Day Eighteen-- My Beautiful Wickedness

Imaginary rep points awarded to the first person to post where the phrase above comes from. (Aside from Diana if she is reading blogs--we talked about this last week as a possible book title--before I realized it sounded too close to Wicked Lovely--in my opinion. Le sigh.)

Villains. Whether they're metaphorical or real, every story has an antagonist or an antagonistic element. Otherwise it's like Seinfeld--a story about nothing. Well, okay, there are those stories, but they usually bore me. I like conflict. I like angst. I like villains a lot.

I know I bring up the subject of YA topics a lot, but I think this spreads beyond that while still being pertinent.

How evil can you/will you go with your "villain"? Does it seem like sometimes that you have to "off" someone to prove your villain is truly evil? Is it to justify killing your villain in the end? Okay, let's play murder by numbers here:

Dream a Little Dream: Serial Killer (12+ body count) Comeuppance- Hero smacks him in the head with a rock-booyah-arrested.

A Little Crazy Talk: Mad Deranged Killer (body count of one) Comeuppance- Hit in the head with a maglight-booyah-arrested.

Someone to Watch over Me: Stalker (proof of abuse) Comeuppance- Suicide

Face of the Phantom: Psycho (attempted murder and assault) Comeuppance-broken face by chick-booyah-arrested.

For in that Sleep: Serial Killer (body count of two) Comeuppance- Nailed in the head with a baseball bat-so satisfying-arrested.

Quality of Justice: Hitman (high body count) Comeuppance- Killed in defense of another.

Parallel Lives: Multiple villains (criminal mischief and body count of one)- Comeuppance-beat to unconsciousness with a garbage can and/or arrested.

Stories and Magic: Multiple villains (attempted murder in the case of two, execution by another, a barrel of hitmen with an unknown body count) Comeuppance-life ruined/sent to rot in a small village jail manned by people who hate you (my favorite comeuppance EVER) and arrested.

Share with me a Lullaby: Multiple villains ( 12+ body count for some ) Comeuppance- killed by other villains or suicide.

My Little Runaway: Multiple villains (body count of one and attempted murder) Comeuppance- tasered and arrested.

Re: Straint: Multiple villains (hitmen with unknown body count) Comeuppance- poisoned or killed by other hitmen or dying slowly from disease

Sheri's Tales: Multiple villains (attempted murder) Comeuppance- killed by crushing them.

I won't go through the Honors (serial killers, skinwalkers, etc) because it would actually be spoilers, but you get the point.

So, Scorched: I've got multiple pyro demons including one sire (criminal mischief and considering the possibility of murder) Comeuppance-banishment to hell. (As you can see--this is a new and exciting comeuppance for me. I even like to say it in a deep voice.)

Still, I find it interesting that all my villains receive their comeuppance in a very satisfying way. Is this a psychological thing--that I need them to be caught and punished in some way? I need it to be "fair?"

Actually--I do. So little of our lives outside of fiction are fair--and I like to see the bad punished and the good win. When I was reading "The Ruins" it left me dissatisfied, because that didn't happen. So, I guess that makes my writing unrealistic, but I don't care. There is something cathartic about everything working out--even if it's not perfectly. I like to see resolution. I love a good comeuppance.

How about you? Spill on your villains... or your favorite villains for the non-writers. What's their body count or infraction? What's their comeuppance? Do you need resolution like I do?

Can evil triumph?

Does a YA book get a different level of villain than an adult book?

OH Butterflies and Kittens!

No... it's not a new-fangled profanity... it's what I plan on thinking about after finishing Scott Smith's book. Someone needs to mail that man a copy of the rules... seriously. There were people that died... that were not supposed to die. Some people die... some people don't. Those are the rules.

Shudder.

Butterflies and kittens. Butterflies and kittens.

I just finished going through my manuscript for adverbs, but I'll do a reread tonight and tomorrow for passive voice... probably. I picked up a book at the book store that Heidi has been telling me to read for like two years, "Carpe Demon" by Julie Kenner. I also bought an anthology of Paranormal Romance short stories. So, I might get side-tracked by those... just as I was side-tracked from cleaning by editing. I just hate cleaning so much. Why must we clean?

For those that think "Wait... but she has OCD... she should be very clean." No... there are a plethora of kinds of OCD. Mine is severe... but in no way useful. Off of meds, OCD eats me alive, and I can't function because of the hours devoted to obsessions.

I hate cleaning. It was one of the things that inspired me to write. If I have something better to be doing... that I can earn a living at... I can hire someone to clean. Woo! I'm sure the American Dream is different for some, but I'm a simple soul.

I'm tired. B's late night last night means I'm dragging today. I should have started the day with a dose of caffeine. It seems rather unfair on my week break from insomnia... B has a problem sleeping. It's not even my fault. The husband let her watch a Daffy Duck cartoon that was a parody on "Ghostbusters" and it scared her. (Before you assume that she scares easily... she doesn't. She is scared about very specifically odd things. She is scared of zombies... not because they are what they are... but because they eat weird things. She freaks out at the thought of weird things being eaten. Her oral sensory problems are pervasive. ) Anyway, my insomnia cycles based on hormones and in less than a week, it'll be hard core again. If only there were a cure for being female... though I suspect the husband would complain and none of my clothes would fit right.


Scott Smith, here are the rules for those you're allowed to kill... peruse:

1. Any person who doesn't speak the same language as the rest dies.
2. Any person having sex before the age of consent or outside of a monogamous relationship (this excludes James Bond) are fair game.
3. Anyone who loses a family member, spouse, or child.. or goes through a bitter divorce is fair game.
4. In a family film, the dog dies.
5. All mentally disabled people live.
6. All physically disabled people... fair game.
7. Lawyers and politicians... fair game. Doctors... typically not.
8. Evil minions... fair game. Evil mastermind... can escape or die but must "nearly" be killed.
9. Old nosy female neighbors will die.
10. People without names... fair game. (aka Star Trek Ensign rule)
11. The female or male love interest, not a lead, of the main character is fair game.
12. Anyone who swears profusely or gets drunk... fair game.
13. Anyone with a heart condition is fair game.
14. Unfaithful spouses or lovers absolutely should die.
15. Those that exploit the environment die.
16. Kindergarten teachers and nuns always live.
17. Children main characters can only die in a lingering way if at all.
18. The old king/ elderly mentor... always dies. (Later ghostly visits acceptable.)
19. Crooked cops and drug dealers die.
20. Evil Scientists or doctors... die. Evil scientists must be killed via their experiment rebounding on them.
21. Someone who causes the conflict is fair game.

These are the rules, Scott. Without the rules, chaos ensues. You can't just kill people willy nilly. Anarchy. Plus, people put down your book saying, "What the crap was that? I feel disatisfied. The world seems dimmer and duller. It was that book! Arr...." Then, they jot off some hate mail and go burn their book in a garbage can in their driveway.

I'll let it go this once, Scott... because we're tight.

It may seem to some of you that there should be twenty rules, but it's an even number, and I don't like even numbers. Also, twenty-one is the product of two prime odd numbers. So, that's your daily dose of OCD. Feel free to let your brain explode.

I should really go get something accomplished. Butterflies and kittens. Butterflies and kittens.

Treasure! Treasure! Treasure!

All that glitters isn't gold, but sometimes it is:

Hoard of gold found

As the rest of the world is celebrating Punctuation Day, I found my mind drawn to more earthly matters.

Treasure fascinates me. I love treasure hunting books. I've just recently ordered a subscription to Lost Treasure. I don't know if it was the early exposure to Indiana Jones or just some innate desire, but it hasn't faded. I really want to blow off my rewriting and go pick up some books on lost treasure at the library after just seeing that article. I don't know what it is.... I'm glad I wasn't alive during the gold rush... I would have been one of those consumed with the idea... the snarling badger prospectors who shot people that came near their find.

Well, I have a lunch with a friend this afternoon. I'm so excited. An actual meal... with actual adult companionship. Then, I need to do more cleaning.

I didn't make it to the end of The Ruins but it's taking a twist that I totally didn't see coming. Shudder. There is a reason it's classified as a horror. I've also just read spoilers... accidentally... and grr at the ending. Why Scott... why? Anyway, I'll finish it anyway, but I'm a little disappointed Scott Smith didn't follow the rules. There are rules for a reason... after all.

Anyway, I should get in some re-writing time before my lunch "date." Prepare to meet thy maker, Adverbs and Passive Voice! Wait... that's me. That doesn't make any sense.

Ta all!

Archetypes and the Expendable Ensign

So, I've recently started Scott Smith's book "The Ruins." He's the same author who wrote "A Simple Plan" for those that think the name Smith is possibly too generic as a reference point. As I discussed the book's premise with "the husband," it brought up the point of the expendanble Ensign (ie. the nameless Ensign in Star Trek who you just know won't see the credits and won't make it alive off the alien planet.)

I went through "The Ruins" and predicted who would see the end of the book. Greek guy that doesn't speak English... not a chance. Then there is the guy that keeps getting drunk... and the girl who initially was vaguely immoral and whose character is just too whiny to live. These may not be traditional archetypes, but, in modern writing, you just know the author is setting them up to be wiped out. We've been taught that vice and immorality makes you expendable. (This was also well-established in slasher films by "Scream" where they mentioned the virgin always lives.) The fact that the chick is whiny just helps the audience disassociate themselves with the character and you feel less cheated when she bites the dust. At some point, you'll find yourself thinking, "Well... sure... she died, but she was whiny," and you'll feel a little guilty, but it can't be helped. While I'm in no way near the end of the book, I'm fairly confident that the intelligent male whose primary fault is that he is a leader and a know-it-all will live and hook up with the non-whiny chick who is stuck in a dead end relationship with the guy that keeps getting drunk. There must be a lead male and female... for the film that will follow after all. I think the fact that both of these characters start out in different relationships will be the shift that the author has chosen to stave off predictability.

While this may seem like a disparagement on the use of archetypes... and yes... I'm calling the "Expendable Ensign" an archetype, I'm entirely fascinated by the enduring quality of such writing devices. In fact, I feel like clapping and saying "I like what you've done here" when I recognize a well-plotted character. Besides, there is a reason why the Obi-wan archetype is reincarnated in a million different "Hero's Journey" plots. It works. If at any time you find yourself snapping your fingers and saying, "You know what they could really use here... a wise old man to come and help the hero get back on the path..." then they've failed.

As I can't possibly limit myself to just one genre of reading at one time... or writing either for that matter, I'm also reading a book of folk-tales that are over a thousand years old. Stories don't change... well not the heart of stories anyway. There are these themes that are as old as Adam and Eve... literally. Joseph Campbell researched this thoroughly... and made many Lucas-centric conclusions and I find it compelling to think that authors tell the same stories using different words. It makes me wonder if perhaps we live the same stories to a lesser degree.

Since I have the attention span of a gnat, I started thinking of reality tv and the classic quote from the first season of Survivor by Susan Hawk:

"If I ever pass you along in life again and you were laying there, dying of thirst, I would not give you a drink of water. I would let the vultures take you and do whatever they want with you with no ill regrets. I plead to the jury tonight to think a little bit about the island that we have been on. This island is pretty much full of only two things - snakes and rats. And in the end of Mother Nature, we have Richard the snake, who knowingly went after prey and Kelly who turned into the rat that ran around like the rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I feel we owe it to the island's spirits that we have learned to come to know to let it be in the end the way Mother Nature intended it to be - for the snake to eat the rat."

While it made me want to reach through the tv and strangle Susan for some reason, it was also a brilliant quote.

If reality does mimic fiction, where does that leave me? I explored this topic in the book "Stories and Magic." I did a serious amount of research into fairy tales in order to write the book. Hours of reading the Brothers Grimm can warp your mind in ways you wouldn't expect. The classic fairy tales are not the cheery Disney make-overs. The story of Cinderella alone can give you nightmares and induce you to run around screaming like Grover. I don't feel like the hero... or heroine. The more obsessive my writing becomes... the more I think of myself as more of a narrator on life. Can someone who spends twelve hours a day writing really be the hero after all?

Which brings me to my last thought of a rambling inner dialogue.... James Patterson just signed a seventeen book contract for the next three years. While I acknowlege I'm not James Patterson and I haven't been published, it was interesting to note that there are well-known authors that are prolific... and probably severely sleepless and obsessive also. I've seen some sites criticize his output, though, and I wonder if it's sour grapes or if people truly do believe that a storyteller only has seventeen stories within him in a three year period. I see it as a sign that he is driven beyond what is healthy, but the quality of the work remains to be seen in my opinion. It seems a poor repayment for his time to say that anything fast can't be good. It worries me that people might think the same of me... (which would be a flattering comparison regardless) despite the fact that I read and revise so thoroughly that life has ceased to exist outside of my writing.

Storytelling isn't for sissies. Regardless of whether my words hit the keyboard, they will be inside my head. Ten months ago, I gave myself up to this strange calling that, while it brings me joy, is also a torment. My OCD and creativity seem to leave me only the choices of writing or going mad.

Where does that leave me.... I suspect my archetype falls solidly into the role of storyteller and while it's not noble and since I have two kids we know I'm not a virgin, I still have given myself entirely over to the journey just as much as the hero. As for surviving, well, no one gets out alive anyway. I still intend to avoid the major vices and being overally whiny... and there is no way you're getting me down to the alien planet in a red shirt. We all know how that goes.