The Writer’s Journey Series #2, Post 1 of 5, The Adventure Begins

Acts

I had never really thought of a novel in terms of acts before I read The Writer’s Journey; Mythic Structure for Writers, but I’ve found it helpful to think of the beginning as Act 1, the middle as Act 2, and the end as Act 3.  As far as I can tell, there isn’t that much difference between the terms except that when I think of “beginning”, I think of a vague section of story that may or may not have a fixed length, that will only sometimes end before the middle starts, and that might appear a second time at the end of the book.  However, when I think of “Act 1″, I think of an exact section of story that has a limit to its length (though the exact length may be different from story to story), that will always end before Act 2 begins, and that will never appear a second time in the story.  Not only does this make the beginning/middle/ending clearer in my head, but it also makes plotting easier.

This series will use Chris Vogler’s grouping of the stages of the Hero’s Journey as a rough guide for breaking up and discussing the various stages of the Hero’s Journey.

Act 1, Part 1

Ordinary World

This is usually the very first part of the story, where the writer establishes “Normal” and makes sure the reader knows all the rules of the world.  If you’re writing fantasy (which I most often am), this is the part where you make the reader aware of the particular quirks and rules of the fantasy world that don’t exist in the real world.  If you’re writing fiction (which I most often am not, so take this with a grain of salt) I believe this would be the first chapter where you set up the main character and his/her relationships and exact predicament and everything else.  This is basically the place for introductions.

Chris Vogler also discusses the Ordinary world as a place for foreshadowing what is to come, putting the Dramatic Question out there, introducing the internal and external problems the hero will face, and a great many other things that I don’t have the time or word count to get into here.  I strongly recommend that you buy the book and read each chapter yourself, as I am only giving you my impressions and the things that stood out the most to me.

Call to Adventure

According to Vogler, the Call to Adventure can appear in a number of different ways:  synchronicity (when apparently random events come together to cause change), temptation, heralds, reconnaissance of the Villain to discover how best to attack the Hero, disorientation/discomfort, lack/need, having no choice, warnings.  Vogler goes on to discuss the idea of having multiple Calls to Adventure.

I’m sure that there are an infinite number of ways to call your hero into adventure, but my favorite idea about the Call to Adventure is that you could have a Hero being Called to Adventure all the way through the Journey even up to the very end.  If there are both internal and external problems for the Hero to solve, it is entirely possible that the Hero will immediately jump on solving the external problem while completely ignoring the internal problem (or vice versa).  This provides an opportunity for the Hero to be constantly Called and Called again to resolve the internal problem throughout the duration of the story.

Mothers as Characters

In light of Mother’s Day I’ve decided to take a quick break from the series in order to mention that Mothers are one of the most important characters in our stories as well as our lives.  Even a mother’s absence plays an enormous role in the way the other characters take shape and grow.

Mothers show us by example what the feminine ideal is – at least, they give us our first impression of that ideal when we are very small.  My mother, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins have given me many examples to follow, and I would like to share with you some of the examples I see in them that I find most meaningful:

1. Strength is how many times you get back up no matter how many times you’ve been knocked down
2. Beauty is gratitude for every little thing you have
3. Love is giving, and giving, and giving again
4. Kindness is helping everyone you see who needs help you are able to give
5. Forgiveness is free and should be given in abundance
6. Pain is a part of life, but
7. Healing is something you can control and allow yourself to have
8. Faith is as easy as following the path life puts under your feet
9. Hope is what happens when you never give up
10. Life is living every moment to its fullest potential and never wasting even the briefest instant

Happy Mother’s Day

The Writer’s Journey, Series #1, Archetypes – Main Characters

As promised, here is the first installment of my series on The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler and all the various insights he presents, along with my thoughts and ideas about stories and writing.  If I were ambitious enough to give each chapter of the book its own blog post (which one could legitimately do), I would be doing 26 posts in this series, and it would take 6 months to complete.  I have decided against such a vast commitment of time and will be combining chapters here and there for a total of 13 posts (to be written over the course of about 3 months rather than 6) divided into 3 series:  Archetypes, The Hero’s Journey, and Essentials for the Journey.

Archetypes – Main Characters

(series 1 of 3, post 1 of 3)

Today’s installment is the first of three in the Archetypes series:  Main Characters.  These are the main forces that will be present in any story.  They do not necessarily have to be represented as individual characters, though 9 times out of 10 they do appear as characters.  This, I think, is because of the strength of these forces.  These are the forces that create the plot.  Without these Archetypes, there is no tension and thus no real plot.  I am making the argument here (and I think most storytellers will agree) that plot requires tension.  If there is no tension there is no plot.  There may be a string of events plodding along one after the other and they may together create a timeline that someone could call a story, but I don’t expect it will be a very interesting story.

Hero/Protagonist

The first of these main characters is, obviously, the Hero.  Christopher Vogler makes the distinction that the Hero figure represents Freud’s Ego, which is the conscious self.  As such, this character begins as part of the normal whole, and through the Journey separates from the normal whole to become a separate individual, distinct from the normal whole.  Vogler goes on to say that the basic premise of the Hero’s Journey is the search for self identity and a sense of “wholeness”.  This is usually the character who changes the most in the story, or who has the most to lose, or both.  This character will be complex, face death, make some kind of sacrifice (possibly in relation to facing death), and will be flawed.  Vogler also discusses various kinds of Heroes from willing to unwilling, loner to group, and more.  Exactly which type of Hero you use will depend on your story’s needs, and your personal preferences.

The Hero is also usually the character your readers will relate to the most, which is why the Hero is the one with the biggest identity crisis or identity challenge.  The best example I can think of for this is in the recent movie Rango, where the lizard doesn’t even know his own name until he ends up in this small wild west town where he has to pretend to have a reputation to avoid misfortune.  He invents his entire past in just a few minutes and creates an identity that he will be challenged to live up to later in the story.  We all feel out of place at least some of the time (if not most of the time) and rarely do we feel that we truly belong somewhere.  We are painfully aware of our quirks and oddities and we struggle to find a group of people to call friends who are like-minded and who possibly even have similar oddities to ourselves.  This is why this character is most often the protagonist.  You want your protagonist to be the one your readers can relate to best, so that the entire story will remain interesting to your readers.

Shadow/Antagonist

This is the force opposite to the Hero, and Vogler immediately pegs it as an initially internal force, represented psychologically by the things we repress inside ourselves, “the dark secrets we can’t admit, even to ourselves”.  These are things like guilt, envy, feelings of lack, feelings of loss, severe trauma, etc.  Usually, these things are represented in an external villain or antagonist of some kind who opposes the Hero outright.  This opposition becomes the main source of tension in the story.  Vogler also makes the point that the Shadow doesn’t have to be evil, rather it’s more like the Shadow is working on his/her own quest or Journey and it just so happens that our Hero is in direct opposition to the Shadow’s goals.  Only one of the two can achieve victory, for there is no way to reconcile their opposing desires.

In Rango, to continue the example I started using above, there are two such shadows.  The external Shadow is the mayor, who is buying up all the land with plans to build a modern city that will make him a huge profit, but the internal Shadow is Rango’s own doubts about himself, his lack of belief in himself and his own certainty that he has no identity.  It’s not until after he overcomes those internal Shadows and discovers his identity that he has the ability to overcome the external Shadow and foil the mayor’s plans.

Mentor/Guide

The Hero cannot become what he/she needs to be without the Mentor.  Vogler calls the Mentor the psychological Self, which is the part of us that is our best, wisest, purest, etc.  This is usually a character, but could also manifest as a book, the Hero’s conscience, or other non-character forces.  The primary function of the Mentor is to prepare the Hero for the inevitable confrontation with the Shadow.  This will include giving the Hero gifts, protection, and lessons.

This may have something to do with me being a teacher, but I find Mentor characters the most fun to write and do different things with.  They can be willing or unwilling, good or evil, Shadows in disguise, or gods in disguise, and an infinite number of other possibilities.  The Mentor colors and shapes the Hero’s understanding the world beyond that normal place where the Hero began and shows the Hero how to face the Shadow – if that Mentor turns out to be corrupt, what will the Hero do then?  In Rango, there are two Mentor figures that spring readily to mind.  One is the Armadillo that tries to cross the highway and the other is the Spirit of the West that the lizard meets while on his quest to find his identity.  Each one only appears briefly, gives the advice that’s needed, and then moves on.  Of course, you could also have a Mentor who stays with the Hero too long and works with the Hero too much, and explore how that would help and hinder the Hero in different ways.

What do you think?

What are some of your favorite stories and who or what takes on these roles in those stories?  Can you think of any stories that lack a Hero, Shadow, or Mentor?  Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Coming Soon:  Archetypes – Secondary Characters, series 1 of 3, post 2 of 3

The Kindle Accessories Have Arrived!

My Kindle accessories have arrived and my Kindle has now been “Bethanyfied”.  Mwahahaha!  See pictures below:

What you are looking at is a Kindle 2 with Decal Girl’s “World’s Edge Winter” Skin sticker thingy inside a Klear Kase protective plastic cover.  The Decal Girl Skin would protect your kindle from scratches, and spills, as well as giving it a touch of personalization.  There are dozens and dozens of designs available through Amazon.  The Klear Kase cover is almost completely water tight (or appears to be so anyway – I haven’t actually tested this, and hope I never have to), and will protect against scratches and dropping and spills and sticky fingers and everything else that life can dish out.  The Klear Kase cover is heavier than I expected it to be, but it’s still lighter than the book-like cover that Amazon designed for the Kindle.  Also, I saw on the Amazon reviews that some people felt that it was a lot of pieces to put together.  I have taken this case apart and put it back together at least five times since I got it.  There are 9 pieces, but it’s really simple, and easy to figure out where they go even if you don’t read the directions when you put it together.  My only concern about the Klear Kase design is that the volume buttons don’t work so well, but it’s not really an issue for me, because I tend not to listen to music when I read.  I almost always listen to music when I write, but I won’t be using my Kindle for that, so it’s not a problem for me.

So, overall, I highly recommend the Klear Kase for sure and the skin/sticker if you’re into that kind of thing (which I am).  And here area  few more pictures of my real-life Kindle all dressed up:

Kindle Accessories!

So I spent a couple of hours tonight doing window shopping for my kindle.  My salary official goes from part-time to full-time at the end of this month, and I am making a really long amazon.com wish-list (I probably won’t finish buying all the stuff I want until next summer).  Anyway, I found the two skin/reusable sticker things I want (for now – possibly more will come later?) and I also found a $40 klearkase made just for the kindle!  I have discovered that I am not a fan of kindle sleeves or covers, because it’s that much extra work to get it out before you even turn it on, but at the same time, I don’t want to just toss it in my purse and hope it doesn’t come out scratched (I can’t count how many sunglasses I lost to the pit within my purse).  So, here are the stickers, for one and all to see:

Moon Tree Design

World’s Edge Winter Design

Writing As a Career – the First Steps

This week is my first week back teaching and you’d think that the reason they have the teachers come back a week earlier than the students is so that we can prepare for the students, but really it’s so that they can take up all our time with meetings and not give us any time to prepare anything.  At least, that’s what it feels like this close to “zero hour”.

Anyway, I decided to make this week’s post simple.  Here is a list of things I did when I decided that I wanted to make writing my next career:

1. Decide to treat writing like a career (if I was willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on my bachelors degree in classics, I should also be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on conferences, books, etc. to further my career in writing)
2. Read books about how to write (do the suggested writing exercises, and practice)
3. Read books that are similar to your manuscript (don’t steal, be creative, come up with new twists/ideas)
4. Join a writer’s association (it’s expensive, but it’s worth it, even if all you get out of it is the ability to say you belong to one)
5. Go to a writer conference (it’s expensive, but it’s worth it, especially if you meet an agent)
6. Join a writing circle (and attend!  Get feedback.  Give feedback.  Be brutally honest and learn how to gracefully accept the brutal honesty of others.)
7. WRITE! (start typing.  Now.)

Review: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I often gauge how good a movie was by how it makes me think after watching it.  A good movie will make me want to write after watching it, either because it’s inspired me with an idea for a story, or because I’m so excited I want to write some fanfiction.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice went one step beyond that:  it inspired me with a philosophical idea that I will now share with you:

It is easy to move a person’s mind – all you need is a riddle.  It’s harder to move a person’s heart, but even that looks easy when compared with the task of moving a person’s soul.

I won’t say anything more about the movie.  It was GOOD.  It was worth spending money on.  You should go watch it now.

Get Yourself a Kindle (or something similar)

My husband bought me a kindle, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago. You should get one. Or something similar.

Here’s why I love my kindle:

1. The screen does not hurt your eyes. It’s made using electronic paper, which means it uses an ink-like substance combined with electrodes or magnets or something and every time the screen changes, the ink blips kind of like clearing an etch-e-sketch (if you’re old enough to remember those things – do they make them anymore?)  In other words, it’s not like a computer screen, which requires light in order to work.  There’s also zero glare.
2. It has already paid for itself at least three times over. If you’re buying recent, popular titles, the prices are going to be about the same as what you would see in a bookstore, but you can find some of the really old classics for less than two dollars and sometimes for free.
3. You can get blogs and newspaper articles and magazine articles delivered daily directly to your kindle. Sometimes before they are available in print.  Sometimes for a fee.  I don’t use this, because I don’t read blogs or newspapers or magazines regularly.  But the capability is there!
4. You can email PDF files and TXT files (and other files, I think) to your kindle for $0.15 each. If it’s a TXT file, it functions pretty much the same as a regular ebook.  If it’s a PDF, it’s more like trying to look at a picture that happens to be of text instead of an image.  That’s the extent of my experimentation so far.
5. You can download music from your computer to listen to while you read. The kindle has speakers and a headphone jack.  You do have to convert your music to MP3 format.
6. It has a read-a-loud feature. True, it’s a robot voice, and nowhere near as dramatic as some audio books can be.  On the other hand, the robot voice beats some of the audio book readers I’ve heard in the past.
7. You can download audio-books. But you have to send them to your PC first, because the files are so huge.  I just use the robot voices.
8. You can organize and categorize your books however you want and search by title.
9. It comes with the New Oxford American English Dictionary, and if you scroll to the first letter of any word in any ebook, it will automatically look up that word in said dictionary and give you the definition at the bottom of the screen.
10. You can create bookmarks and notes anywhere in the text. This also works with TXT files you email to your kindle, but not for PDF files.
11. You can download kindle for PC for free and read everything there that you also have on your kindle. For free.  Anything you read or write on your kindle for PC program is immediately available on your kindle as well.  For free.
12. It has a simple web browser. I was going to get internet on my cell phone, but now I’m thinking I don’t need it, since I carry my kindle with me everywhere and it has a decent web browser that will do most of the things I would need it to do when I’m away from my laptop.  Like check my email or look something up on google or wikipedia.  For free.
13. You can read anything at any time. If you happen to be away from your personal library and you want to read a mystery, it’s there.  If you’d rather read science fiction, that’s also there.  If you want to read a story book, you have that too.  Your entire library is available at your fingertips at all times.  No matter where you are.
14. The battery lasts forever if you keep the wireless turned off when you’re not using it.
15. It has wireless 3G access. Everywhere.  For free.
16. It’s linked to your amazon.com account. So it uses your amazon.com billing information and you can opt to use one-click payment when you buy stuff.  For free.  Even when you’re “buying” free stuff.
17. You can get free samples of just about everything. And buy it later.  Or delete the free sample.
18. You can download sudoku and other puzzle books. Although playing them is tricky.  It’s almost not worth getting them.  But the capability is there!
19. You can delete anything from your kindle, to save space, or because you don’t want to read it anymore, but Amazon.com will keep it on file for you in the infinite space of the internet, so that if you ever change your mind, you can download it right back without having to pay for it a second time.  This does not apply to free samples.  Those disappear when you delete them from your kindle.
20. It has enough space to hold up to one-thousand, five-hundred books. That’s my favorite.  Let me type that again.  It has enough space to hold up to one-thousand, five-hundred books.  If I ever own one-thousand, five-hundred books, I might just die of happiness, if old age doesn’t get me first.  If you’re some kind of god and happen to own more than one-thousand, five-hundred books, you can archive them infinitely on that amazon.com magic internet space thing, and download them back to your kindle when you want to read them.  So, really, it’s more like there’s infinite space for an infinite amount of books…

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some reading to do. 

Sleepless Rambling About Impossible Wishes

So I couldn’t sleep and I had this story idea flitting around in my head and decided to write it out and get it out of my head and figured that might help me sleep.  The characters are based on people I know in real life and in the story, one character does something for another that is absolutely wonderful and needed but could never happen in the real world.  It made me sad.  I’ve never wanted so badly to do something for someone that was so impossible.  I thought about making it impossible in the story as well, but my thing about writing is that I have to live in and live with the real world, while  I can create whatever kind of world I want in the stories I write and I can make whatever I want real there – so why ever do things the same way they are in reality when I don’t have to?  Of course, with that kind of attitude, you can cheapen a story easily by not forcing a character to go through something they don’t want to go through but need to and giving them what they want but don’t need instead.  Right now this particular story is just a pair of scenes and a handful of back story notes, but I want to see it happen in real life instead of just on paper in a fantasy adventure story.

And that’s why I want to write books that are eventually published worldwide.  If I can capture that impossible wish, wrap it up, and present it to the world as a story, someone somewhere will read that and get inspired by it and maybe that someone will have the right talent and skill and training to make that impossible wish into something possible.

There is so much power in the written word:  to make people think, to make people dream, to make people hate someone, love something, or believe in things they can’t see.  Through the written word, others have changed the world.  Of course, it also depends on how the world interprets what you write, and there’s no way to control that.  But there is something to be said for trying.  And if I never try or if I ever stop trying, I’ll never know what impossible wishes someone could have made possible because of something I never wrote.

Someday all the things we once thought were entirely impossible will be things we take for granted as part of a daily routine.

Jane Austen The Complete Novels (with an Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler)

I have recently been desperate for something to read that my inner grammarian would not constantly comment on while I was reading it.  So, I decided to try something daring and picked up the Complete Novels by Jane Austen.  I have had this collection sitting on my shelf for several years, but have been waiting for “just the right moment” to open it up and start reading.  I’m not sure what I thought I was waiting for, but I do believe that I have found the right moment.  I skipped the introduction and jumped right into the first word of the first chapter of the first novel, which happened to be Sense and Sensibility.

Having just finished the first chapter, my inner grammarian can only say these:  “Well done, Ms. Austen!” and “What the hell happened to English grammar over the last 200 years?”  Her writing style is so charming and refreshing that I find it hard to put the book down regardless of the characters or the plot.  Her turn of phrase is quaint and the way she characterizes the people makes you think a little bit with a subtle, witty humor that interests the reader.  It does not entrap or entrance the reader as some modern novels will, but it does have a certain charming charisma that attracts the reader like a bee to a beautifully scented flower.  I look forward to reading and reviewing each of her novels as presented in this 1278-page volume.

I also look forward to trying a writing exercise in which I would rewrite all or part of a novel in my own style, touching up things that I would change and reworking it for an audience of my own choosing.  This will provide an opportunity to practice various techniques after examining how they have been used by the masters.  What better author to attempt to emulate than the great Austen herself?  I don’t expect to equal or surpass her, but if she is the model I am reaching for and starting from, how can I possibly go wrong?