Thursday Thought: Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you …

Rudyard Kipling.

Not easy. Not at all.

Thursday Thought: Fishes, Trees, and the FCAT

As we here in Florida education system are in the thick of standardized testing season:

Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid – Albert Einstein

Point of View: The Devil is in the Details

Tom Hiddleston, my darling Loki in the Avengers Movies, explained his mindset when playing the bad guy as follows: Every villain is a hero in his own mind. In a similar vein, Sir Winston Churchill noted how society determines who is right and wrong: History is written by the victors. If Richard III had gotten that horse for which he offered his kingdom, we would remember him less as a man deformed in body and soul, and more as a triumphant protector of his country.

I started writing when I was in elementary school, though (luckily for my friends and family) I never let anyone read those early efforts. One of my favorite books as a child and beginning writer was The Worst Room in the School by Lois Baker Muehl. It told the story of some misfit kids and how they came to be friends — standard middle grades fiction. But the thing that stuck with me about TWRITS was that Ms. Muehl shifted the narrator’s point of view; each chapter was told by a different student in the class.

This was amazing to my 9-year-old self. There wasn’t a good guy or a bad guy — every one of the characters was just trying to do the best he or she could under the circumstances, and their actions made sense when you knew their motivations. As I remember it, an early chapter was told by a teachers’ pet, who made it clear that the class bully was evil incarnate. But then the bully had a chapter, and when I realized why he was acting the way he did, it was far more sad than evil.

As an avid reader and a sometimes writer, I’ve been fascinated by the way a few changed words, a couple of omitted details, can change your understanding of the good guy and bad guy. Certainly, in my career as a trial lawyer, I learned how to shade my word choice and choose the right details to stress, so I could convince a jury that the defendant was or was not guilty of various charges. In fact, as a young showboat moot court member, I once did a demonstration where I argued against myself — playing both prosecutor and defense attorney — and did a damn fine job for both sides!

I recently had a demonstration of this in my own life, where the omission of a few details and the emphasis put on various aspects of a situation changed its tenor completely. I don’t like to hang my private life out on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, so I’ll just say that, when I heard the story, I couldn’t believe it was the same incident I’d seen. What I’d understood to be an unfortunate change of plans because of an unforeseeable family problem was presented as a terrible personal attack on a friend. If I had perceived it the way it was told, I’d hate the “villain” too.

That’s not to say that the person who related the story was wrong in his/her perception of the event. Absolutely not. That person’s emotions, motivations, and perceptions are also real. Feelings were hurt, and for that, I’m terribly, terribly sorry. But there are, in fact, two sides (or more) sides to most stories, and lashing out in public is rarely constructive. It only raises the feeling of victimization on both sides, and makes real communication impossible.

Of course, in fiction (as in real life), POV characters rarely change their minds. The way they perceive events, the way they remember them, is generally set in stone. They say a person who is absolutely convinced in their own mind about a fact can pass a lie detector with flying colors, even if he or she is absolutely, demonstrably wrong about that fact.

I guess as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to internalize the lesson my 9-year-old self learned from Ms. Muehl’s little book — except for the odd Pol Pot or Ted Bundy, there are no good guys and bad guys, there are just people doing the best they can for reasons that make sense to them. If I can incorporate that into my characters, I won’t end up with flat cardboard “heroes” and “villains,” but with three-dimensional characters my readers can believe in.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here it is again, my darlings. I am yet another year older and deeper in debt (to quote the late great Tennessee Ernie Ford). But getting older sure as heck beats the alternative, so raise a glass with me as I pledge to make this year a great one.

And it’s my 27th, thank you for asking. Its always my 27th. I liked that one, and I’ve decided to just stick with it.

Monday Muse: Advice from Kurt

For today’s Monday Muse advice, I’ll just turn it over to someone who has forgotten more about writing than I could ever learn – here’s Kurt Vonnegut’s advice for writing fiction:

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

– Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10.

Friday Foto: Gone Fishin’

Virtual Hot Tub – Gotta Love The Villain!

There has to be something wrong with me, something dark and twisted and bad down deep on my soul. When everyone else is pulling for the good guy, wanting the hero to win, I’m over in the corner by myself, muttering, “But have y’all noticed how hot the bad guy is?”

Yes, my dirty little secret is that I love the villains. Tom Hiddleston in The Avengers, Billy Zane in Titanic, Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Seriously, you know they would be a lot more fun than the straight-arrow hero.

Today’s guest in our virtual hot tub does occasionally play a hero, but to tell the truth, that’s a pity and a waste of wonderful talent – In the right role, he is so deliciously evil!

The first time I saw him was in The Patriot, where he was a twisted and sick British Army officer who looked more than fine in his regimentals – and when he ordered his soldiers to “Burn the Church” I knew he would be one of my Allstar Bad Boys.

And then, he soared to new heights (or depths) of wickedness in the Harry Potter movies, playing deatheater (and potential shampoo commercial star) Lucius Malfoy.

Today’s virtual hot tub guest is the delectably evil Mr. Jason Isaacs!

The Monday Muse: Even a Muse Needs a Makeover!

A writing friend and I were discussing our manuscripts the other day. She’s a bit newer to the whole path-to-publication madness than I am, and she was bemoaning what she perceived as the shortcomings in her Work In Progress. “I read mine,” she said, “and then I read your manuscript, and I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to write that well.”

Now, I am not telling you this story to shamelessly brag on my writing. Rather the opposite, in fact. Because my answer to my friend was basically, “I don’t think I’ll ever write that well either.” You see, my manuscript, which my agent has out on submission to several publishers, is not what I wrote. My writing, quite frankly, is not nearly as good as what ended up in my manuscript.

So, what happened? My writing appeared in the first draft, lo, these many months ago. Then I edited. And re-edited. And sent it out to beta readers. And re-edited. And then did some major rewrites. And more re-editing. What the editors are reading (and hopefully falling in love with!) is not exactly my writing. It is my writing after extensive plastic surgery, weightloss, and a professional makeup job.

Really, have you ever seen those photos in the grocery store tabloids — Celebrities Without Makeup? Some of the most gorgeous women in the world look a little — or a lot — less appealing in the cold hard light of day, sans makeup, hair, and designer clothes. For example, take the incredibly gorgeous, incredibly talented Sofia Vergara. I love her in Modern Family, where one of the running jokes is how her over-the-top gorgeousness affects men. But I recently found a photo where Sofia was — how shall I say this? Not quite over the top. Here it is:

After you get over the shock, though, you can see the improved version of Sofia lurking somewhere in there. The woman in the first photo has great bone structure, good hair, and all the other things she needs. At this point, though, those natural attributes need to be polished to bring her up to the level we know and recognize as “Sofia Vergara.”

Your manuscript, hot off the first draft press, is the unmade up, greasy-haired, sweat-pants and tee-shirt version of your story. Don’t compare it to other people’s writing until you’ve hired it a stylist, done its makeup and coiffure, draped it in borrowed jewels from Harry Winston, and shoved it into Spanx and a beaded evening gown. When it’s ready to hit the red carpet, it’s ready to submit.

Friday Foto: The Pensacola Beach Sign

Gaudy, yet classic.

Virtual Hot Tub – The Man From Oz

Happy Wednesday, all! It’s been a frenzied week here chez Romancemama, between the loathsome dayjob, the demands of the adolescent daughters, and the emotional roller coaster that is having a book out on submission. I’m not checking my email that frequently — only about every 3 minutes — but it still drains one.

But when we are having a bad week, when the demands of daily life just get a little too demanding and daily, what could be better than a long soak in a hot tub? Well, in my opinion, only a long soak in a hot tub alongside a really adorable gentleman with an Australian accent.

So for this week’s dip into the virtual hot tub, who better than Hugh Jackman? Enjoy yourselves!!!