Religion in Fantasy

At some point during the world-building process, writers run into the issue of faith. What do your characters believe in? What is their religion, if they have one? What religions are present in the world you’ve created and how do they affect that world? Fantasy is usually not a godless place; in fact, it’s rift with religious ideas.

Fantasy books traditionally have polytheistic leanings because… well, it’s easiest. The pantheon of gods and goddesses is often very active in the world, and special priests or priestesses known as “clerics” or holy warriors called “paladins” can call directly on their patron god/goddess for help in battle or healing. It’s often indistinguishable from magic… but the source is divine. Krynn from Dragonlance and Faerûn from The Forgotten Realms are two massive fantasy worlds with hundreds of books that have very active and localized pantheons. In these worlds, there is no question about the existence of gods and goddesses because the effects of their power can be very clearly seen. The afterlife of heaven and hell or somewhere in between is very, very real.

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Dealing with Discouragement

Recently, a friend and fellow writer told me they felt discouraged about writing. They were upset about so many people being unable to spot the differences between a good story and a bad story. Real gems languish in dusty corners while insults to the English language fly off the shelves. And not just books, but movies too. Their question was: “If people can’t tell the difference between good and bad stories, why put forth the effort of crafting a really good story?” Thinking out the rules of the world, creating three-dimensional characters, filling plot holes to make a seamless narrative…all of that takes work. And if people don’t notice and don’t care, then why bother?

(NOTE: The movie links contain spoilers!)

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Gender, Color, and Sexuality in Characters

I’m currently working on the script for my manga project Astral Rain for the April edition of Camp NaNoWriMo 2014. Well, more accurately, I’ve been working on a lot of background notes, plot notes, and world-building because I noticed that a lot of that hadn’t been worked out in advance. As I was writing, I came across the article “I’m Demanding Better Representation For Black Girl Nerds in Geek Culture” by Chaka Cumberbatch. And that’s when it hit me: all of my characters in Astral Rain are white.

Granted, it’s supposed to be an OEL (Original English Language) manga, and most anime and manga lack people of color. I have no problem featuring white characters, but what surprised me is that the idea of any of the cast of Astral Rain being anything but fair-skinned never occurred to me. And that concerns me.

Image via What If Books Etc (click for link)

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#BlogHop – Current Works In Progress

Welcome to the final edition of the #BlogHop for #Writers hosted by Ruth L. Snyder! Many thanks to Ruth for hosting, to Cate Russell-Cole for sharing the existence of the BlogHop, and to everyone of you who have come to read and comment. I appreciate your time and words, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed these entries.

Talking about works in progress is always a little intimidating for me. I say “works” because I tend to flit between projects. My ability to focus has deteriorated over the years so, to keep things fresh, I end up having several stories going at once. When I get tired of one, I set it aside for a while and work on something else. So right now, I have three WIPs to share:
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#BlogHop – Favorite Genre

This is the fourth installment of the #BlogHop for #Writers hosted by Ruth Snyder! This week’s topic is “My Favorite Genre.”

I posted about my favorite genre way back in 2011, and honestly, not much has changed. Fantasy remains my favorite, hands down. I do read science fiction, nonfiction, some YA and realistic fiction, but fantasy is my realm. I’m not especially picky about which subset of fantasy it is either. Urban, swords-and-sorcery, traditional epic, dark, paranormal romance, remade fairy tales, or any combination of the above…I enjoy them all.

The first book I remember reading was D’Aulair’s Book of Greek Myths when I was four. I also remember my Dad reading books of fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, most of which are rather dark fare for children. But with fairy tales, no matter how gruesome things get, the hero (or heroine) always beats the odds. Evil-doers are punished and the good are rewarded. There is a direct relationship between ones actions and the consequences that appeals to my sense of justice, and tends to carry over into the rest of fantasy.

Modern fantasy has gotten much darker, perhaps even too dark at times. But the stories and authors that I love the most never lost that sense of fair play and wonder that captivated me as a child. Mercedes Lackey, C.S. Friedman, Barbara Hambly, Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Elizabeth Haydon, and R.A. Salvatore all explore different aspects and takes on traditional fantasy mores that help enrich the genre. Some find fantasy too repetitive or stifling (I’ve certainly found a lot of teen paranormal romances to be that way), but I enjoy the comfort of what is familiar and delight in seeing how authors will take that familiarity and stand it on its head. For example, you can find dragons in many different fantasy novels. But being a dragon is about the only thing that they have in common:

In The Halfblood Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton, dragons are a fully sentient race capable of shapeshifting and molding rock, but have emotions, desires, and speech very similar to their human counterparts. They think, feel, love, and hate much like we do.

In The Winterlands Quartet by Barbara Hambly, dragons are deeply alien beings, tied to the music of their names, unique in coloring with thought processes very unlike our own. Their love of gold is not from the perceived monetary value, but from the music inherent in its essence that soothes them.

In The Symphony of Ages series by Elizabeth Haydon, dragons are one of the Firstborn Races, born of the Earth, immortal and elemental. There are relatively few of them and they usually remain hiding deep within the earth. One did change into the form of a human and gave birth to half-human, half-dragon children before returning to her own form and her own lair. They are not as human as Lackey’s dragons but not as alien as Hambly’s.

The dragons of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels aren’t actually natural creatures at all, but genetically engineered from an indigenous species known as fire-lizards to help combat the deadly parasitic Thread that falls from a nearby planet every few decades. They are more intelligent than horses or dogs, but are dependent on the psychic link with their riders. The origin of the dragons and the lack of magic makes Pern more part of science fiction than fantasy…but it still has dragons and shows another way that the traditionally magical beasts can be used.

Just with these few examples, you can see the wonderful ideas that can spring out of what appears to be an old stereotype on the surface. And I think that’s part of why I love fantasy so much and have continued favoring it for over two decades: it offers a fresh new way of looking at the familiar and finding the wonder within.

#BlogHop – Advice for New Writers

Week 4 of the #Blog Hop for #Writers hosted by Ruth Snyder! This week, the topic is “Advice I’d Give a Newbie Writer.”

It feels a little weird for me to be giving advice. After all, I’m not a best-selling novelist. (Yet.) I haven’t actually published anything. (Yet.) In fact, aside from a handful of dubious short stories and some amateur poetry, I haven’t even finished anything. (Yet.) That is why I refer to myself as an “author-in-progress.”

I could direct you to hundreds of books written by people far more articulate, interesting, and qualified than I am for advice on writing. (I’m including a list of my favorite ones at the end of this entry for the curious and masochistic.) I could parrot the many tried and true sayings that have percolated my brain over the years, like “Have a routine,” or “Write every day,” or “The first draft always sucks; don’t let that discourage you,” or “Everyone has their own way of writing.” All of which are valid pieces of advice. There are plenty of bit-sized tidbits floating around on the internet in the form of brightly colored, friendly-looking helpful quotes in fancy fonts, often accompanied by pictures of a pen, paper, books, or tea. Like this one, for instance:

So I don’t feel like I’ve put in the hours or had the success that would make me qualified to give out advice. But there is one thing that I’ve learned that I’d like to share:

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#BlogHop – Character Sketch

Week 3 of Ruth Snyder’s hosted #Blog Hop features a character sketch of our heroes! (Many thanks again to Ruth for hosting and Cate from CommuniCATE for sharing!) I decided to introduce folks to a character from one of my less-developed stories DragonFriend, a fantasy aimed at younger readers:

Hagan is the son of a blacksmith in an unremarkable village by a river leading to the sea. He towers over the other folk of the village with that gawky adolescent awkwardness that turns into thick muscle and a wide belly with age. His wide, friendly face is framed with thick black hair and a pair of green eyes gaze in quite wonder and amusement at the outside world. He loves to laugh, a deep, jolly sound that shakes him from his toes. Hagan’s size and muscle often fools people into thinking him slow or stupid, but he is neither. Whether with a sword or with words, Hagan is both quick and careful, sensitive to the world around him. Unfortunately, Hagan sometimes fancies himself to be more clever than he is or misjudges his own strength, which can get him into trouble.

His life is simple and quiet as he labors in his father’s forge, listening with rapture to the tales that various travelers bring in from the outside world. Whenever he earns extra money, Hagan spends it on books, acquiring a small personal library. He uses these books to teach himself reading and writing, and finds he has a talent with languages. But his dreams of adventure seem out of reach…until he sees his first dragon.

The world is full of dragons: big ones, little ones, earthy, airy, mystical, wise, powerful, and everything in between. Until his eighteenth year, Hagan had only heard stories of the beasts. But when a young Swamp Dragon washes up in the riverbank in a storm, cold, shivering and terrified, Hagan’s life changes forever. His boundless compassion and curiosity does not allow him to leave the little dragon unaided, and this choice leads him out of his village to wizards, the keepers of knowledge and magic.

Unlike many other would-be practitioners, Hagan is not particularly interested in magic or power. What he wants is to learn, specifically draconic dialects. Communication, he believes, is the key to understanding, and Hagan wants to become, in his words, “a mystical biologist” to study and understand dragons. It is a journey that will require all of Hagan’s courage, wits, strength, and good-humor…not to mention plenty of food!

#BlogHop – 7 Writing Tools I Use

I’m afraid I missed the first post of the #BlogHop for #Writers (“Writing Goals for 2014”), but I wanted to try out the rest of the series, since I like the topics being presented! Many thanks to Cate Russell-Cole of CommuniCATE who posted about the Blog Hop! I hope you’ll find these tools useful.

1. First thing’s first…

UNPLUG. Seriously. The biggest thing keeping me (and probably a lot of other people) from writing regularly is the well of distraction that is the internet. When I want to get down to some serious writing (which should be all the time), I need to unplug the Ethernet cable, turn off my phone (or put it on silent and hide it in the depths of my purse), and bar the door. Need to look something up, a fact or a foreign phrase? Leave a note in the prose and look it up later. Don’t interrupt the flow because I guarantee that you’ll find yourself scrolling through Facebook statuses for an hour and suddenly realize you still haven’t looked up how to say, “What big horns you have!” in Elvish.

2. Dana, My Darling

Typing is, by far, the fastest and easiest way for me to record my thoughts. However, some days, especially in the summer, I don’t want to spend my day cooped up inside staring at a monitor. Or I just might not feel like sitting at my desk. Maybe I want to curl up on the sofa with my cats or sprawl across the floor, or write at the kitchen table with easy access to the fridge. But I can’t afford a laptop, they have overheating issues, and, worst of all, the pontificate of procrastination: internet access. But handwriting scenes and then transcribing them later is both slow and time consuming. The solution? Buying a Dana AlphaSmart:

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“What do you protect?” Storytelling Shifts Focus

A few days ago, I was listening to the song “Hail the Hero” by Celtic Thunder, and something in the lyrics struck me:

“Hail the hero, strong and true,
Who fought the fight, and saw it through,
Who swore he ne’er would be a slave
And gave his life our land to save.”

Do you see it? No? Look at this line then:

“And gave his life our land to save.”

There’s been a subtle shift in the focus of what is being protected in a story. It used to be that the hero was trying to save a land, a world, or a people as a whole rather than being devoted to an individual. They gave everything “for the land.” Often, rulers were tied to the land in some way, either through mystical means (having a literal bond with the earth) or through responsibility as a prince or princess, a king or queen.

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New Days, New Design

Welcome to 2014! I have a couple of announcements for my first post of the New Year:

First, I decided to redesign my website. I liked the old one, but it felt a little too…bland. I wanted something a little more dynamic, but still professional, and I’ve always loved black…so here we are! It makes me want to dance and shout, “LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY!” *ahem* Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new layout. I’ve also changed the page called “The Mariner Sequence” to “Novels” so I can list other projects that I’m working on. All the old links to that page have been updated. If any links are broken, let me know and I’ll fix them ASAP.

Second, from now on I will be posting a new entry every other Monday. I’ve been posting on Tuesdays for two years and that schedule just doesn’t work for me anymore. Since I’m already committed to posting a new chapter of fan fiction every other Monday, I thought I would just make Mondays my day to upload new material. As always, links to new entries will be posted on Twitter. (This post is just an announcement; a proper entry will be posted next Monday.)

Third, I’ve added a section to the About the Author page showcasing some pictures of my little feline helpers. I really am a crazy cat lady, and sometimes my baby boys can be so adorable trying to help me write. Who doesn’t love pictures of cats being cute?

Last, I’ve created a separate blog called the LeNoWriCha Logs. (Click here for a rundown of LeNoWriCha.) Each day I will post an update on my Logs, detailing how much I wrote, what daily level I achieved, a summary of what I wrote about, any editing I may have done, and any other special projects or writing-relating events that seem pertinent. A link to the LeNoWriCha Logs is now posted at the top of “My Sites” if you are interested.

Thank you once again for joining me this year!