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Things The Marvel Universe Taught Me About Writing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 7, 2013
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Category: Things X Taught Me About Writing

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Face front, True Believers! Thor: The Dark World is premiering early in my current town of residence tonight and I could not be more excited. I know some people are a bit lukewarm about the God of Thunder, but I am just not one of them. Still, Thor is just one of Marvel’s greater successes, at least in my humble opinion. In honor of our big blond teddy bear god hitting the silver screen tonight, I’d like to take a quick look at some of the things that the Marvel Movie Universe has taught me over the years. I’m also taking a bit of freedom here with the term ‘Marvel Universe.’ I’m not simply talking about the continuity they created starting with Iron Man. I’d also like to take a look at their previous franchises like Spider-Man and X-Men because they are huge parts of my childhood as well as great teaching tools.

Know thy fanbase. This is one thing that Marvel has nailed repeatedly in recent years. They have an unparalleled ability to listen to their fans and figure out where to go from there. They didn’t always have this talent, mind you. A perfect example would be the horrific abomination that is Spider-Man 3. It’s common knowledge that one of the movie’s biggest reasons for sucking was due to executive meddling, where the studio poked their big nose into Sam Raimi’s script and told him to do stuff. It resulted in an overstuffed, over-the-top farce of a film that laid waste to the film’s previously excellent reputation. Here’s where knowing the fanbase kicked in.

Disclaimer: I didn’t like the Amazing Spider-Man. I’m sorry. Hate me if you wish. I just couldn’t help myself because Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 are without a doubt two of my all-time favorite superhero/comic book movies. I grew up on them. I watched them hundreds of times, and I still have to stop every time one of them comes on. They have so much heart and depth and wonder to them. However, it turns out that while those two films broke box office records and definitively proved that superheroes are worth the general movie audience’s time, a lot of fanboys and girls were unhappy with certain aspects of them. The most vocal complaint was Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, which I understand completely. I liked Mary Jane well enough in the first film, but by the second and third films, I kind of wanted her to get the Gwen Stacy treatment. She was weak and nagging and got stuck firmly in the “damsel in distress” role whereas in the comic books, she often kicked ass and sassed people like no one’s business.

Marvel gathered up these comments and then made the brilliant move of picking everyone’s favorite redhead (ironically to play a blonde; double ironically because she’s a natural blonde) Emma Stone to be Gwen Stacy. My dislike of Amazing Spider-Man notwithstanding, I fully admit this decision was a God-send. Emma Stone is funny, sexy, snarky, and an absolute joy to watch. While I still would have liked her as the new MJ, she did everything that I hoped she would do. Marvel understood that the best way to win over their fans was to listen to them and learn from their past mistakes.

In terms of writing, Marvel’s method is something I think all writers should enforce. I would never try to pander to my fanbase (if I had one), but I would take a serious look at the criticisms that arise for my work. Writing is subjective. So is the act of reading. No one reads a book the same way, and fans will inevitably find something in my writing that I didn’t know was there, or that I never considered could come across. If it’s a universal problem, it would be wise to address it either in a blog post, or more likely, subsequent works of mine. There are very few drawbacks to accepting detailed, intelligent arguments against your own work. Even if it pisses you off to your very core, you can only go up from there.

Give a damn about your own work. Strap in, folks. Mama’s about to lay the smackdown on some things here. To me, it is always easy to tell when Marvel gives a shit about their work. The quality of the filmmaking is the most telling of all. Stuff like Daredevil (bite me, nerds, it’s a shit film and you know it), Elektra, The Punisher (which I admit still has a corny charm to it), X-Men: The Last Stand (and that’s coming from someone who kinda likes it), Ghost Rider, and Fantastic Four have clear evidence that they weren’t invested in their products. I argue that each of the listed films lack charisma, effort, and heart, and was pushed out more to make a profit than to actually be considered worthy of the Marvel name.

On the flipside, films like The Avengers, X-Men and X-2, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor have evidence that Marvel gave a crap and wanted to make great movies for its audience. They chose great directors, writers, and actors—people we love and trust to bring our favorite comic characters to life. Do you remember the day they announced Robert Downey Jr. to play Tony Stark? We all flipped our shit in celebration of such perfect casting. Same with Joss Whedon getting to direct The Avengers, which is arguably the best Marvel film to date, or Edward Norton getting to play Bruce Banner. These movies all went on to do incredibly well at the box office because Marvel put their foot down and opted for quality over profit. They knew that profit is a result of quality. They recognized that if they took their time to make a fantastic film franchise, they’ll make bucketloads of cash and keep us happy for decades to come.

It seems like common sense to give a crap about your own writing, but sadly, these days it is not. Anyone can be a writer. We live in a world where a faux masochistic relationship that was ripped off from a creepy codependent relationship between an emo teenage girl and a vampire both out-grossed the intricate, beautifully written world about a boy wizard. We live in a world where the crappiest of films can get sequels. We live in a world where actual effort is an afterthought. The easiest thing in the world is to not try.

Don’t be that writer. Sure, E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer are literally swimming in cash, but that doesn’t have to be you. The happiest authors in the world are the ones who stay true to themselves and write honestly. They write from within. They strive to make the best for us readers because they care and they want to create a wondrous world for us to dive into. They want to leave behind a legacy they can be proud of. Authors like Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, and John Green are all down-to-earth, humble, and full of life because they give a shit about what they put out there.

It’s unwise to compare oneself to bestselling authors, but they can also simply be a north star for young authors. Yes, it’s daunting that crappy novels make money, and crappy movies make even more money, but for every turd there’s a gem. Shoot for that instead.

Have faith in your own product. There’s a line from the movie Hitch that I always think about when it comes to certain aspects of writing.

Albert: You’re selling the stuff, but you don’t believe in your own product.

Hitch: Love is my life.

Albert: No! Love is your job.

Marvel is by no means perfect. I’ve already listed the films I consider to be travesties. But that’s also something I think they have learned well in the past decade. One of the main reasons why I favor Marvel over DC in the film department is the overwhelming amount of faith that they appear to have in the characters as well as their audience. They seem to recognize that there is a reason these films do so well. These characters and stories helped many of us grow up. We read them dozens of times as kids and we still follow them as adults because heroes inspire us. Heroes make us believe in the impossible. They make us want to be better than who we are. The Marvel films that tend to be better in quality are those where you can tell that the writers, directors, and actors actually care about the subject matter and want to do it justice. Tony Stark is by far the most popular of the Marvel universe, and guess what? He’s an asshole with a drinking problem. We can totally relate to that. Sure, he’s a billionaire, but most of us know someone like that—an insanely talented friend who has a good heart, but lacks focus and belief.

Marvel is out there kicking the box office’s ass every year because they believe in our heroes. They don’t always get it right (I’m still angry about Barakapool from X-Men Origins and whatever the hell they did to Beast in X-Men: First Class) but it is clear that they realize if they make a good film, we’ll watch it. We’ll stand outside in a line to San Diego Comic Con for hours just to catch a glimpse of the next one. We’ll waste hours online crying over Tom Hiddleston’s perfection. We’ll buy tickets early and dress up in costumes even when it’s nowhere near Halloween. It’s love, plain and simple.

Maybe you’re not Jim Butcher or Stephen King. So what? Do you have something to say in your writing? Do you want it go be good? Bam. There you go. That’s it. That’s your secret. No one said you had to be Shakespeare. The best way to become a great writer is to invest in your product the same way you invest in the TV shows and books and movies and video games you love. Pour your soul into your writing, even if your soul is twisted and scary and broken. Authenticity is key. No one will believe in your work if you don’t believe in it.

With that in mind, I hope that Thor: The Dark World uses the positive examples I discussed above. We have a lot of exciting films coming our way in the not-too-distant future and I can’t wait to see more as long as they adhere to their better works. Here’s to you, Marvel. Excelsior!

-Kyoko

P.S. While I’ve got you here, did you know that the giveaway for a free copy of my novel, The Black Parade, is still going on? Why not pop by and enter to win? It only takes a second. It ends Monday, November 11, 2013. Don’t miss out!

Things National Novel Writing Month Taught Me About Writing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 1, 2013
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Category: Inspiration, Things X Taught Me About Writing

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Holy crap. It’s November. NaNoWriMo is here. HEAD FOR THE HILLS.

Ha, that was a joke. You’re not going anywhere, writers. I’ve chained you by the ankles and now you have to sit and listen as Grand Master Kyoko tells you about NaNoWriMo and why you should be doing it.

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a competition in which we write a novel in a month, starting on November 1st and ending on November 30th of every year. What do you win? A cool little button from the official website and eternal bragging rights.

Now, if you’re not a writer, you might be thinking, big deal, it’s just a novel. Uh, no, newbie, let me shut you up right there. It’s not a book. You have to write exactly 50,000 words in thirty days. And no, John Bender, I don’t mean the same word repeated 50,000 times. You’ve read a novel before. That entire story typically takes a writer between four and eight months, depending on what level they’re on. And they are expected to do that within thirty days so you had damn well better respect it before I box you upside the ears.

Back to you, writers. As it says on most of my author profiles, I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2011 and actually completed it. But I’m not trying to brag when I mention it—I’m trying to add some authenticity to this post. That crazy, painful month taught me a lot and I’d like to share it with you to give you encouragement on your first day of writing.

Writing is f@#king hard. Now, granted, you already know this, authors, but trust me, NaNoWriMo is going to enforce it like a bouncer outside of a sexy night club. You’re going to feel like Judge Doom at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit—flattened while you flailed and screamed in a high-pitched voice. It’s hard enough to pound out 50,000 words a year for a paycheck (or for nothing if you’re an indie author like me hahaha it hurts to laugh), but cramming all of that process into a month is going to make you want to eat a bullet. But you’re not going to do that. Tuck in your skirt, lady.

Writing is hard because it’s worth it. You’re going to have days when you write the full 2,000 word a day quota, and then you’ll have days when you write two sentences and then eat a bucket of Americone Dream while sobbing that you are a total failure. You’re going to struggle over character motivations and action sequences and witty one liners and it’s going to suck. You’re going to stare at the clock and wonder how you ever thought this was a good idea. You’re going to curse God and try to make a deal with Lucifer in order to inspire you to reach that finish line.

And you know what?

That’s a good thing.

It’s all about pacing yourself. This is also a concept that is infinitely hard for writers because the creative process isn’t like the scientific method. There isn’t a quota or a calculation to writing. There is no formula. It’s all free ideas flowing constantly through your brain and your soul. It comes and goes. But you don’t have time for that hippie stuff when you only have a month to write a full on novel. What NaNoWriMo taught me is to simply let go: let go of the perfect dialogue, the flawless landscape of the plot, the meticulous character details, all of it. NaNoWriMo is all about raw materials. A diamond isn’t beautiful until it’s polished, but it’s still a diamond. No one said you had to pull it fully cut out of the ground—you simply have to dig for it and you’re there. Your draft is going to be total garbage at first, but that’s the entire point. NaNoWriMo is dumpster-diving, plain and simple. You learn to dig through different piles each and every day. You’ll find some yucky stuff and toss it aside, but you’ll also find buried treasures that you never thought you could find.

There are also plenty of resources to help you with pacing yourself each day. To total up to 50,000 words in a month, you basically have to write 2,000 words a day, but that’s rounding up. There is an exact number of words (around 1,600 or so), but I think it’s healthier to aim for 2,000 because then if you fall short one day, you’ll still be ahead by a little bit. That way, if you have a long day at work and you don’t have time to write, you can realistically catch up.

Let go of your inner perfectionist. I feel like such a hypocrite saying this, but it’s definitely a hard lesson that NaNoWriMo taught me. I get my perfectionist habits from my parents—a business consultant who is working on his Ph.D and a registered nurse who works in case management, respectively—and they aren’t easy to kick. I take it ten times more seriously in my writing than in my real life, too. I obsess over every single word and where it is and how it’s phrased and how I can make it so perfect that publishers will bang down my doors and filmmakers will run up to me begging to make my book into a movie so that I can finally achieve my dream of meeting Nathan Fillion and marrying him and oh wait I lost my point back there, didn’t I? Ahem. I fret over my own writing day and night. I think I’m substandard. I weep that I’m not Jim Butcher. I read my favorite novels over and over in vain attempts to soak up their greatness and squeeze it back out over my own manuscript.

But you can’t do that in a month.

A month gives you enough time to map out where you want to go and then you just trail-blaze, like Miguel and Tulio. Don’t stop for all the little stuff. You have words to write. It’s like cutting through vines in a jungle—you’ll get stuck if you stop every five minutes to clean the mud off your boots. You have to let go of all the things that make you want to stop and edit and erase what you’ve written. You can’t do that. You have to accept your faults and move on because this is about the end game. You’re heading for that pyramid with the huge diamond on top. You have a goal and by God, you’re going to reach it and don’t let that crazy person in your head talk you out of it no matter what.

The reward outshines the difficult journey. First of all, don’t you dare get down on yourself if you are unable to finish NaNoWriMo. You are NOT a failure. This is one of the hardest competitions any writer will ever face, so don’t even think for a second that you are less of an author if you don’t complete it in time. I’m not saying this to coddle you, either. The truth is that NaNoWriMo has more than one reward. It’s not just about the bragging rights. Even if you don’t finish on time, there are still great things to gain from it.

First of all, you still have an original idea in manuscript form. That’s fantastic. Once November is over, you’re free to go back to being a regular crazyface author and you can do whatever the bloody hell you want with your new story. You can chop it up into bite sized pieces, you can make it into a series, you can turn it into a screenplay, you can do anything. That’s an incredibly liberating notion, isn’t it? All the rules no longer apply and you can take it wherever you want, including nowhere if you don’t like it (like I did. The Starlight Contingency was a one time gig and I have no plans to finish it, but it’s still great that I did it. But if you’re curious, you can read the entire thing for free right here: The Starlight Contingency.)

Second of all, if you do win, you can always look back on that victory no matter what happens in your future career. No one, and I mean no one, can take away that fresh, exhilarating thrill when you think about the fact that you condensed months’ worth of work into thirty days. Not everyone can write a novel. Sure, some hacks can fart one out and become bestsellers, but they didn’t do it in a month. You did. You’re awesome. You’re a god. You’re Elvis. You’re one bonafide bad mother sucker.

And after you do it, take the time to celebrate. Strut down the street like you’re a sexy piece of ass and don’t let anyone tell you anything different. You did something worthwhile and that very few people could ever do. That’s the real reward of NaNoWriMo. It’s a celebration of the writing process and celebrating the brave souls who do it, whether just for a month or a year or for their entire lives.

And that might sound corny, but I truly think that is why every single writer should try it at least once in their lifetime. Whether you complete it or not, you’re going to learn something for free.

Who doesn’t want that?

Good luck, my darlings. Open that document and get started.

Don’t worry. I got your back.

-Kyoko

Virtual Blog Tour Stop Roundup

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 1, 2013
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Category: Author Events, Book & Movie Reviews

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Happy belated Halloween!

In celebration of the holiday, we actually had a few different blog tour stops last night and this morning. Here’s the round up:

Book Suburbia

Elfwitch Loves Books

The Writerly Exploits of Mara Valderran

Fang Freakin’ Tastic Reviews* (* There is an actual full review of the novel with this post instead of just a spotlight. If you’re interested in the details of the plot and character, check this one out for sure. She did a great comprehensive review of the entire thing and I have to admit I am humbled by her kind words.)

And as always, don’t forget to pop in another entry for the free book giveaway.

The tour ends on November 4, 2013. Thank you so much for the support so far. Stay tuned. It’s November, and that means National Novel Writing Month. Get your pens and paper ready, my duckies.

Kyoko

Virtual Blog Tour Stop #7: Roxanne’s Realm

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 30, 2013
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Category: Author Events

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We’ve got an all new excerpt up for you at Roxanne’s Realm! Enjoy!

Interview with Indie Author Land

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 25, 2013
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Category: Author Events

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Hey there, readers! Got something else fun for you to check out today: an interview with Indie Author Land, a website devoted to those brave fools who self-publish and publish independently. They were kind enough to ask me a few questions. Be sure to pop on by.

By the way, we’re nearly a full week into The Black Parade’s virtual tour. I hope you’re all having a good time. Thanks for the support so far and I look forward to the days ahead. Don’t forget to check each stop posted her for your chance to win a free copy of the novel.

Virtual Blog Tour Stop #4: Insane Ramblings of a Crazed Writer

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 24, 2013
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Category: Author Events

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Here’s our next stop on the Black Parade’s virtual blog tour: Insane Ramblings of a Crazed Writer! 

There’s a short review and an all new excerpt from the book to enjoy. As always, you can enter to win a free copy of the book.

Don’t forget to spread the word by liking or sharing this post, or the post on the blog. Thanks for the support!

Virtual Blog Tour Stop #2: Happy Tails and Tales

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 22, 2013
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Category: Author Events

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Our next stop on The Black Parade’s virtual blog tour is at Happy Tails and Tales! We’ve got an interview, excerpt, and short spoiler free review with the host.

Don’t forget: this is also another opportunity to win a free copy of The Black Parade. Read to your heart’s content and enter for the giveaway.

Stay tuned for Stop #3 tomorrow!

Things 50 Shades of Grey Taught Me About Writing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 14, 2013
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Category: Things X Taught Me About Writing

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In light of Charlie Hunnam very, very, very smartly rescinding his agreement to be Christian Grey in the alleged 50 Shades of Grey movie, I feel I must share my thoughts on the infamous trilogy.

I know what you’re thinking. I mean, seriously, what the hell could one of the all time worst novels ever written have to teach a young author?

Actually quite a lot.

Unfortunately, nice guys really do finish last (in fiction). I hate to admit it (mostly because I am technically a nice guy even though I’m a girl with inner rage issues), but it’s the truth. Most of the time, when there’s a love triangle present, the girl chooses the bad boy. We’ve seen it dozens of times in fiction. Before Leia even knew Luke was her brother, she still went for Han Solo. There is just something about the classic jerk boyfriend character that us poor women cannot resist. There is no real explanation for it other than perhaps a hard study of human biology. Maybe it’s because we inherently obsess with people who seem to not like us. I know I do. It’s annoying, like a splinter in your finger, a tiny pebble in your shoe. It irks you. And, eventually, overwhelms you. My second crush in high school was a guy who got on my nerves constantly and we ended up verbally sparring through my third year and then I was walking down the hallway one day, fuming at something he’d teased me about earlier, and then it hit me like a Mack truck spinning out of control on an oil slick—I LIKED him. Ew. Boys, right? But despite the billions of things E.L. James got wrong, she knew that the foaming masses of women out there prefer the handsome, arrogant prick over someone much more understanding and level-headed to fantasize about. I think it has a lot to do with fantasies in general. We often indulge in them because we know that in real life, they’d be horrific experiences. If Christian and Ana were a real couple and people knew about what he did to her, he’d be on To Catch a Predator in a heartbeat. No amount of money would avoid that. However, that brings me to my next point.

Jerk boyfriends aren’t enough. We love jerks. We adore them. Indiana Jones, Tony Stark, John McClane, Richard B. Riddick,  the list goes on and on, and that’s just for movies. In fiction, there are thousands of arrogant pricks that we can’t help rooting for as we turn the pages. However, these fellas have something in common that Christian Grey does NOT: they have hidden depths. This is a trope known as Jerk with a Heart of Gold. It’s by far one of the most popular writing devices of all times. There is really nothing better than thinking a character is the scum of the earth and then finding out he has a kitten farm out in his garage. And this is the exact opposite of Mr. Grey, who is a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. He’s intolerable, abusive, childish, selfish, and just a genuinely unpleasant man despite his dashing good looks. While this worked for all the lonely housewives still pining for Edward Cullen, it is the main reason that 50 Shades is one of the most hated novel series to date. His behavior is wholly disgusting. It’s reprehensible. It is not accurate in any sense to the real life equivalents of couples in the BDSM culture. It’s made up and creepy and wrong and honestly, it makes the human race as a whole look bad. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but still. 50 Shades is indisputable proof that bastard boyfriends cannot cut it in the fictional world. Sure, the book sold millions, but again, the demographic generally isn’t writers, it’s people who don’t read on a regular basis and so they don’t know the difference between a well-balanced story with troubled but great characters and the mindless wet dreams of a lonely woman who thinks she knows what S & M is all about.

Fanfiction really shouldn’t be renamed and published for profit. Sadly, not a lot of people know that Shades is actually an AU (alternate universe, for you non-nerds out there) fanfiction written about Twilight. Oh, yes, you read that right. It’s Twilight fanfiction. All she did was change the names, a few plot details, and then she published it and made a fortune. Did she have the legal right to do this? Yes. Was it morally right to do this? I disagree. I write fanfiction on a regular basis. It’s a great way to find other creative people and to share an interest in a particular movie, TV show, anime, or novel. However, there is one huge difference between that and original fiction—it’s free. That’s why fanfiction is such a booming part of nerd culture. If you hate something, who cares? At least you didn’t cough up any cash for it. You read it for free. That’s also why they are ten times more willing to review a fanfic than to review a novel on Amazon—it’s way less pressure and cost to do so. I believe it’s wrong to charge people to read something many of them could have read for free, especially when the quality is as eye-ball gougingly terrible as Shades. However, James is not the only one to abuse this literary loophole.

Cassandra Clare, author of the City of Bones novel series, also did the same thing, and she is an even worse offender. According to the research I’ve gathered, she used to plagiarize a lot of the Harry Potter fanfiction she used to write and then eventually took it down, changed the plot and the names, and published it. She also reportedly bullied anyone who tried to point out what she was doing, and if you Google the controversy right now, you’ll notice it’s kind of hard to find. I believe that her publishers might have found out about it and made a point to keep things on the down low, and that’s a frightening idea in itself.

However, for argument’s sake, let’s now focus on the writing aspect of this problem. You’re borrowing someone else’s characters. You’re piggybacking off of them. You’re adding and subtracting some things, but it’s still not original fiction. This is going to hurt your writing no matter how you try to dress it up. It’s still not your property and you will have to make all kinds of sacrifices in order to make it work without alerting someone to the fact that you’ve stolen their characters. You can see so many awful Bella Swan-isms in Ana Steele that it’s embarrassing—tripping over things, rejecting compliments and gifts, being sullen for no real reason, not noticing that the guy she loves is a total creep—and that’s just for starters. I hope that in the future publishing companies take a harder look at the authors who keep doing stuff like this and refuse to let it fly. It’s not fair to the millions of fanfic writers who don’t plagiarize and it’s not fair to the readers.

Conflict matters. Honestly, can you look me in the eye and tell me what Shades is about other than poorly written sex? I bet you a nickel that you can’t. Story cannot exist without conflict. Yet Shades does, somehow. The initial attempt at conflict is Ana’s reluctance to engage in Christian’s disturbing sex fantasies, but it’s null and void before we even hit the halfway point in the first book. The rest of it just drags along with a bare semblance of a plot. Putting aside the fourth grade reading level grammar mistakes, it’s just dull scenes loosely strung together. Plot matters. Conflict matters. Character actions matter. There shouldn’t be any point that I flip through a book and I can’t tell what the hell is happening and for what reason.

Editing is your friend. How many times does Christian “breathe” in Shades? How many times does Ana say “holy cow?” I think some lovely person went and counted them all, but you and I both know the exact number comes out to 84545695685067986879 because E.L. James didn’t have an editor. Or, if she did, the editor was too busy typing with one hand to actually do their job. The novel has so much unintentional repetition that it makes me want to spoon my eyes out of their sockets. No one “says” anything—it’s all attributions, which are a big debate in the writing world. I personally think that it should be 50/50 when it comes to dialogue tags, but most writers are strict and enforce the law that it should be “said” 90% of the time. Editing is not just a masochistic way for you to kill your darlings on the page. It’s good for your work. It helps you separate the crap from the gold. It helps you catch accidental mistakes and things you repeat without knowing it, especially if you’re a novelist. Editing should also be something that happens dozens of times before one even considers publishing. Not only do I look over my work, I pass it off to relatives and friends and then to a professional. Your eyes see what you wanted to write, and don’t always see what’s there. You have to edit until the very sight of your manuscript makes you want to puke. It’s despicable, but necessary.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how much I loathe these novels, but at the very least, they have given us some of the funniest dramatic readings of all time. Here’s to you, 50 Shades of Grey. You make us all look bad, but at least you suck in style.

To the Starving Artists

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 12, 2013
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Category: Inspiration

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To you, the one sitting in front of the keyboard. The one squinting at your bright-ass screen at three o’clock in the morning, wondering if you used the word ‘perfunctory’ in the right context. The one meticulously combing through your prose with your fingertip pressed against the somewhat smudged screen. The one determined to force another chapter out of your aching skull before you can finally drop to the pillow and go to sleep because your day job wants you there early the next morning. The one dragging yourself to something you’re good at, something you’ve probably always been good at, but isn’t your one true love like writing is, but you do it anyway because it pays the bills. The one who listens to conversations not because you want to be nosy, but because it might be something useful or interesting for your writing.

To you, the one searching desperately for a writing community, but your town is too small to have one. The one scrolling through Google trying to find a forum with other writers because you’re hungry for people talking and laughing and moaning about the same writer habits that you have. The one fretting over the fact that no one’s replied to your comment and you worry that you’re annoying everyone and you’ll never connect with them.

To you, the one who is doing well enough but not quite where you wanted to be with your writing. The one desperately hoping that you’re actually good at telling a story and it’s not just your friends and family humoring you. The one who quietly does the research, compiles lists and facts, calls people to ask them weird questions, and tries to compact it all into the story in a way that makes sense. The one scouring every inch of Tvtropes and Tumblr to make sure you’re not accidentally employing a cliche that will make future readers hate you. The one who diligently makes mental notes of things you love in films you watch, books you read, comics and graphic novels you flip through, and television shows you obsess over, and also marks the things you hate that they do.

To you, the one who secretly daydreams about being interviewed on the Colbert Report even though your book is fiction and would probably have nothing to do with political satire. The one sitting in the middle row at a comic book or anime convention wishing it were you up there with hundreds, or hell even dozens, of adoring fans all dying to hear any tiny anecdote of your life. The one sighing wistfully as you read adorable behind the scenes stories about your favorite actors, or watch their blooper reels, and praying that someday your book will help you climb out of your shell and become someone other people can root for.

To you, the one who finally makes it to the mountaintop, looks down at the world below you, and openly admits that you’re scared shitless. The one who bites your lip as you stare miserably at your rank on Amazon. The one who lays in bed listening to Aqualung and Dashboard Confessional and Death Cab for Cutie and worrying you’ll never amount to anything. The one who picks through your various social media personas and ponders why you seem unable to get through to anyone, or at least it seems that way, the way that others do. The one who is terrified of being mediocre, or worse, so terrible that you are instantly wiped from the memories of anyone who knew you because your work isn’t that good, it’s just okay, and okay only cuts it when it’s mass-produced by a corporation or the government. The one who sweats and bleeds writing and loves it to your core like a family member and couldn’t stop even if you were banned from the entire Internet itself.

You.

You are not alone.

Your dreams are not empty. Your words are not poison. You are something special. Maybe you’re not Shakespeare or Stephen King or Dean Koontz but you are doing something worthwhile if only because you give a damn about your writing. Even if it doesn’t soar off the bookshelves, even if you never crack the Amazon 100 Bestsellers, even if you get no reviews, no ratings, no nothing, you are still worth something. You are an author. You tell stories. You breathe legends. You have power beyond measure, even if it’s only in your mind and your Word document.

To you, starving artists.

You deserve better than what you settle for. Don’t give up. The world will always need stories.

Tell them.

And tell them without permission, reluctance, or restraint.

-Kyoko

On Death

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 4, 2013
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So I spent about three hours last night on Skype having a debate with my writing sensei about major character death.

Occasionally, my sensei has enough time to drop in and give me advice about my novels–particularly brainstorming ideas on how to get the story unstuck, smoothing out character motivations and actions, or giving me a good kick in the seat of my pants to get me back on track with my word count. I honestly wish I weren’t a vagrant and could pay him for it. He’s a kick ass screenwriter and independent filmmaker so he knows a thing or two about damn good writing and how to whip a story into shape.

Still, we disagree on certain points and this was a huge hot button issue that neither of us had talked about before, hence the three hours. It got me thinking about myself, my writing, and my general philosophy about fiction. This post might be a long one so I pray that you’ll stick with me as I try to explain my position on major character death in fiction.

Disclaimer: I’m not against it.

I do, however, believe that it is overused and often simply a cheap trick to squeeze some tears out of your readers. Not always, mind you. I can name examples of fiction that did it correctly. By the way, BIG FAT STINKIN’ SPOILER ALERT FOR A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT BOOKS AND MOVIES SO PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Here are the examples of using major character death properly (in my opinion):

-Dumbledore from Harry Potter

-Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop

-Trinity from The Matrix Revolutions

-Susan Rodriguez from the Harry Dresden novels

-Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (*debatable, though, because I loved him so much I couldn’t continue watching the show after he died.)

-Shepherd Book from Serenity

-Sam Winchester in Supernatural’s fourth season finale (I had to specify since he’s died at least three times in the show’s run, if not more. Yeah, it’s that kind of show.)

-Captain Roy Montgomery from Castle

-V from V for Vendetta

-Jason Todd from the Batman comics (granted, they brought him back, but whatever.)

-Rue from The Hunger Games

Each of the above deaths, to me, served definite, thematic purposes. These characters meant the world to the people they were supporting and their deaths caused major shifts in the narratives. It deeply affected the protagonists in various ways–motivating them to defeat the bad guy, to seek revenge, to end a conflict, to inspire greatness, or simply because there was no way for them to continue in the world they existed in. These are deaths that make sense on paper and naturally draw emotions out of the audience because we’ve come to know and love them, and have to say goodbye whether we like it or not. These are deaths that feel organic and not forced. To me, a good major character death doesn’t have to be one that you see coming, but it should be one that you can understand and justify in your head even through your hiccuping sobs (seriously, Capt. Montgomery and Spike’s death scenes made me sob like an infant.) They should die for a reason, and one that is more layered than “it’ll make your audience bawl like three year olds” because that is cheap emotional manipulation. I’m against that. Which brings me to my next point.

Here are the examples of using major character death improperly (in my opinion):

-90% of the characters who have died on Supernatural (but if you want to get specific, Meg, Gabriel, Balthazar, Jo, Ellen, and Pamela)

-Wash from Serenity

-Robert Neville from I Am Legend

-Captain Pike from Star Trek Into Darkness (I could be persuaded otherwise, but my initial reaction to this was that it was misused.)

-Majority of the characters who died in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

-Primrose from Mockingjay

-Irene Adler from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

-Billy from The Expendables II

-November 11 from Darker Than Black

The deaths of the characters listed above may be for one or more reasons that I disagree with from a writing standpoint. That is, using the death as a cheap trick to make your readers/audience cry, not wanting to develop the character further, using the death as a lazy method to make the hero worth harder for his/her end goal, using the death as an easy way into a revenge or hunt-for-the-killer plot, or trying to shock your audience with a high body count.

To illustrate my point, I’ll use the three examples that make me the most irritated: Sherlock Holmes, Supernatural, and Serenity. Irene Adler was literally the best thing ever in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. No disrespect to RDJ and Jude Law, I adored them, but she was the most bad ass woman I could remember seeing in recent films. She was smart, quick-witted, resourceful, manipulative, and brave. There was none of that sexist crap that you see in stuff like the new Riddick film. She was beautiful and dangerous and powerful and everything that a well-written female character should be. She showed all shades of being a woman. She was balanced. She was interesting. Above all, she was important to the plot. And they just killed her off in the first ten minutes of A Game of Shadows despite being the third biggest character in the first movie. And she doesn’t even get a meaningful death scene or a tear out of her lover. The movie just sweeps her under the rug like she was nothing. That is an injustice I simply cannot stand. Her death should have meant something more to Holmes. It should have enraged him, made him hunt for Moriarty even harder and want to kick the son of  bitch right off that waterfall at the end of the movie. Death needs to have an impact that resounds throughout the rest of the story, whether it’s a movie, a TV show, or literature. It’s not something to be taken lightly, which brings us to example numero dos.

Supernatural is by far the worst offender when it comes to death. It’s in season nine and they have killed over half of the recurring major and minor characters that have passed through the show. Think I’m joking? Google it. I’ll wait. Believe me now? In the first few seasons, we were devastated to lose major characters that we knew and loved and who were part of Sam and Dean Winchester’s lives. However, the writers seemed to think it was a good idea to kill literally everyone and guess what happened? I stopped caring. If you do the exact same thing with every single recurring character, what is the point of investing in them? They’ll be dead by their second appearance. Death has no sting when you use it over and over and over again to the point of accidental parody. It becomes dull when your audience is just checking their wristwatch to see when a character is going to bite it because they know this is your go-to move. The biggest disappointment in relying too heavily on death to get a response out of your audience is that it wastes the potential of the characters whom they barely got to know. In particular, Supernatural does not treat its female characters very kindly. They tend to die just because it will make the Winchesters feel guilty about being unable to save them, and it frustrates me because these women (especially Meg and Pamela) could have been welcome additions to the cast. They could have balanced out all that pouting, lying, and arguing that the Winchesters do all season long. It would’ve been a breath of fresh air to see Meg join Team Free Will, but instead, she got the shaft and now it’s back to the boring status quo.

And now, the kicker. Wash. I cannot think of a more polarizing death. Firefly was murdered in its crib and they finally managed to resurrect it and what does Joss Whedon do? He bumps off not one but two of the main characters. My writing sensei posted a quote where Whedon explained why he did it–to upset the norm, make the threat real, etc–but I disagree with the Whedon method of “kill everyone you love and in the most horrifying ways possible.” I think Book’s death served those purposes more than enough. It made everything hit home for the crew. It made them see even more than ever that time waits for no one, that the ‘verse is an ugly place, that some threats can come for you in the night and take everything you love. It was harsh and ugly and absolutely tear-jerking in every sense. But Wash’s death was just a suckerpunch. It felt like Whedon came up behind me and pantsed me and then kicked me and pointed and laughed after I fell. It was unnecessary. We already felt devastated at losing Book, and Wash died for the exact same purpose, so to me, it was an extraneous manipulative gesture. It just made us want to cry for the sake of crying, not for the sake of the story. I’m not saying Wash shouldn’t have died at all–I think he shouldn’t have died in Serenity. Wash’s death would have had more of a punch if there had been a second season of Firefly and he died at the end. The crew would have had time to come to terms with Book’s death and maybe they would have fought to be more cautious and then Wash’s death would come as a blindside to show them that they weren’t ready. But that’s a conversation for another day.

The main reason why I have no desire to bump off a major character in my own work is because of my personal philosophy about stories. It’s no secret that the world is an awful place. It’s just downright sickening sometimes. Ray Bradbury once said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” That is a quote that I live by, through and through. Books are an escape. They can be a safe haven for some people, myself included above all. I look to them for comfort, for inspiration, for solace, for love and brilliance and creativity. That is what books mean to me. I’m not saying it’s what anyone else believes–it’s just true for who I am as a person and as an author. That being said, I don’t want my books to turn into one of those bad examples up there. I don’t want to kill off one of my main characters just to make you cry. I want my readers to feel everything–anger, sadness, joy, comfort, hope–and I believe that there is a way to do that without killing off a major character in the final novel of the series. I feel like it’s something that many writers rely on too heavily in their story arcs. I think many writers do it because it is expected of them to “raise the stakes” by murdering one of their darlings. I have already pointed out that when it works, it really works, but when it doesn’t, you just end up with a bad taste in your mouth.

Many famous authors emphasize that one should write the story they would want to read. And that’s my biggest reason against killing off a major character in the final book. There are millions of trilogies out there that have survived and become legends without killing off main protagonist characters–Toy Story 3, Star Wars (Darth Vader doesn’t count because he’s a villain, leave me alone, nerds!), The Dark Knight Rises, Indiana Jones (THERE IS NO FOURTH FILM DAMMIT), and that’s just franchises off the top of my head. I’m in no way against killing protagonists because it is an effective storytelling method, but for me, it has to fit the story naturally and be for a good purpose because the world that I’ve built for people to read should be one that I would be satisfied with reading, and I don’t believe that it will improve the work or the message behind the work if I kill that particular character. I believe in second chances. I believe in rewarding people for their faith in a story and in the characters who make up that story. I don’t believe that everything should have a happy ending, but since life is a steaming pile of camel manure most of the time, I think the least I can do is create a world where sometimes there is a silver lining. Maybe there isn’t a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, but I really don’t think there should be a homeless man waiting there to shank you after your hard and grueling journey.

But maybe that’s just me.

Thanks for reading, darlings.