I called it “alternative conflict” in Monday’s post, but a better monicker might be “problem-free conflict,” because it pops up over and over again in literature, TV, and film. Usually, it’s used alongside the more traditional character problems.

“But character problems cause conflict,” I hear you objecting. “How can you have conflict without character problems?”

Well, actually, this introduction itself is an example of problem-free conflict. But first, let’s look at a more obvious example.

Mischievous Miscreant

Our story begins as the rising sun beams in on sleeping Dag. He rolls over just long enough to get in one more snore, before his alarm jolts him awake.

“Time to annoy my brother,” Dag says, an evil gleam in his eye.

He reaches for his “365 Ways and Days to Completely, Totally, and Fully Annoy Your Brother” calendar and flips to January 7, today: “Bop your brother till he bleeds.”

“Kooky!” Dag says to himself. “It’s a good thing I got this ’365 Ways and Days to Completely, Totally, and Fully Annoy Your Brother’ calendar. I could never think of this many ways to completely, totally, and fully annoy my brother on my own.” And he sets off to find his brother, and a boxing glove.

You have to get the humor of the Angry Beavers in order to fully appreciate that scene from the episode “Same Time Last Week.” (Yes, Dag and his brother Norb are animated beavers.) My brother and I used to watch them all the time before stupid Spongebob pushed them off the air. But now most of those episodes are available on NetFlix Watch Instantly, and I’ve been having loads of fun getting reacquainted with them.

What struck me most about that scene was that there’s no character problem. Not-a one. This is supposedly one of the no-no’s of storytelling. But the scene works, because Dag’s mischievous plan produces conflict. At least, it does by the definition of conflict I used in Monday’s post:

Conflict is a perception by the reader that compelling change has occurred and will occur.

In this case, Dag has begun going through his “annoy your brother” calendar, something new for this episode, something beyond his normal Daggaliciousness. And we expect both fallout and humor from this mischief. Indeed, we get both. He eventually ends up with a real character problem, but only after the plot has thickened a couple of times.

What’d'ya Mean, You’re Dead?

“Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead.”

That’s the first line of Laura Whicomb’s debut novel A Certain Slant of Light. This is what we call “a hook.” But whence comes its power?

We have several things happening, all at once, in this tiny sentence:

1. Someone is staring at the main character.
2. It puts her ill at ease.
3. She’s dead.

The second of these is clearly a traditional conflict. The character has a problem: she is comfortable with the way things are (a need), and this someone is interfering with her status quo (an obstacle). That’s a problem. We expect her to address that conflict, and indeed she does. But first, we have to deal with the other two conflicts posed by this introductory sentence.

I think of them as “What the hell is happening here?!” conflicts. You get one of these for free whenever someone first begins reading your story, because he doesn’t know anything about your story or its world or characters. But this freebie only lasts for a paragraph or two. In that space, you have to give him something more. And one path is to explore related “What the hell is happening here?!” conflicts.

In A Certain Slant of Light, the story has implicitly promised us that we’ll find out who the someone is who is staring at the main character (and why he’s staring).

We also want to know how she can be aware that someone’s staring at her if she’s dead. She’s obviously a ghost. But so what? Why shouldn’t someone see her? (That is, if she’s standing right in front of him?) Don’t people see ghosts?

Note that this sort of conflict drives non-fiction essays— like this very piece you’re reading right now. We usually don’t think of non-fiction as a story, with conflict, thickening, and resolution. But that’s because we usually think in terms of character-problem conflict, and non-fiction usually doesn’t focus on character-problem conflict. Well-written non-fiction, however, does follow the general structure of a story, including using conflict to push the story along.

It Don’t Matter Much to Me

One last quick example. Remember Forrest Gump? Winner of six Academy Awards, including Best Picture— Yeah, that Forrest Gump.

(BTW, at the time of this writing, you can also stream the film via NetFlix Watch Instantly.)

A profound story, but the main character, Forrest, nothing bothers him. Well, almost nothing. He certainly doesn’t get uptight about most of the life-pressures that constantly stress us out. That was, in fact, how the film was marketed back in 1994. Yes, I saw it when it first came out— and some of you may not be old enough to remember the movie trailers: “The world will never seem the same, once you’ve seen it through the eyes of Forrest Gump.”

I don’t want to make it sound like this character doesn’t have needs, because he does, and sometimes he has to strive to meet those needs. But a great number of the problems he faces are not his own.

For example, Forrest runs into his old platoon leader, Lieutenant Dan Taylor, who had lost his legs in Vietnam. Dan immediately tears into Forrest, because stupid Forrest got a medal of honor, while Dan lost both his legs and is now poor and destitute. Forrest—much more of a man than I would be—doesn’t even seem to notice the slight. Instead, he opens up his life to his old friend, and they eventually become partners in a lucrative business.

A number of forces drive this scene. One of them is the promise that the situation will change, either for the worse (if Dan’s raging anger eventually sinks through Forrest’s skull) or for the better (if Forrest’s unconditional affection eventually sinks through Dan’s skull). Neither one of these addresses any problem, but either would have been significant.

As I recall, Forrest Gump is full of story threads like this, where a non-problem drives the story via the promise of a change-to-come.

When this movie first came out, I wanted to write a long, detailed essay exploring its many layers and the many angles from which one could interpret the story. I never did. But if you haven’t seen this classic film, it’s definitely worth renting on DVD. In the meantime…

Keep writing!
-TimK

A couple weeks ago, the Little One and I finished The Ruby Key, a youth fantasy novel by Holly Lisle. As you can see, we gave our paperback quite a workout; it was brand new when we started. She—that is, the Little One—then collected 10 items from of the story for a “Book Bag,” a show-and-tell project she and her classmates do in school.

(Her 10 items, in the picture from upper-left to lower-right: a dog, a cat, a vial [partially hidden below the yellow plastic container], a red key [inside the yellow plastic container], a walking stick, the moon, a bell, a giant worm with sharp teeth, a boot, a backpack.)

The Little One’s classmates enjoyed her presentation, and one even asked to borrow the book. But apparently, she didn’t make it very far through. In any case, here are our online reviews of The Ruby Key.

(See especially the Little One’s review, which proves that, yes, I am really smarter than a 5′th grader!)

-TimK

My Review

Holly portrays wonderful characters, led along an exciting adventure, in a vibrant fantasy world. All of this is the excellence you’d expect from Holly Lisle. ‘Nuff said.

BUT…

Genna, the narrator and main character of the story, was more clueless than I would have liked… and more shallow than any of Holly’s other characters. I’m not sure what happened here, but at certain critical junctures in the story, I found myself wondering how Genna would react, even though I felt I should have known. Yes, I knew she would step up to the plate and do “the right thing,” because that’s what fantasy heroines do. But I felt as though I didn’t truly understand what was happening inside Genna’s heart and mind. I really didn’t feel I knew who Genna was, except that she felt confused and incompetent and little, until it was time to do “the right thing,” when she acted blindly (sometimes on misinformation) so that everything could just happen to turn out okay.

But what was Genna’s struggle in all this? And how did she grow? I don’t know. Or rather, I could more easily get inside the heads of the other characters, even though Genna’s were the thoughts on the page.

That’s not to say that I had no sympathy for Genna. I had lots of sympathy, and maybe that’s all that Holly (or her editor?) was trying to accomplish with the character: lots of sympathy, but make Genna the “every American girl” character, full of self-doubt, but with little personality of her very own, ready to be filled with the identity of whomever is reading the story… I doubt it.

I do not say this lightly. In fact, I say it with great personal burden, because I adore Holly’s writing, every story of hers I have ever read. I also feel I owe a great personal debt to Holly, because her writing and instruction helped me find myself as a writer. (But that’s a story for a different post.)

Fortunately, the remaining characters, as well as the other elements of the story, more than made up for Genna’s weaknesses. The cat, in particular, intrigued me and kept me on my toes. Even Danrith, I saw the growth in his character, and his journey made me feel accomplishment.

I do plan to read the second book in the series, which says more about how much liked the book than a thousand words could. As a counter-example, I never read the second book in Philip Pullman’s famed series, because the first let me down. Holly Lisle’s first book, however, did not me down. So that should give you a clue as to how strongly I liked it.

5 stars

The Little One’s Review

(BTW, she’s 10 years old, in 5′th grade. -TimK)

It was totally fantasy and adventure. And the way Holly Lisle described the action sequences, I could see everything that was happening in my head.

BUT…

She used a lot of words I didn’t understand, but my dad explained them to me.

I’m already looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

(In fact, as of the time this review is being posted, the Little One has already begun reading The Silver Door. She reads it in school during the day, and I find that I now have a hundred or so pages of catch-up to do. -TimK)

4½ stars.

In summary

The Ruby Key is a full-length juvenile fantasy novel, suitable for the high side of the age range, but well within reach even of a 9- or 10-year-old, especially with Mom or Dad’s help. We both heartily recommend it.

-TimK

In writing school, they teach you that we identify with characters that are just like us. And that’s true; we do. That’s why when a writer comes along like Elizabeth Moon has and makes us identify with a character like Lou..

Lou is autistic. In our world, he could not live alone, hold down a job, or do any of the other things he does. But even in Lou’s world, he’s different than so-called “normal” people. And most normal people look down on him and everyone like him. How will Lou respond when his employer begins to pressure him and his coworkers to undergo an experimental procedure that could change them into normal people? What if he doesn’t want to be “normal”?

Elizabeth Moon has so artfully created this sympathetic character and woven him into the story around him. But even though probably none of us is autistic, we all can sympathize with Lou. And the reasons why are very predictable:

1. Lou has human needs, human passions, human strengths and weaknesses, and human thoughts. Each of us can see part of himself in Lou, and part of Lou in himself.
2. Lou just wants to be happy. What more noble goal is there than this? He wants to live his own life, free from violence. He wants to love others and be loved in return.
3. But there are obstacles in his life that keep him from reaching his goal. Some of these obstacles are in society around him. And some of these obstacles are within himself.

These three properties are core to every sympathetic character. (Or at least every sympathetic character I can put my finger on.) Human passions, a noble goal, and an obstacle that prevents him from reaching that goal.

-TimK

Do you love good writing? Do you want to learn to write? Check out fantasy author Holly Lisle’s website.

For readers

• excerpts from her novels
• complete, on-line editions of Fire In the Mist and Sympathy for the Devil
• short stories, poetry, cover art, and more

Also, in her on-line store are a couple novels you can buy in as an eBook download.

For writers

One of the things I love about Holly Lisle’s advice on writing is her concrete, practical approach. She doesn’t tell you to write a thousand pieces of crap, throw them all against the wall, and see what sticks. She gives real advice you can take to the bank now.

• How to Write FAQ
• Publishing FAQ
• Worldbuilding FAQ
• Scam-Spotting
• Book Is Not Baby
• Who WON’T Make It
• Writers’ Quiz
• How to Quit Your Day Job
• and much, much more

Also, in her on-line store, check out the Character Clinic, which is one of my favorite resources for generating character ideas and making fictional characters seem like real people. She also has other books for writers, all available as eBook downloads.

Holly Lisle founded the Forward Motion writer’s community.

Her blog and podcast

Her blog is called Pocket Full of Words.

She also has a podcast, Holly Lisle On Writing.

Who is Holly Lisle?

As a kid, her dream was to become a famous artist. After high school, she worked at a newspaper selling advertising. Then she went to sign-painting, teaching guitar, and McDonald’s, then penultimately into nursing. Ironically, this all prepared her for a career as a novelist. Read her short biography.

-TimK

Today, I’m posting a rant. I don’t usually rant, but this is a story rant. And I’m fired up enough that I can’t concentrate on anything else until I get this out of my system.

On the adbooks list, we’re discussing Chris Lynch’s novel Inexcusable. It’s a literary novel, with one feature that literary novels are allowed to have: You can’t figure out what it means.

Now, the adbooks group is great. It’s full of smart, literate people. And the semimonthly discussion books are usually worth reading. I read A Certain Slant of Light because of adbooks, and I’ve rarely been more excited about a great novel.

When we started discussing Inexcusable, one poster said she loved the words. She said each one seemed to have been chosen for perfect effect. (I thought the book rambled on.) A couple more people said the story hit close to home because they had known someone like the main character. One or two people openly admitted they didn’t get it, in one aspect or another.

In all the discussion, the repeated meme is that this book is great because there are multiple interpretations. No, not interpretations of what the story means to me as an individual, but multiple stories, depending on what you think is happening in the story.

This book is about rape and… something else. It’s about lying. It’s about self-accountability. It’s about owning up to your own choices. It’s about choosing your actions. It’s about drugs. It’s about peer pressure. It’s about alcoholism. It’s about love and loneliness. Pick one or more of those.

In the story, Keir rapes Gigi. This is not a spoiler, because we find this out at the beginning, also at the end. I think someone objected to my use of the word “melodramatic” to describe opening a novel about a rape with:

The way it looks is not the way it is.

Gigi Boudakian is screaming at me so fearsomely, I think I could just about cry…

You could ask pretty much anybody and they will tell you. Rock solid, Keir. Kind of guy you want behind you. Keir Sarafian, straight shooter. Loyal, polite. Funny. Good manners. He was brought up right, that boy was, is what you would hear. All the things you would want to hear said about you are the things I have always heard said about me. I am a good guy.

Good guys don’t do bad things. Good guys understand that no means no, and so I could not have done this because I understand, and I love Gigi Boudakian.

By the way, that’s Keir saying that, not Chris Lynch. Readers of this blog may notice that Keir is telling us what he wants us to believe, rather than showing us. Rather than selling us his point of view, he shouts it at us. This decreases the realism of a story, but in this case, we want that decrease in realism, because we should not believe everything Keir tells us.

This character, Keir, most people agree that he’s untrustworthy. Some get it earlier in the novel, some later. Occasionally, someone will go through the whole book without being able to tell that he’s lying to himself and to us, and that’s okay. I would like to be friends with those someones.

Keir is untrustworthy, and we agree on that point, but the agreement ends there. Ask three different people what motivates Keir, and get four different answers. In particular, why did Keir rape Gigi Boudakian? What was his motivation? Considering that this is the main character and the main plot point, I’d think there would be more clarity on the subject. Sure most readers have a theory, but the fact that there are so many theories convinces me that each reader is reading his own preconceptions into the story, rather than letting the story tell him something about human nature and himself. This, to some commentators, makes the book “significant” and “well-crafted.”

And in the same spirit, I’d like to share some theories of my own, which no one else has mentioned:

• Everything happened exactly as Keir described. Gigi really is wrong.
• Keir didn’t actually rape Gigi Boudakian. It’s a drug-induced hallucination.
• Some part of him thought he could brag about it.
• He felt it was expected of him.
• He was passionate, and the opportunity was there, and in his drug-induced, alcoholic stupor, he got caught up in the whole thing and just didn’t think that Gigi was in no state to say either “Yes” or “No.”

Whatever your favorite answer, it says more about you than it does about Keir, because you’re reading your own prejudices into the story. I know you are, because you have to do that in order to espouse any theory. This doesn’t make the story beautiful, just wishy-washy. Discussions about such stories may be stimulating, but we can discuss hypothetical situations without a wishy-washy story to inspire them. And we can be honest and admit that these discussions are indeed about us and not pretend they’re about something else.

When I read a story, I want to be transported to another place. I want to get to know people I cannot meet in real life. I want to feel as though they’re my friends. I want to experience their challenges, their successes, their failures, experiences I cannot actually live. And I want these people to challenge me to re-examine myself in the light of their story. You can have literary beauty and accomplish these things at the same time. A Certain Slant of Light did this.

True to its form, my own reaction to Inexcusable tells more about me than it does about the story.

Finally, Inexcusable was a National Book Award Finalist. In true literary fashion, I’m going to ponder, Does that say more about the book or about the award?

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Atheneum (October 25, 2005)
ISBN: 0689847890

-TimK

“Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead.”

If I tried really hard, I might be able to find something wrong with this story. But why would I want to work that hard? After just finishing A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb, already I want to start over again from the beginning. So seldom do I run across a story this well put together, I can’t help but gush a little. I even emailed Laura Whitcomb to tell her how much I enjoyed it.

What the story is about

Helen has been haunting the living for a hundred thirty years now. She is gentle, caring, not malevolent, simply lost. And lonely. She takes what little companionship she can from her hosts, the people she has haunted. But she still can’t touch them or talk to them. To them, she’s not even as solid as the air.

Then she meets James, another ghost left to haunt the Earth. James is in the body of teenage boy named Billy Blake. Billy’s soul had left his body. Something drove it out. Not just “something.” It’s clear what events in Billy’s life caused this.

Helen and James fall in love, but she still can’t touch him, feel him. Until they find a girl named Jenny, whose soul has also left her body. Now they must wrestle with their new lives, their feelings, and their old lives too. And what will they do when it comes time to leave these bodies?

Sympathetic characters, powerful story

At every point during the story, I sympathized with Helen and felt I was part of her world. Laura Whitcomb clearly knows how to make her characters real. And where other writers might be tempted to pull them out of character in order to push the plot forward, she makes her characters want to do what they do, and the plot comes along with them.

For example, when James tells Helen they must eventually leave the bodies they inhabit, I immediately thought, Ah, but how are you going pull that off? You can’t force Helen to leave Jenny’s body, because we sympathize with Helen, and we would feel cheated if she were merely forced against her will to give up what she loves. But Laura handles this situation like a master. First she takes away the reason Helen is in Jenny’s body, then she gives Helen a noble reason to want Jenny to take back her own body. The way this panned out made perfect sense, but I never saw it coming.

I’ve read novels in which the author builds up the conflict, builds the tension, puts the characters in impossible situations, and then doesn’t know how to get them out. So he invokes deus ex machina (or some variation), and I end up feeling cheated. But as I was reading A Certain Slant of Light, I knew my effort was to be well rewarded. And I am looking forward to Laura Whitcomb’s second novel, which she is currently writing.

Yes, A Certain Slant of Light is Laura Whitcomb’s first novel. I have a prediction: If she gets past novel number 3, she’ll be famous.

Who should not read this book

This is a medium-length novel, advertised as for teenagers. Adults have disagreed about whether it is actually suitable for teenagers, although what they mean is “suitable for their teenagers.” Use parental discretion, and be prepared to discuss.

In any case, if you can’t stand dark fiction, if you get bent out of shape by the portrayal of sex, or by ghosts or spirit possession, or if you’d get too upset that one of the antagonists is a fundamentalist Christian hypocrite— If any of these things would bug you so much that you wouldn’t be able to put them in the context of the story, you probably won’t enjoy this book no matter how good the story is.

Laura clearly called on the fundamentalist stereotype as a basis for Jenny’s family. Writers call on stereotypes all the time to give a broad basis to characters and settings. But remember that Laura is not describing fundamentalists. She’s describing Jenny. Actually, she’s describing the milieu that Helen enters when she takes Jenny’s body. I myself had to remind myself of that, since the portrayal was indeed negative. Even fundamentalists love their kids. And like other parents, they tend not to restrict and discipline their children to the point of abuse, to the point of squeezing the soul from the body. This is an exceptional case. But it fits the story.

This is true of all of these plot devices. They are never there to try to spice up the work. This story does not need to be spiced up. It pulls along whatever elements are necessary to make it work.

Conclusion

In summary, a truly great read. I have no suggestions for improvement. I suck.

A Certain Slant of Light
by Laura Whitcomb
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Graphia (September 21, 2005)
ISBN: 061858532X

A review of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

When I first read the first chapter of Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Medal award-winning juvenile novel by Sharon Creech, I didn’t quite realize what I was getting into. You can read it yourself, preview the first chapter at Amazon.com. Now after having read the whole book, reading these first few pages makes me tear up a little.

This is the second book by Sharon Creech that I’ve read recently. The first was Heartbeat, a much shorter story told in a unique style. Walk Two Moons is a more traditional, 280-page novel, but no less worthy of note.

It’s the story of Sal, a 13-year-old girl traveling with her grandparents to Lewiston, Idaho to see her mother. On the way, she tells them of all that happened after she and her father moved to Euclid, Ohio. They moved when they found out her mother was not coming home again. In Euclid, she met a girl named Pheobe, but what she didn’t realize at the time was that Pheobe’s story was hers, too.

Behind these interwoven tales are all the feelings of a young teenage girl when her mother goes away and may not come back, or will not come back.

The story is targeted at girls aged 9-12, but it may also be appropriate for young teens. I enjoyed it, too, but I have broad tastes, except when it comes to the quality of the story. And good, solid storytelling characterize this novel through its multiple, interwoven subplots and strong character development.

There’s Pheobe, Sal’s paranoid friend, whose own mother has a secret. There’s the strange red-headed woman, Margaret Cadaver, whom Sal’s father has oddly befriended. And there’s the blind Mrs. Partridge, Margaret’s elderly mother, who can tell who you are and how old you are just by touching your face. And we also learn about Sal’s close relationship with her mother and why it’s so difficult to accept that her mother isn’t coming home again, and why it’s impossible for her to talk to anyone about it.

Without revealing how the story turns out, let me just say that it left me with a feeling of melancholy satisfaction.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: HarperTrophy; Reprint edition (September 30, 1996)
ISBN: 0064405176

Genius equals talent plus skill. You may be a talented writer, but without writing skills, your writing will be haphazard at best. I remember in high school, I wrote a piece about my favorite teacher of all time. My English teacher at the time liked it so much, he put it on the front page of the class newsletter. It would be years before I wrote something that good again. It was a fluke, an accident. I needed to improve my writing skills.

So when we see that Ender has certain mental and physical talents of strategy and tactics. Even his thought and speech patterns are those of a thoughtful leader, not an impulsive little boy. We believe there are great things he may be able to do. But we don’t believe he can do them immediately. First he must develop his skills and his body. It would be amazing if Ender, even with his superhuman talents, would be able to accomplish anything significant before he’s 20.

So Ender goes through an arduous training program. The deck is stacked against him. There is an imminent risk that he will fail, or even die. The stakes are high, but so is the payoff. As he faces each new challenge and overcomes it, his skills develop, piece by piece. By the end, we fully believe that this boy, now 7, is already a great military leader. And even then, Ender’s coaches stack the deck in his favor, in order to sidestep his weaknesses.

The Phantom Menace, on the other hand, introduces us to Anakin Skywalker, who talks like a kid, walks like a kid, and thinks like a kid. I don’t even remember how we found out that the force was so strong with him. Somehow, he wins a pod race and saves the day, in a racer that had never been tested, without so much as even successfully completing the course. All he gets is a brief word from Qui-Gon Jinn, “Remember to use your feelings.” Okay.

I’m sure this all is supposed heighten the tension, but it achieves the opposite. We believe this all is contrived, and we believe it’s been inserted to improve sales of video games and toy pod racers and action figures.

If George Lucas had demonstrated to us Anakin’s talents, maybe by having him know the future. Then if we had seen him in training, learning how to use his talents to improve his racing. If we had seen him exult the first time he made it through the course. Think Chariots of Fire. Then we would believe in his ability to win, even though the odds are still stacked against him, and we would’ve been emotionally involved with him in the race. He would have become a hero rather than a mockery.

-TimK

A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

Andrew Wiggin prefers to be called Ender. He’s a six-year-old genius destined to save the world. He’s also a Third, that is the third child in a world in which it’s against the law to have more than two. The government made an exception with Ender, because he’s going to become the General who will win Earth’s war with an alien race called the Buggers. Why Ender is the one quickly becomes obvious. Yes, he’s only a little boy, but Ender thinks and acts like a great leader. And that’s why he leaves his family for battle school, to become a great military leader. But the challenges he faces in military school are more than even Ender expected, and yet he faces them with both dignity and cunning.

I easily understood why this novel won a Hugo and Nebula Award. Ender’s Game is a masterfully told tale. It’s a strongly plotted story with excellent character development. And really it is more about Ender than about the game, because the game changes Ender. As he progresses, he must wrestle with his own feelings about what he’s done and who he’s become. May God help him if he actually wins the war and kills all the Buggers. What will he do about his conflicted emotions then?

The first few chapters I had some trouble with. I especially had trouble understanding that the Earth is under forced population control. This premise never made sense to me in the context of the story and characters. The story did not need it, either. The idea of global population control was superfluous and confusing, but it only popped up a couple times after the first few chapters. And starting with the fourth chapter, Ender really grew on me. I rooted for him, and I admired him. As he faced each new challenge, I literally could not put the book down. And when I read the last page, I felt like I had really been in that other world and had really known those characters. I believe the word I used was “Wow!”

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages, Tor Science Fiction; Reprint edition (July 15, 1994)
ISBN: 0812550706

The Minister’s Daughter is a fantasy about Nell, a teenage apprentice healer and midwife who is learning the art from her ailing grandmother. It’s intended for teenagers and young adults. The story is set during the English civil war, in a world in which magic is real and witches are hunted to be hung on the gallows. The main conflict surrounds one of the minister’s teenage daughters, impregnated by one of the local boys who then refuses to take responsibility for the mother and child. Nell is drawn into this conflict and must choose whether to do the right thing, which will only get her in deeper.

I sympathized fully with Nell, and she was easily my favorite character. And the challenges and goals Nell faced, Julie Hearn handled them well. I also hated the minister and his daughter, who were the major villians. However, there were three weak areas: The fantasy elements were not fully part of the story; I did not find the minister a convincing villian; and there were a whole list of promises with no payoff.

For example, the piskies. They were funny. They were admirable. But they felt like tack-on story elements, only affecting the storyline when it was convenient to move the plot forward. How could the minister—or anybody—deny the existence of piskies? Even though they were rarely seen, they were occasionally seen. So one might deny that piskies had any special powers, but one surely couldn’t deny that they existed. In Hearn’s universe, piskies are real; therefore, even the minister, a crotchety Puritan who denounces anything magic, anything of Satan, should’ve admitted that piskies were actual creatures, animals, which are part of the millieu. I saw the same pattern being repeated with other story elements. It was as if on the one hand there’s this fantasy world, which is real, and then on the other there’s the minister’s theology, which is merely imagined.

This made the minister less believable. I would’ve feared him much more if he had some actual divine power behind him, or even some human power behind him. What was the source of his power? Fear? No, even fear needs a mechanism through which to wreak havoc. Was he deeply involved in the local politics? That’s one way one might gain power. But how could he have been? He was hardly ever there, always off “doing the Lord’s work.” How could he have so profoundly affected so many people? As a result, I felt the minister’s ability to do evil was contrived. I was angry at him, but more for being a jerk than for being an antagonist. I had to remind myself constantly that somehow in this story he’s not just a jerk but a dangerous man as well.

I also never did understand his motivation. He was just mean, I guess. And what was “the Lord’s work,” anyhow? I was convinced, since he kept going away for days at a time, he had something secretive on the side that was going to blow up in his face. But this whole aspect of his life after being featured over and over again just kind of faded out without so much as an explanation. These are only a few on the list of missing payoffs. I’ll stop now to avoid spoiling the ending. Suffice it to say that ending felt incomplete, since there were so many loose ends left, the kinds of omissions that make me feel betrayed by the author, as though she’s set me up for a payoff, leading me on, but never giving me my reward.

Overall, it was an enaging story. It definitely raised my ire, which is a good thing. I was generally happy with it, and I also found it infectious. All the same, I probably won’t be reading it again.

-TimK

This is an edge-of-your seat thriller about a young winemaker named Charlie Marston who gets caught in the middle when his friend Randy Black kills a guy in self-defense, they accidentally discover millions of dollars hidden in the wall, and then Charlie helps him steal the money and cover up the evidence. The reason the guy was there in the first place was because Charlie and Randy were having sex with his wife. This book is intended for mature audiences only, in case you didn’t guess.

While I always wanted to read on to find out what happened next in the story, I also wanted to put the book down, so that I wouldn’t have to stop and look at the scenery, paragraphs of description about things that have nothing to do with the story’s conflict and about which I don’t care. It was a painful read, not a fast one, and several times I considered just cutting my losses and going on to something else from my growing stack of backlog.

I was also annoyed that the characters occasionally undergo transformations, but these were often not well anticipated or justified and came off as fake, just making the characters do what you want them to in order to move the story along. You can see this in the first chapter (see the links below) when Charlie overcomes his trepidation and decides to participate in the, er, group activity. But nothing changed, nothing happened to Charlie to motivate him to do something different. We’re supposed to believe, “Finally, he couldn’t resist,” as though it was only a matter of time. But time alone does not make a person change. Something is missing in the characterization.

This is the pattern, unfortunately. At one point in particular, Charlie was encountering a new situation, and I realized that I didn’t know how he was going to respond. What I mean is, I had no idea how he might respond. When Lorelai enters a new situation, I have some idea of the kinds of things she might do, because her character is well defined. (Yes, my name is Tim, and I’m addicted to Gilmore Girls.) But when Charlie enters a new situation two-thirds through the novel, nothing.

The ending further disappointed me. The worst of the conflicts seemed to have been basically wrapped up before the last few chapters, and the only conflicts remaining felt fake. Did I really believe justice would be so superficial? No. And in fact, neither did the characters. The whole reason for keeping the authorities out was that as soon as they got involved, everything would come out.

So, in summary, Sin and Vengeance is a gripping story with a lot of potential. But I did not finish the last couple chapters, and I do not plan to read the book again.

Heartbeat is perhaps not what you would expect me to read. That’s because it’s intended for a different audience, girls aged 9-12. My daughter put me on to this book. She needed to do a book report, and her teacher put her on to it. What she liked in particular was the format: 180 pages of free verse, about 10,000 words.

But what author Sharon Creech does with those 10,000 words! Sharon Creech won the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, and the same savoir faire is revealed in the pages of Heartbeat. The touching story is so artistically rendered, this 30-something man found it enjoyable and memorable.

12-year-old Annie loves to run, just for the fun of it. And so begins the story:

Thump-thump, thump-thump
bare feet hitting the grass
as I run run run
in the air and like the air
weaving through the trees
skimming over the ground

Annie’s friend Max also loves to run, but he runs for the competition of it. He says he’s “training to escape,” whatever that means. And he pressures her to join the track team. But Annie is an artist, not a jock. She seems repulsed at the suggestion that she should join the team, though she does not know why. And now she must choose between her deep beliefs and pleasing her friend. At that age, she does not realize all that she is, all that she can do, how remarkable are her talents and her unique point of view.

Annie is also going to get a new baby brother or sister. At first, she doesn’t understand why her mother started taking naps and stopped eating and started throwing up everywhere.

Meanwhile, her grandfather slips in and out of coherency, as the baby prepares to be born. We wonder whether he will “kick the bucket” before he can see the baby. He ran too, raced, when he was young. But after he won a trophy, he put away his running shoes forever, and Annie wants to know why.

These are clearly children’s themes. Yet I enjoyed sharing Heartbeat with my daughter. Heartbeat made me feel at the same time young and old, reminiscent, seeing parallels between Annie’s life and mine, yet with experience comfortable that I’d grown.

Most of the story threads are character-driven, but it’s not a coming-of-age story. It is a story of growing, learning, and self-actualization. It’s something a girl may want to read and re-read as she ages.

Spellbound is the story of a famous, overworked photographer, Calin Farrell, who has a special gift. He dreams of a battle and a beautiful, red-haired Irish woman waiting for him, a woman he can’t help but love with all his heart. Or are they visions, the result of a bewitching spell?

Bestselling author Nora Robert starts there and twists and turns sometimes so fast I didn’t know which direction I was facing. That can be a good thing, but not when I have to read the same paragraph several times to figure out what it means.

The most egregious thing she does is to switch viewpoint, right in the middle of a scene, right in the middle of a paragraph. The first time it happened, I thought, “Ooh! A great example for my “Stupid Story Mistakes” podcast. But then she did it again, and again, and again. Maybe I should’ve used it as a stupid story mistake anyway. I think I may have a new pet peeve.

He brought his hands to her shoulders, torn for a staggering instant as to whether to pull her closer or push her away. In the end he eased back, held her at arm’s length.

She was beautiful. She was aroused. And she was, he assured himself, a stranger. He angled his head, determined to handle the situation.

“Well, it’s certainly a friendly country.”

He saw the flicker in her eyes, the dimming of disappointment, a flash of frustration. But he couldn’t know just how deeply that disappointment, that frustration cut into her heart.

He’s here, she told herself. He’s come. That’s what matters most now. “It is, yes.” She gave him a smile, let her fingers linger in his hair just another second, then dropped them to her sides. “Welcome to Ireland and the Castle of Secrets.”

Do you see how the viewpoint changes from his to hers somewhere between “He saw the flicker” and “cut into her heart”? I’m not sure exactly where. The text inbetween could work from either point of view. At this point, I felt like a disembodied spirit wafting through the story. Now, this is a story about magic, but I still don’t think that’s what the author intended.

But in the final analysis, I simply didn’t understand the characters. I didn’t understand Calin, why he changed his mind. Extraordinary changes require extraordinary forces. And once it was established how he felt and what he thought, I needed something remarkable to persuade him before he changed his mind. And nothing did. And without this convincing conflict, I couldn’t identify with the character, and the story fell flat.

It’s the same problem we saw in The Mask of Zorro, but I’ll save that for another day.

-TimK

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of the most endearing pieces of classic literature. Of the many literary novels extant, this is one of the ones that we actually want to read. Why is that? And what do we have to do to make our stories as endearing as Mark Twain did?

This is not a literary analysis. For literary discussion, see the Cliffs Notes. Literary questions provoke discussion because there are multiple correct answers. Authors don’t think about these fuzzy areas that generate more questions than they answer.

What follows is a story analysis. It’s the kind of analysis that helps us become better writers, by looking at what works in the fiction that we read.

Why do we want to read it in the first place?

Mark Twain starts with problems, not solutions. These problems, these conflicts build momentum. From the first words on the first page:

“Tom!”

No answer.

“Tom!”

No answer.

“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!”

No answer.

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for “style,” not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:

“Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll—”

She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.

This makes us ask questions. We want to read on to see what’s going on. What happened to Tom? Why does Aunt Polly want to find him? And why is she so angry with him?

Then the story layers these conflicts on top of one another, building complexity and even more momentum. Tom’s feelings for Becky Thatcher, the situation with Injun Joe, and other adventures overlap and even build off of each other.

And his adventures get more interesting as the story progresses. The first conflict is trivial compared to the rest of the story. It only holds our attention for a little while. But they increase in intensity as the story progresses. For example, when Tom breaks down and testifies against Injun Joe, we expect Injun Joe to be brought to justice. But instead he escapes, turning Tom’s moral predicament into a mortal one. Previously, he was afraid that if he spoke out about what he knew that Injun Joe would harm him; now, if Injun Joe gets his hands on him, he will harm him. By the end of the story, we have this story thread, the Becky Thatcher thread, and the lost-in-the-cave thread all coming together.

Three things you can do to engage your audience and make them want to read on:

1. Always start with a problem, not with a solution.
2. Layer problems on top of each other to build more momentum and to build complexity into the story.
3. Escalate conflicts. When one problem is solved, substitute an even worse problem. Better yet, turn a failed solution to a lesser problem into a worse problem, as Twain did with Injun Joe escaping from the courtroom.

Why do we find the story realistic?

In the preface, we read:

Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.

Mark Twain wrote what he knew. Therefore, his story has an aire of realism to it.

For example, early in the story, Tom is whitewashing the fence. He doesn’t want to perform this chore, until Ben Rogers comes along. Then Tom learns an immutable characteristic of human behavior, that people will pay for what you cannot give them for free. That’s as true today as in Mark Twain’s day. Some consultants gain recognition as experts by charging for advice. To free advice no one wants to listen. But put a steep price-tag on the same advice, and people fall over each other trying to get in front.

We can write what we know not just to add realism to our stories but also to generate story ideas.

1. Take interesting characteristics from people that you know, and build them into interesting characters.
2. Think of the most embarrassing moment in your life, or the time you were most afraid, or the time you had an insurmountable challenge in front of you. These problems are great fodder for story conflicts.
3. Don’t build stories out of the good times. Conflict keeps us on the edge of our seats, not utopia.

Why do we identify with Tom?

Tom is not a good kid. He’s mischeivious, almost an anti-hero. But from early in the story, we sympathize with him. Because while he does get into trouble, he never hurts anyone, at least not anyone who didn’t deserve it. He eats the jam, and he gets into a scuffle, and he plays hookie from school. And we know he’ll be punished for these infractions. We even know that Tom is willing to take the punishment and not complain, which he does on two different occasions for Becky Thatcher. But he does not long to be punished, and neither do we long for him to be.

We sympathize with Tom not because he’s perfect, but because he’s imperfect. He’s a realistic boy and a realistic reflection of our own childhoods. But that’s not the whole of the story. This realistic character is put into realistic conflicts. While we may think we want him to be good, we don’t want to see him beat by his Aunt Polly. We don’t want to see him lose.

This is a variation of giving a realistic character a noble goal and an obstacle preventing him from achieving that goal. Later in the story Tom does have truly noble goals, such as saving Muff Potter from the gallows and rescuing Becky from the cave. Nearer the beginning, it’s enough just to have him oppressed.

So, combine conflicts (the first point above) with realism (the second point) to make sympathetic characters.

Tell me a story. Tell me a story about telling stories. Tell me about before there was the Internet, and people wrote with heavy machines that went clunk-clunk, and they wrote their dreams on paper, and then the papers got burned up. And then they started again and became famous.

Well, what you want to hear is Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop by Kate Wilhelm.

Storyteller is a 190-page story about telling stories, not a novel, not a biography, not a tutorial, not a reference. Just a story. It’s part memoir, part instruction guide. Kate Wilhelm tells of her days as instructor of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, from the days when she co-founded it, funding was non-existent, and they couldn’t even find a location that wanted to host the workshop, through thick and thick, reading manuscripts, learning to teach, mediating the frivolity that students found to release the pressure, rejoicing in it, then tearing out the hearts of her students with a red pencil, tutoring names that went on to become successful, well-known writers, editors, and teachers. These students fill out a vast array of personalities, no two alike, and I marvelled at the diverse approaches that worked for different people.

Clarion is an intensive, six-week writing program for beginners, a “boot camp for writers.” And in Kate Wilhelm’s story, the participants groan, complain, and even sometimes rebel. Throughout this engrossing tale, Kate weaves her advice and that of her then-husband, the late Damon Knight. For a beginning writer, it’s as if you’re there with her, learning along with the others. Except that maybe you aren’t in tears. If you’re an experienced writer, more than once you’ll find yourself pausing to laugh, or to exclaim “Yeah!” or to wonder how could anyone do that.

The book is a pleasure to read, less easy to use as a reference. Unlike other works, it’s less nuts-and-bolts and more creative. However, there are two reference chapters, “Notes and Lessons on Writing” and “Writing Exercises,” which sum up the advice portrayed throughout the book. All in all, Storyteller is an invaluable resource for beginning writers, and an entertaining and refreshing read for those with more experience.

Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop
by Kate Wilhelm
Publisher: Small Beer Press
ISBN: 193152016X
paperback, 190 pages

This is Stanisław Lem week. This past Monday, we looked at his novel The Investigation. Today, we’re reviewing a two-volume set: Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

“Cadet Pirx!”

Bullpen’s voice snapped him out of his daydreaming. He had just had visions of a two-crown piece lying tucked away in the fob pocket of his old civvies, the ones stashed at the bottom of his locker. A jingling, shiny silver coin—all but forgotten…

“Cadet Pirx, what would you do if you were on patrol and encountered a ship from an alien planet?”

Pirx opened his mouth wide, as if the answer were there and all he had to do was to force it out. He looked like the last person on Earth who knew what to do when meeting up with a vessel from an alien planet.

“I would maneuver closer,” he answered, his voice muted and strangely hoarse.

The class froze in welcome anticipation of some comic relief.

“Very good,” Bullpen said in a fatherly sort of way. “Then what would you do?” …

Furiously, he racked his empty brains in search of the appropriate paragraphs from his Space Manual, but it was as if he had never laid eyes on it. Sheepishly he lowered his gaze, and as he did so, he noticed that Smiga was trying to prompt him—with his lips only. One by one he deciphered Smiga’s words and repeated them out loud, before he had a chance to fully digest them.

“I’d introduce myself.”

So begins the first of the Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

The two novels come one after the other in terms of content and were originally released, in 1968 in Polish, as a single work. Between them, they contain ten stories following Pirx’s career from the time he was a cadet until he’s a seasoned veteran. As he matures, he develops confidence, wisdom, and a justifiable dislike of robots. In typical Lem style, the Tales of Pirx the Pilot are engaging, strongly plotted stories, full of character depth as well as cool future-tech gizmos.

Pirx, you see, is a pilot of space vessels, freighters mostly. In his world, space travel is common. Yet things always seem to go wrong, and Pirx always seems to get caught in the middle of it. Pirx is a seat-of-the-pants, “to hell with the instructions—they can’t help me now” kinda guy, in charge of hundred-foot-tall, mega-ton space rockets. From the beginning, Pirx faces crisis, insanity, disaster, ghosts, intrigue, court martial, and a crazed killer robot. And his instincts save him time and again.

Take the first story in the collection, “The Test,” an account of Pirx’s final exam, as it were, his maiden solo voyage. How did a half-witted, daydreaming, bungling idiot like Pirx get into the program in the first place? Nonetheless, I guess he made it, and it comes down to this. It’s just a routine escort mission, but he needs to get it right. A screw up could cost him his pilot’s license, or his life, as it turns out. The ending I will not give away, but I will say it left me shocked and laughing.

By the last story, entitled “Ananke,” Pirx finds himself investigating the cause of a devastating crash, of a new-model freighter. By this time, he’s been piloting for decades, and space flight has been computerized to the hilt since the time he was a cadet, and these new pilots don’t even know how to operate the machinery, not like he had to learn as a cadet, and he doesn’t like it, not one bit. He’s probably right.

Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot not only transport us to the future, like science fiction should, but challenge us to think about where we’re going on the way.

The Investigation is a novel about strange occurences. Dead bodies start moving, by themselves. At first, it’s hardly noticeable. A corpse moves from its back over onto its front. Or it rolls off the table. People dismiss these occurences, when they notice them, as practical jokes. Then the bodies start getting up and walking, even going through great lengths to clothe themselves before going out in public.

The main character, Lieutenant Gregory of Scotland Yard, is tasked with solving these bizarre crimes. These are not mere body-snatchings. The bodies definitively appear to have moved themselves. And the incidents have strange similarities and coincendences running throughout. How did the criminal accomplish these crimes? What was his motive? Even the most basic questions fail any rational explanation.

As a result, a number of theories are proposed to explain these occurences. It quickly becomes clear, however, that more important than the investigation itself are the effects it has on the reader. Whether or not Gregory is changed by the investigation, whether or not he solves the case, the reader must open his mind in order just to grasp the meaning of the story.

This is compounded with a minor plot, which preys on Gregory’s mind. Gregory’s landlord, from whom he rents a room, is the subject of his own mystery involving strange noises that eminate from his room, continuing throughout the night. Gregory wonders what these noises are, and they become part of his dreams, affected by his investigation into the seemingly paranormal series of occurences.

Stanislaw Lem

Stanisław Lem has criticized most English-language science fiction as unimaginative and mediocre. I love sci-fi, but I accept this evaluation from one such as he. Lem is a master storyteller and a brilliant thinker and writer. Most noted for his novel Solaris, which was brought, after a form, to the big screen, I enjoyed some of his other novels better, including Peace on Earth, Chain of Chance, and The Investigation. Also, I highly recommend the two-volume set Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

Stanisław Lem was born in Lwów, Poland in 1921 (now Lviv, Ukraine). His father was a physician, and he himself studied medicine at Lwów University, until World War II. In 1946, he returned to learning medicine at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. But he refused to take his final exams, in order to avoid becoming a career military doctor. He worked as a research assistant and started to write stories. In 1948, Lem started writing his first novel, Hospital of the Transfiguration, which is a dramatic (non-genre) novel based partly on his own experiences. This novel did not see the printing press, however, until freedom of speech was expanded in Poland in 1956. Before that, he published his first science fiction novel, The Astronauts.

Since then, Lem’s books have been translated into 41 languages, selling over 27 million copies.

Spoiler Alert

If you haven’t read The Investigation, I highly recommend it. I’ll be giving away some of the plot, so SPOILER ALERT! Still, I think the novel is worth reading, even if you know how some things turn out. (And I’m not giving away everything.)

Sciss’s Theory

Gregory, of course, suspects a human criminal, but some of the crimes he cannot reasonably explain. One in particular can only be explained if the corpse were actually moving by itself. Then there’s Sciss, a scientist with a theory, Gregory’s nemesis in his investigation. I say Sciss is Gregory’s nemesis not because Sciss tries to undermine the investigation, but because Gregory doesn’t like him and doesn’t believe his theory.

Sciss’s theory is that this is a natural occurence, which he has linked with various factors. This of course sounds like gobbledygook to Gregory. How can a natural occurence cause corpses to walk around and perform obviously intelligent activities? But Sciss explains his theory so convincingly. We don’t understand what causes gravity, either– Oh, we know that two masses attact each other. But what causes this attractive force? If pressed, eventually, we have to admit that we don’t really understand why an apple falls from a tree rather than flying upward. But gravity happens everyday; it’s a part of our lives. So we’ve learned to accept it. We don’t question it. If dead bodies got up and walked around everyday, we’d accept that, too. Simply because we don’t understand the root cause of an occurence doesn’t mean it’s not a natural occurence.

Gregory, of course, being a hard-nosed police investigator, doesn’t buy this. He also needs a human suspect in order to further his investigation. He’d sooner suspect Sciss than this bit about it being an unexplained natural occurence. And only after Sciss is cleared, cleared, and cleared again does Gregory relent in these suspicions.

In the end, they do come up with an answer to the occurences, though a scientifically unsatisfying one. And we are left with the knowledge and feeling that truth is in the eye of the beholder, just a fabrication of our own minds.

Lem did not preach. But he did engross me in a mystery that demanded to be solved. Then he presented me with solutions that required I change my world-view, however temporarily, to understand.