Dangerous Stereotypes: Bad Boys

I’m going to tackle some stereotypes present in modern fiction that I think are dangerous when used irresponsibly. Any entries part of this series will be labeled as “Dangerous Stereotypes.” The previous entry on this topic is about the Scientist stereotype, which can be read here.

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God of Mischief — Image via desktop-wallpapers.net

People have interesting ways of coping with scary things. Some deny their fear. Some avoid what frightens them. Some seek it out. And many people, often women, seem to be taking what should be scary and try to make it cute.

I’m talking about the “bad boys.”

There are so many villainous characters out there with cute, sorrowful, gentle, loving, or chibi-fied pictures of them out on the internet. Sometimes they are anti-heroes like Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z or Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sometimes they are villains like Voldemort from Harry Potter or Loki from the Marvel Comics. Sometimes they are someone who flickers in between like Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time. And sometimes they are like Alucard from the anime and manga Hellsing. Alucard is the opposite of cute. He’s one of, if not the most, badass, psychotic, murderous vampire in modern literature. He’s fucking terrifying. He’s murdered and drunk the blood of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, human and vampire, and enjoyed it. The only think that keeps him under control is the special spell that binds him to the will of the leader of the Hellsing Organization. And he’s one of the GOOD guys!

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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 – 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!

Doctor Who: Time, Space, and Fandom

Doctor-Who-Banner-doctor-who-15571652-1340-539 — Image via NancyWho on fanpop.com

It’s been a while since I was this obsessed about a show. More than a show; an entire universe spread across many different kinds of media. One of the most appealing aspects of Doctor Who is that it exists in so many forms, allowing for a wide array of stories and expression. And one of the most challenging aspects of Doctor Who is that it exists in so many forms, making it very difficult to track them all down.

I’ll say right up front that I haven’t watched any classic Doctor Who. I really hate watching a series out of order, but since there are 100 episodes missing from classic Who, I was reluctant to dive into the franchise at all. However, my friend Storm Elf assured me that I could start with the 2005 series that introduced the 9th Doctor and I would be fine, since there’s a 16-year gap between classic Who and its reincarnation. We watched the first episode together at Katsucon and later she hosted a Doctor Who viewing for the next few episodes. After that, I went through a lull where I didn’t watch any Doctor Who. But in late September 2013, after listening to several Sapphire and Steel radio plays, I felt in the mood for some more weird time-related stories and decided it was the right time to start up Doctor Who again.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

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Fictional Values

Constructing a new world filled with interesting climates, cultures, and characters is a lot of fun, but it also requires a great deal of work. There are so many details to attend to in order to keep everything fresh and interesting. One of those many details is the societal values of your various cultures.

This is something that has always been prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy, but it really didn’t hit me until I started playing Mass Effect. Each of the alien races have a certain defining characteristic, a societal value that defines them as a culture and/or species. For the turians, honor and responsibility. For the asari, it’s diplomacy and psychic awareness. For the salarians, it’s scientific achievement and espionage. For the krogan, battle and conquest. Granted, part of this distinctness comes from being nonhuman; many such races have an overarching characteristic that gives people a starting point in order to relate to them. But even human cultures and societies can have a defining value or values.

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Why Love At First Sight Doesn’t Work In A Story

I recently watched Steven Spielberg’s Titanic for the first time in over a decade. My first experience was less than stellar; I remember liking the visuals, the cinematography, the effects, the music. But I loathed all of the characters. This time around, the visuals remain stunning, breath-taking, well-worthy of all the Academy Awards this movie received. The sinking of the ship itself remains powerful, heartbreaking, and utterly chilling.

Yet I still don’t like the main characters, Jack and Rose. I understood them better, understood their choices, their positions, and empathized more than I did when I was ten. But I still didn’t really like them. Or maybe it isn’t a matter of “liking.” They would be fine as acquaintances. But I didn’t…connect with them, not on any meaningful level that persisted past the end credits.

Why?

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Motivation

Well, here we are at my last blog entry for the Year 2011. I really can’t believe how fast the year has flown! It seems like only yesterday (even though it was six months ago) I decided to start this weekly writing blog. Many thanks to everyone who has read, shared, commented on, and hopefully enjoyed my entries!

This entry is about motivation. Not writer motivation, although that’s very important (see “10 Ways to Get Inspired” for more details), but character motivation.

In a well-written tale, the characters are the ones who are driving the story. Their actions and reactions to events should be natural, make sense, and push the action forward. Poor writers make this careful manipulation look obvious, forced, or irrational. Good writers make it appear seamless and reasonable. Even if a character behaves in a seemingly irrational manner, there is a solid explanation for it or circumstances that force the character to make a choice that they ordinarily would not make.

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A Few Words on Character Deaths

PLEASE NOTE:

This entry may contain spoilers! Proceed at your own risk.

I recently watched the anime Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and loved it. The story was interesting, the characters engaging, even the secondary characters (a trait the early Gundam shows are famous for), and a great mix of comedy and melodrama. I followed the characters on their journey, through trials, tribulations, daring plans, narrow escapes, joys, sorrows, and maturation through 48 amazing episodes. Then, the final episodes 49 and 50….everything fell apart. Within those two episodes, half the cast was killed off and one was left alive, but rendered absolutely flippin’ insane. And the story ends. Just like that. No time for me or the survivors to mourn, just stare at the rolling credits going, “What?! That’s it?!”

I sent a text to my friend Fullmetal, who had lent me the series, that said: “Well. I just finished watching Zeta Gundam. The show was AWESOME…up until the last two episodes. Those last two sucked. An unresolved cop-out!”

His response: “But everyone dies.”

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The Benefits of Fan Fiction

Fan fiction has a bad reputation on the Internet. It’s usually looked down upon as a pass-time of rabid fangirls living out their fantasies with or between their favorite characters. Poor spelling, poorer grammar, Mary Sues, and slash abound.

I’m not saying that fan fiction doesn’t have these elements because I’ve seen enough to know it exists. What I am saying is there is a lot more to fan fiction than just that.

I used to think that fan fiction was the last resort for people who couldn’t write. A cop-out for people who weren’t original enough, creative enough, or talented enough to be “real writers.” Ironically, no one had defined fan fiction or even explained it to me at that point, so I had only the vague image of teenagers with no lives mangling someone’s characters because they couldn’t make their own. What I didn’t realize was that I had been creating fan fiction ever since I could read. I just didn’t know that’s what I’d been doing.

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Plot Writer versus Character Writer

How do you start writing your story? What creates that spark of interest that makes you commit your time and energy to a project? Every writer has their own peculiar modus operandi. Some free-write while others outline, some write chronologically while other start at the end and work their way backwards. The genus of an idea and how that idea is developed is also unique to each writer. However, I have noticed a general trend among my friends who write and authors who discuss their creative process. I speak in generalities and understand there are exceptions to every rule, but, in my experience, this trend creates two groups of writers: Plot Writers and Character Writers.

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