in combat, but who had unexpectedly philosophical and emotional mental responses to their lots in life. Finding ways to mimic his success with these two races (and avoid his failures with the others) is something I will definitely try to do in my own work.

 

 

 

Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines

 

Goblin Quest is the story of a goblin – Jig – who is pathetic even by his weak race’s limited standards. His closest companion in a pet fire spider named “Smudge,” and his fellow goblins treat him as more of an annoying pet than as an equal. When adventurers assault the caverns of which the goblins are most accessible denizens (hobgoblins live further down, undead and nasty fish beyond that, and a dragon is rumored to reside deep at the bottom of the tunnels), Smudge finds himself the sole survivor of an encounter with them – and a prisoner. Hilarity (or at least charming cuteness) ensues.

 

There are a number of very positive things about this book. Our protagonist – Jig the goblin – is charming and likable in spite of his race’s natural lack of charisma. The story itself is well-conceived and well-executed. The author clearly loves the material he’s parodying – both fantasy literature and fantasy gaming.

 

The one place the book really falls short is that it does not fully capitalize on the opportunities the author creates. For example, the goblins have a sort of nursery rhyme that comes up repeatedly throughout the book. I was sure that the nursery rhyme (which is kind of a version of “ten little teddy bears jumping on the bed) would end up being the key to solving the whole thing by revealing what needed to be done in a seemingly harmless way. Much is made of the rhyme – about how it is taught to all goblin children and whatnot. In spite of this clear reference to the rhyme, it turns out to have nothing to do with the story. It’s completely irrelevant. The author did not even effectively use it as a red herring – it just stops getting mentioned. I found this to be a wasted opportunity.

 

I think the way this book most helped me with my thesis is in its effective demonstration of how to make a seemingly unsympathetic character a sympathetic protagonist. Jig is a goblin. His race eats people (and is possibly cannibalistic as well), is fearful, mistrustful of others and even within its own ranks, greedy, clumsy and generally pathetic.  Smudge is a bespectacled (but not overly intelligent or “nerdy” as that accoutrement often implies) outcast of his unattractive race.

 

These qualities would seem to make it impossible for a reader to relate to Jig. However, the author immediately makes him an underdog. He also gives Jig a pet – a fire spider – so we see he cares about something. Finally, he makes jig curious. This intellectual inquisitiveness is probably the quality that makes him most accessible to us. Jig wants to understand not only his own predicament (with which he is neither completely satisfied nor wholly unhappy) but also the predicaments of the human and elf adventurers who eventually hold him captive. He looks at the world around him with a very human desire to understand and control his situation, tempered with a goblin’s (endearing) acceptance of his own insignificance.

 

While most good protagonists have issues that make them less than perfect, I know that one or more of mine are a bit more difficult to relate to or even to like than others. Watching the way Hines handled this problem with Jig both reminded me how important this reader connection was – even when it was a challenge – as well as provided examples of ways that I can achieve that same goal. 

 

 

 

Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE:
My mentor specifically asked me to read this book.  His exact words were the he was doing so “selfishly” so see what I thought.  I wrote this review fully anticipating that it would turn out that Peter David was one of his pseudonyms or his favorite nephew or that the book itself was one of his personal favorites. Should this be the case, I have loved being in the Seton Hill WPF program, and keeping this blog has been a blast.  =H

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE 2:
Yeah, the title of the post is lame.  But so was the book. 

Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David is a satire of traditional “high” fantasy. The book simultaneously presents and turns on their heads the various tropes of this noble genre. I was excited about reading it both because of its many positive reviews and because it fits quite closely what I am attempting to do with my thesis novel.

 

Almost immediately I was disappointed in the book. It seemed as though the novel could have used another pass by an editor, as there were small but niggling inconsistencies in the narrative.  In one scene, a door is left open, and yet an intruder bursts through it several minutes later. The fight scenes took characters clumsily through their actions such that it was impossible to envision what was actually happening.

 

Now, I have many books I’ve enjoyed that could have been better edited. Unfortunately, I was next assaulted by the fact that I really could not stand the protagonist It was not his immorality – that is a forgivable sin, and often not a sin at all. It was not his ego – a hubric self image can be a charming foible. I think it was mostly his sense of entitlement that bugged me, at least at first. Eventually, though, it became the fact that I could neither find a single redeeming quality about him nor even begin to relate to him that made me despise spending time with him.

 

Even with the above problems, an unlikable protagonist is not a death knell. There is a lot to not like about many of the protagonists in Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens’ Galen Sword books, but I love them. If there are enough compelling – and compelling enough – supporting characters, a protagonist can get away with a lot. The problem is that no one in this book is really likable. And the ones who seem to have “likableness” potential are killed or simply fail to appear often enough to matter.

 

Now, in all fairness, the features that bothered me might well be part of the author’s design in his approach to lampooning the genre. However, I think they also make the lampoon less effective because your audience for a parody is not comprised of those who hate the genre, but of those who love it because of the very features you mock. You have to “kid with love,” and I think the treatment was a bit heavy-handed to claim that was what happened here.

 

In the end, I guess I found to be an academic success, but a practical failure. That the probable intended hero of the epic story was killed by our protagonist and that the protagonist succeeded because of his vices, not his virtues, that the single most interesting character appeared briefly, then disappeared, then reappeared in a dues-ex-machina sort of “wrap up scene” to the sequel – these are all recognizable foils, and they were well-defined and deftly applied. Problem is I hated the book, hated the author for making me sit through it, and will actively avoid his work in the future.

 

This book, for all of its shortcomings, actually helped me with my thesis more than have many books I have loved. Reading it, getting annoyed by it to the point of actually enumerating the things I despised about it made me acutely aware of the need to treat the source material with respect. I don’t really like most contemporary “vampire” novels. In fact, I hate the way the modern vampire is portrayed – Byronesque pouffy-shirted pretty boys who drink your blood, but then brood angstily on red velvet chaises writing poetry about how bad they feel for doing so. Sorry for drinking your blood, not for writing the bad poetry*. I find that whole image insulting to vampires, pouffy shirts, and chaises – let alone to readers everywhere.

 

So I set out to figure out what I could like about modern vampire stories. To do so, I read some. I rejected several based on back covers alone, read a few I hated, and then found Jennifer Rardin’s Jaz Parks series. It has every element that makes me twinge – in spades. But it knows it’s ridiculous and doesn’t pretend to be anything more or less than what it is. Jaz is a (seriously) CIA assassin working for a reformed vampire. Together they hunt undead international bad guys (including absurd stuff like vampire terrorists and vampire drug lords and so forth). It’s absolutely goofy – but Rardin’s careful handling make the characters compelling and the stories charming.

 

What I discovered was that all I needed to do to stay true to my mission without losing my readers was to remember what was good about old vampire fiction and find something good about the new stuff. I could then take that stuff I liked, and lovingly tease rather than angrily browbeat the material. Peter David’s book showed me what happens when you don’t do that, and gave me some very specific ways to avoid following that same path.

 

 

*Actually, this tendency to write poems wherein they criminally over-apostrophize words and spell things with “Ys” instead of “Is” is probably when they approach the level of evil vampires should represent.

 

Topper by Thorne Smith

Review:
Written in the 1920s, Topper was arguably the first urban fantasy. Contemporary time frame? Check. Urban setting? Check. Humans mingling with anthropomorphized supernatural creatures? Check and check.
The story follows Cosmo Topper, an unremarkable and entirely mundane little man who is doing his level best to find happiness in his middle-class existence. He doesn’t even realize how miserable he is until, while fighting with his wife, he buys a flashy used car.

The car’s previous owners – the Kirbys – had died when they ran the car (probably drunkenly) into a tree outside of town. Cars are a relatively “newfangled” invention, so Topper garages the car in town and sneaks out to learn to drive it.

He finally decides to show it to his wife. She is less than impressed (she lives to be unhappy), and he ends up “running away” on an adventure. He meets the deceased Kirbys, and riotous adventures ensue where we discover that the dead people know more about living than do the poor saps churning through their day to day, and Cosmo learns to live.

While the book is certainly a bit dated by language and cultural reference, it remains a wholly readable and thoroughly enjoyable romp.

My Thoughts:
I read Topper years ago – as in when I was about twelve or thirteen – and enjoyed it, so I looked forward to it when it was an assignment for school. The movie was good too, by the way (who wouldn’t like Cary Grant?). I was pleased that it was actually even better the second time around, probably in part because I am older now, and partly because I have so much more literary experience under my belt.

As a writer, I think what I find most intriguing is the voice of the narrator. The POV sometimes dips into Topper’s head, but by and large we get something much more akin to a “bird’s eye” view of the story from the person telling the story. He (or she) is never identified, per se (for me it was a “he” with a mildly snooty British accent – no idea why), but he is definitely a distinct character in the story.

Far from being objective, the narrator has clear opinions and his telling of the story is colored by it them. Even the choice of adjectives, “poor Cosmo” or “the charming Marian,” make his position on the characters and the events quite plain. Since we are told so often as writers not to tell our readers how to feel about things in our stories, that felt very strange. Somehow, though, it worked – probably because of the fact that the narrator was so much a character.

My mentor suggested that I incorporate this device – this narrator as a character – into my story. Not quite to the same extent as Smith, but similarly. I am not sure I am capable of pulling that off with the style, grace and aplomb demonstrated in Topper, but I have given it a shot just the same.

In all, I want to strongly recommend this to anyone working on an urban fantasy, much as I would recommend anyone writing high fantasy to read Tolkein. Whether or not its style and tone appeal to general modern audiences, it’s the progenitor of its genre and deserves respect and attention. Plus, in this case, it’s a great read and a lot of fun!

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin

Review:

Robert Rankin’s Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse is the first in a series of books he has written about Jack and Teddie (a boy and his bear – but do NOT for a MOMENT think “Pooh”) in Toy City.  In this particular installment, we meet young Jack (an appropriately hopeful and fresh-faced youth) as he sets out to seek his fortune. He sets out from his small village – scratch that. This is about where the story deviates from the traditionally sanitized fairy tale setting.  Jack sets out from his mundane and miserable factory job in a place that made Dickens’ London look like a vacation spot and heads for the big city.  I did find this approach a sort of refreshing change – and enjoyed it even more when Jack was not only resourceful (as all “Jacks” are wont to be), but also far from innocent and guileless.

After that, the story became predictable.  But predictable is not really the right word, because it wasn’t so much that any individual event or set of circumstances was predictable, but rather that the whole thing felt sort of familiar. Fairy tale characters came to life in Toy City – as did toys. The fact that the toy bear was a lush and lecherous was fun – but the general idea of toys being “real people” has been done – and done better, so I was a bit disappointed. I think that had the setting felt overall less “Roger Rabbit-ish” I would have liked it better.  I think it CAN be done.  I think you CAN create a completely unique approach to a cartoon city full of familiar characters come to life.  I just don’t know that Rankin succeeded in doing so. 

By the end of the book, when I had allowed myself to become immersed in his world – when I had really become familiar with the few things that set it apart from other “cartoon town” or “toy town” settings, I enjoyed it.  That journey just took longer than I would have liked. 

I am going to try another Rankin book – perhaps a later one in that series.  I think that it might be that the setting improves and becomes more uniquely his as he continues to write in it.

My Thoughts:

Sigh.  Okay.  My mentor asked me to read this book, as it is an example (outside of my existing favorite author – Terry Pratchett) of the genre I am trying to write.  At first I was NOT impressed.  It wasn’t that the writing was bad, because it wasn’t.  And it wasn’t that the story was bad – because it wasn’t either.  No, it was the style that bugged me.  The language felt stilted and sort of “too clever by half,” and I just wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get through it.  Eventually, I got used to it.  In fact, I even enjoyed it.  I stopped comparing it to other satirists I like about half-way through, and that went a long way toward enhancing my appreciation of it.

I read a lot of British authors, and I enjoy their books.  For this reason I know that I am not simply an American who can’t “get her ear around” the British language.  I think that perhaps Mr. Rankin never heard his work read aloud by anyone else.  Some of the weird cadence and strange stylistic choices makes me truly believe that he’s never been through that exercise.  In my writing group, that is an essential part of any critique – the piece being read aloud by someone OTHER than the author.  By doing so you hear how OTHER people interpret your words and language.  This is one of the few times that I have read something and gotten the sensation that the book would have been dramatically improved had the author been through that particular round of editing.  If you’re a writer and you’re NOT doing this – please give it a thought.  I might not have finished this book if it had not been part of my writing contract (and in retrospect I am honestly glad I did!) – and I would been equally unlikely to ever try another of this author’s books.  Save yourself that chance of losing readers (or at least make every effort to do so) by having the piece read aloud.

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

Review:

Writing the Breakout Novel by uber-agent Donald Maass is probably the single best book on writing that I have ever read.  Stephen King’s On Writing is a close second, but this one edges it out for the top spot by virtue of its clear “how to” explanations and examples.Suggestions, mini exercises and checklists supplement the extraordinary examples and instruction.

I found the most useful chapter to be the one on Contemporary Plot Techniques.  It helped me to evaluate my own novel-in-progress and figure out not only where it was, but where it should be in terms of approach. The chapter on “stakes” was also extremely helpful.  While I had heard before the recommendation to “kill your darlings,” I think that Maass made it clear that you can do far worse to your characters than simply kill them.  His descriptions and samples of ways in which to torture the people who populate your stories were nothing short of inspirational.If you are writing a book, have read most of the basic “how-tos” and are ready to move on to the next stage in your creative development, check out this amazing resource.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed reading this – quite a bit.  I think it does a far better job of presenting examples than most books on writing in part because the sample passages (of both “good” and “bad” writing) come from a variety of genres and styles.  This is probably due to the fact that Maass is an agent, and therefore sees – and respects – genre fiction more than may folks who pen this kind of guide. All too often I have found that those teaching the craft of writing believe “good literature” and “genre fiction” to be contradictory terms.  It was refreshing to read a guide where that was clearly not the case.

Much as I like this book, though, it still frustrated me in the same way as many of these “how to” volumes do.  I am a logical person – a “thinker,” if you want to go with “personality type” terms. Thinkers like to be given formulas they can follow.  It’s not that we aren’t creative – far from it  But we want to understand “how” you do something, what the formula is, and then extrapolate on that.  Most books that purport to tell you how to write a book (or even a story) either imply or state directly that there is no “formula” for writing.  But then they turn around and obliquely refer to some kind of formula or pattern or rule set through their explanations. You get the idea that there IS a sort of “secret” formula out there that no one has shared.  They talk about writers – successful writers – having figured “it” out and become successful.  It’s not that I believe there to be some grand conspiracy to prevent me and other hopefuls from becoming successful authors, it’s just that I feel like there is something inherent to the process that I am missing.  I think it’s far more likely that I am at fault – that I am not seeing something important – but I am not sure what it is.  Outlining is a great example of this.  When I was a kid, my friends would want to play school.  Their approach was to…well…play school.  By the time they were through playing school and on to playing house (which never interested me much anyway), I was just getting done getting READY to play school.  See, to play school you have to have kids, right?  So I had to prepare (admittedly crude) dossiers on each child – in each of my classes.  Then you had to have seating charts, lesson plans, a staff, a schedule – you get the idea. And to be honest, that was what was the “fun” or “play” part for me.  I loved that.  Now, here I am, trying to write a novel, and you want me to just sit down and WRITE?  No way!  You have to have your characters and a time line and the places – right? RIGHT?  But no book I have found yet really helps me figure out how to out get past all that “stuff”  = prepare it in such a way that I can actually say “okay, I am done with that part now and can just write it.” The book that does THAT for me – now that will be most excellent!  

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel by Thomas Monteleone

The Review:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel was a pleasant surprise.  I had never actually read one of the “Complete Idiot” books, but always found the titles funny enough to be worthy of derision without firsthand knowledge.  That was a serious mistake – at least where this particular book is concerned. 

I have read quite a few books on writing, but few have contained such a refreshing ratio of self-aggrandizing pontification to useful content (there was almost none of the former and tons of the latter).

I was already familiar with many of the rules and guidelines presented in the book (though that by no means make them less valuable overall – just to me).  The chapter I found most useful was 15 – “Another Name for Writing is ReWriting.”  This chapter, combined with my experiences talking to my colleagues in the program, really drove home the fact that I needed to stop trying to write complete and polished chapters my first time through.  Since then, I have truly embraced the “rewriting” process and am actually enjoying the idea that I am likely going to produce any given chapter or scene a number of times before I can call it “done.” 

One important thing I want to mention about this book is its thorough accessibility.  The languge is easy to read, the concepts are delivered in palatable chunks backed up with examples from a wide variety of writing across a number of genres.  In all, I can honestly say that I would strongly recommend this to anyone starting the arduous process of  writing.

My Thoughts:

I mentioned the importance of this books accessibility – and I want to talk a bit more about that.  Many books that truly focus on the craft of writing (as opposed to the more advanced “style” stuff – like Maass’ Breakout Novel book) are nearly impenetrable for people who don’t have a solid background in the basics.  I am in a writing group and I think there is only one other regular member with a BA in English (regular meaning she attends regularly). The other folks routinely struggle with everything from misplaced modifiers and passive voice to POV problems and punctuation issues. While the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel is by no means a grammar reference, it does tackle some of the basics that those of us who slogged through undergrad lit and comp programs obtained through that effort. But unlike The Gregg Reference Manual or The Chicago Manual of Style or even Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, this book is not “scary” or “confusing” in the way it presents the information.  My fellow writing group members have come to me and asked me for the “easy” book to learn the basic rules of writing.  I used to sort of shrug helplessly, but now I have somewhere to point them.  I still don’t think that writing’s an easy thing to learn (goodness knows I haven’t mastered it yet!), but at least it gives them something they can approach and understand.  One thing I DO think is missing is a simple and straight-forward reference / instructional guide for “grownups” who are trying to learn some of the nuances of grammar and style for the first time. I know many intelligent people who diligently read through workbooks and references and STILL just don’t get where commas go.  Nothing has made it “click” for them yet. I’ve recommended several I think are good (my favorite is probably Mark My Words by Peggy Smith), but what is really needed, I think is a truly adult-focused basic grammar tool.  I’ll have to keep looking for one.  

Fantasy – The Literature of Subversion by Rosemary Jackson

The Review:

In Rosemary Jackson’s thorough and expansive work on “fantastic” literature, she explains her views on what drives authors to pen and “modern” readers to seek out written escapes from reality.

The book, written in 1981, does an excellent job of covering works written between the mid 18th Century and the late 19th Century.  The 20th Century is relegated to a few condensed references that really amount to little more than expansive footnotes.  In spite of this, the conclusions reached are surprisingly accurate and even prophetic with regard to the continued development of fantasy as culture and entertainment through current times.

The analysis distinguishes between stories of the “marvelous” (which depict the supernatural in terms of “appropriate” and “miraculous” religious contexts) and the “fantastic” (which demonstrate the supernatural in terms of “inappropriate” and “base” secular terms).  The author contends that the desires behind the “fantastic” stem from a need to understand ourselves and to be connected to others. In the years after the book’s publication, the evolution of the internet as a tool to both share our own thoughts and feelings and to tap into the lives of others – specifically with the advent of online gaming - demonstrated the likely truth of this analysis.

The books’ failure is the same fault shared by many such extensive literary analyses.  The book tries to apply a set of specfiic principles and ideas to a very broad range of stories across a very long span of time.  It ”finds” parallels and similarities where none truly exist just to seem more comprehensive. 

In all I found the book an enlightening, if tedious, read.

My Thoughts:

You know, I actually enjoy reading non-fiction.  There was even a time (back during my undergrad years) when I enjoyed reading literary criticism.  Nevertheless, I found this to be such TEDIOUS reading that I considered taking a letter opener to my eye rather than continue.  It was absolutely unrelentingly BORING.  For me it was like reading Melville – you knew there was a good story in there (in this case good information), but you hated having to sift through the stilted language and symbolism and verbal detritus to get to it.

I am used to reading stuff with – especially critical stuff – with which I don’t agree, so I did not dislike this just because I disagreed with the author’s assessment of the meaning behind many of these books.  I, myself, am a socio-political critic.  I do believe that any book written is absolutely a product of the time/place in which it was created. And while I believe that every word choice was a conscious one by the author, I do not believe that most authors – at least not “genre” authors – set out with some kind of deep thematic agenda that overtly explores the depths of the human soul or the intricacies and foibles of society.  I also don’t think you can generally psychoanalyze a writer based on his/her writing. I thus get a bit annoyed when critics take a broad selection of writing from across a wide time and geographic range and say “THIS writing was ALL saying THIS and exploring THIS.”  It’s crap. I get that academically you HAVE to make those broad statements so you can write your thesis or dissertation, but it doesn’t make me like it or believe in it.  This particular work was a bit too heavy-handed in that department, connecting many disparate works and finding threads that joined them in order to fulfill her critical purpose.  Not only does this seem contrived, but I believe it robs the works themselves of the individuality they deserve.