Letter To the Leaves: Bald is Beautiful

My Fellow Contributors,

You will be happy to know that I have completed 50 frames of my novel. However now that I am at this point it is clear that I am not ready to wrap up the first draft quite yet. I don't want to limit the narratives running through my novel so I am going to keep writing frames until I have fully resolved the conflicts I have created.

This week I want to shed some light on the type of person I am in the hopes that you might better appreciate the message I am trying to convey to you, my Fellow Contributors, with this magazine and my blogs. And being that this blog is my soapbox, I wanted to give you a personal story so that the next time you are feeling down, you have something to read that leaves you saying someone is here with me and understands what I am going through.

When I was two  years old I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder called Alopecia Areata Universalis. This disorder changes the body's immune system and causes the victim's hair to fall out all over their body. I don't have hair on my arms, legs, head or face. I don't even have hair in my ears or nose. There is nothing medically wrong with me other than that my hair doesn't grow.

Growing up was interesting to say the least. You can imagine what a challenge facing my classmates in elementary and middle school was with patches of hair missing (It wasn't until 8th grade that I decided to shave my head and go bald. My hair has not grown back since). I can still remember all the questions everyone would ask me:

Are you sick?

Did you know you look like Powder?

Do you have cancer?


It wasn't until I went to college that I discovered the one thing that had made me feel like an outcast, was what made me beautiful, unique...Bermuda.

Being bald is what gives me character.


My loving Mom deserves a lot of credit (and thanks and love) because she took the time to educated my teachers and classmates about my disorder. She supported me and told me that just because someone is different doesn't make them bad or ugly or any less deserving of respect.

And when Nick, Slick,  Jack and I started this magazine it was this ideal that became the re-bar of our foundation. That different is not bad or any less deserving of respect.

Being different is building the HOOVER DAM.

Bering different is landing on the MOON.

Being different is ending SEGREGATION.

Being different is accepting GAY MARRIAGE

Being different is electing a CATHOLIC or BLACK for president.

Being different makes AMERICA great.


Not being able to grow hair on my arms, legs, head and face has made me more aware of the inner uniqueness each of us possess with our voice.

There is a story behind each of us. A story waiting for words to express it.

I dare you to share yours.




As Always

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man






P.S.

If you know anyone with Alopecia Areata or you yourself have it, please email me at

Bermuda.Editor@gmail.com

I would love to answer  your questions and provide support in anyway I can.

For more information on Alopecia Areata please click the following link, NAAF

Brain Control: What Makes Literature so Lovely?

        Today, I’ll be dealing with a field that I’m not terribly familiar with. So, before I go and offend a neurologist or a psychologist, let me apologize in advance for any improper science. Also, my subject happens to wonderfully tie-in with Leena’s previous post, and that couldn’t make me happier – I wish I could say we planned it.

            In my trek across the inter-webs, I recently arrived at an amazing YouTube channel. TedTalks explains complex scientific concepts and theories to the average, 32-second-attention-span layman – the video’s are longer than 32 seconds, and they are well worth learning from (check it out here). In one thought-provoking video, Denis Dutton reads a paper, presenting his “Darwinian theory of beauty.” Basically, the video answers the question: What in our minds makes us think that something is beautiful?

Alongside illustrator Andrew Park’s charming visuals, Dutton’s interesting theory on beauty – the idea that all the things that we consider beautiful can be traced back to something that is evolutionarily beneficial to us – is what inspired my scrambling across yet more of the web in search of additional information on the theory of beauty as a product of our psychology. My editor's mind was determined to find an answer to this question: what is it about a skillfully written piece of literature that moves us?

            Of course, Dutton already answers this question for me quite straightforwardly; simply put, the ‘beauty’ of a Jane Austen novel – to use his example – lies in the reader’s subconscious appreciation of the skills that it took to carefully craft the work. Evolutionarily speaking, it seems that close attention to detail is a trait favored by natural selection (as he points out with the handmade blades), and our subconscious minds – driven by a primal force to survive – find skilled human performance attractive because they ensure a better chance of survival for the individual with the trait. Subconsciously, we either wish to possess the same skill as Jane Austen, or we wish to have her as a part of our ‘tribe’ (canon?) so that we can benefit from her trait. In this case, ‘beauty’ is seen in the things and skills that will raise our chances of survival and reproduction.

            Although, I find it hard to equate the beauty of a novel to the beauty of an idyllic landscape with rolling hills, a source of water, and low-branching trees (which we would consider beautiful because of our human instinct to dwell there). I find that I experience a much different emotion when I read Thoreau’s Walden than when I look at a country view; there is something ‘beautifully’ human about a novel. Why is it that when I read about bean-rows and simple living, I feel a sense of existential satisfaction?

            One answer might be that our brain is rewarding us for following the right path. Research shows that certain emotions act as a feedback system (not necessarily a causation system), affecting behavior based on the conscious observation of hindsight after unconscious emotional responses. “Running Head: How Emotion ShapesBehavior” points out this phenomenon, saying, “why did the human self-regulatory capacity evolve so as to be able to exert direct control over actions and thoughts, but not emotions? The answer, we think is that you cannot control your emotions because the purpose of emotions is to control you.”

            The paper points out that, just as fear causes humans to flee, and anger causes humans to fight, guilt causes man to look back at his actions and change his behavior based on his emotional response. In this case, due to an emotion, man can sometimes actively change his behavior towards what the brain considers to be better behavior. So then, in a way the brain is our master, and emotions are its commands; as our teacher, the brain either corrects inappropriate behavior or applauds beneficial behavior.

            With this in mind, I’d like to pose one last question: could beauty in literature be a command from our master, the brain, telling us that we are on the correct path so that we may continue on the same course? I look forward to your responses.

Art: Magical Mystery or Definable Beauty?

I was listening to a recent Radiolab podcast (March 19th's "The Turing Problem") the other day, and one of the concepts that was discussed on the show really struck me. By the way, if you don't know what Radiolab is, please stop reading this blog right now and go educate yourself. The question that caught my attention was "are humans anything more than machines?" and if they aren't, what are the implications of this fact for humanity?

One of the commentators, author James Gleick, explored this notion by commenting that even if we are machines, this fact doesn't necessarily diminish any art we create, whether it's a beautiful song or a painting.  It doesn't matter if we are machines, as long as we still have a sense of mystery about how we create that art. Addressing the question posed by host, Robert Krulwich, "…if I built you a computer that could create equally beautiful watercolors and equally beautiful musical composition [to those created by human artists], would you feel happier, or diminished?" Gleick answers,

"I think in a way you’re asking is that if you see how the trick is done, does it then vanish?  Does it just become a trick – the trick being a great painting or a great piece of music? I feel the art I love is always art that I don’t fully understand. There’s some mystery there, always. I don’t quite fathom it [...] And when the machine produces music that is as lovely as the music that you and I love, I believe it will still be unfathomable."

I found this answer to be particularly interesting because of the effect it had on me: initially, I wholeheartedly agreed, and upon analysis, it all fell apart.  To reduce "beauty" and the act of classifying "art" to something being simply "mysterious" and "unfathomable" is a notion I find myself a bit weary of; it implies that we shouldn't try to understand something, and if we understand it, we will no longer appreciate it, and it will cease to be art.   

Why do we need to not understand something for it to be beautiful? To understand something is to destroy it?  And of course Gleick covers his bases by saying that true art will ultimately be mysterious no matter what, we won't be able to figure it out.  And I think, again, that's a little ridiculous.  It goes against a lot of things I believe about writing and about other forms of art- mostly that it can be analyzed and understood as a process.   

To argue that true art cannot be understood is to also imply that true art cannot be deliberately created.  I think to say that understanding the concepts behind photography and then taking a photo with those concepts in mind- to say that that would impede an individual from creating a piece of art implies that the only true art is created by ingénues or created spontaneously without knowledge or just with some sort of deep inherent knowledge and without any discussion of the process, and in some ways, this is an extremely anti-intellectual, anti-academic argument. And, as much as academia can sometimes miss the point through over analysis, I think it's an important element of all of our forms of art, of all of our culture, and all of humanity- the analytical element.

If we don't seek to understand art (to figure out why The Great Gatsby seems so perfect, why Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" is so catchy, or why Degas' "Waiting" is so haunting), and if we are content to classify it as mysterious magic only, what else will be content with not looking at more deeply? Culture? Humanity? The universe?  Art is not some inherent ability that is bestowed upon only a select few at birth and that the rest of us can only look on in awe.  Nothing is too beautiful to be understood and through understanding, beauty is not diminished, but reaffirmed.    

Passive Aggression: A Rant

I was supposed to be writing about voice in creative writing today, but I thought I'd divert from my ongoing writing series to bitch about the English language and passive-aggression instead. On the internet. With no sense of irony. Don't thank me - I do this as a service to my lovely readers.

I propose that we oust the Passive-Aggressives around us linguistically. English is not a language with many grammatical cases - far fewer than most languages. We know when we're using past or present or future tense, but we tend to forget that we use cases (The Beatles wrote a handy song as a reference guide - you can use "I, Me, Mine" as a mnemonic for the English cases: nominative (I, he/she), oblique (Me, him/her), and genitive (Mine, his/hers)). So we don't understand or examine our use of cases in English, but I think that it's time we studied up on them and introduced a new one. I nominate the Passive-Aggressive case for your consideration, grammarians and etymologists. And why the fuck not? English speakers are passive-aggressive enough in their language to warrant it.

Let's look at a few examples:

Question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

PA Response: "I don't know, can you?"

Appropriate response from asker: "Of course I'm physically capable of urinating on your carpet, you petty cockholster, but I'd prefer to drop an upper-decker in your tank since you probably won't let me back in your house after either action."

Request: "Will you take out the trash?"

Response: "Sure, in a minute."

PA Response: "Fine, then I'll just do it myself."

Appropriate Response: "Please do - since you couldn't wait four fucking minutes for me to finish a complicated task I'll take a break as soon as you're outside so that I can hammer the door shut behind you and release a pack of trained wolverines to scatter the trash and shred your miserable face."

PA Demand for information: "Does anyone in this company have half a brain?"

Appropriate response: "Clearly we do, or we'd be lying on the floor instead of taking customer service calls, but since you're unclear about what "half a brain" looks and acts like, I'd be happy to come to your house and perform the lobotomy that you're so obviously begging for."

Statement: "I love the Twilight books."

PA Response: "I'm sorry."

Appropriate response: "I'm sorry too - it must be really difficult to go through life as a preachy asshole who judges people by the things they enjoy; I like Twilight and I like NASCAR, but at least I don't spend my spare time trying to leech joy away from strangers and masturbating to the smell of my own, rich, intellectual effluvia."

Statement: "I had a bad day."

Response: "I'm sorry."

PA Response: "What're you sorry for, it's not your fault."

Response: "It's pathetic that even after you've had a shitty day you have the energy to point out archaic semantics problems with a phrase that is widely understood as sympathetic in most contexts to the people who are interested in expressing sympathy to you. I am not, however, sorry for setting your face on fire or fucking your sister, because assholes like you deserve to have bad days."

PA Statement: Anything mumbled while moving away from a conversation.

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

We live in a culture that breeds and feeds passive aggression, it's only fair that we should be forced to give the people around us cues to understand it when we're whining. The Passive Aggressive Case will be the morpheme “-he” added to pronouns by the passive aggressive speaker: “-he” echoes a whine noise, that sound most closely associated with passive aggressive vocalizations an actions, as illustrated below:

Question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

PA Response: "I<b>he</b> don't know, can you?"

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

Request: "Will you take out the trash?"

Response: "Sure, in a minute."

PA Response: "Fine, then I<b>he</b>'ll just do it myself."

Appropriate Response: "You’re a cunt."

PA Demand for information: "Does anyone<b>he</b> in this company have half a brain?"

Appropriate response: "Die in a fire."

Statement: "I love the Twilight books."

PA Response: "I<b>he</b>'m sorry."

Appropriate response: "Asshole."

Statement: "I had a bad day."

Response: "I'm sorry."

PA Response: "What're you<b>he</b> sorry for, it's not your fault."

Response: "I hate you."

PA Statement: “Mumble<b>he</b>.

Appropriate response: "Fuck you."

I think that this single, simple morpheme would do a good job of making our language more elegant and reducing the stress that we feel in everyday life. Imagine the world we could make if pissy bosses, catty in-laws, and snarky classmates could be ignored with impunity when they verbally communicate that they are whining, not speaking; imagine the liberty to aggressive-aggressively rebuke the dipshits who are too mewling to offer direct criticisms or statements of dissatisfaction; imagine a world where, instead of whiny little bitches, we communicate with direct, critical, honest individuals.

Let’s start a petition, let’s get the “-he” into our language, let’s be clear!

          ………Said the writer on the internet.

Okay, maybe our culture isn’t ready for the passive aggressive case yet. But perhaps that day is coming.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some wolverines to train and some people to set on fire before the night is out.

Cheers,

     - Alli

"Your Story Sucks..."--Steve Zelt

“I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.”

-William Faulkner

            There was a point in time where I sincerely wanted to read Faulkner; in fact, I felt as though I was morally obligated to do so. I promptly went to the two-dollar bookstore in Claremont and picked up a copy of As I Lay Dying, which, as so many of my colleagues for whom I have much respect were quick to point out, held the promise of being a life-changing read. However, I couldn’t muster the fortitude to press through the third or fourth page.

Faulkner, to me, is exhausting. He’s – again, to me – as dense as Joyce or Conrad, and I had no desire to finish what I had started. So, I put him down, and to this day he is collecting dust next to my copy of Ulysses and Heart of Darkness.

            Strangely enough, though, Faulkner has made a point to come into my life at random moments. Okay, that sounds a bit romantic, I know, but there have been a couple of times where Faulkner has been, more or less, thrown at me. The first time he made his resurgence in my life was during the summer of 2011. I found myself in an English speaking bookstore in Beijing. At this time, I was on a month-long assignment to teach English Oral Proficiency with a team of six, and we happened to be on one of our tours of the city.

            The streets were humming with the buzzing and rattling of the cicadas, and the streets smelled of stinky tofu and xiao lon bao, mixed with the faintest smelled of the Chinese version of McDonalds (there is no escaping that good ol’ Amurican smell, no matter where you are). As always, the heavy air was close to the temperature of the sun and I just wanted to get off of the street. My friend Eric spotted a bookstore that actually said “bookstore” in English letters, so, being the bibliophiles we are, we entered the bookstore. Of course, we were met with the cool blast of artificial, recycled air, but, more importantly, we were hit with the sweet smell of freshly cut pages – figuratively speaking, of course; people, sadly, don’t have to cut their pages anymore.

            We ventured into the section labeled American Classics, where I was happy to see Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and genuinely confused upon spotting Camus. I picked up a copy of Gatsby to show to Eric, who, surprisingly, had never read it. I was informing him that this (holding up Gatsby with two hands) was the best book ever written. Eric, however, was quick to reject my claim. Without looking, he thrust his hand towards the bookshelf and seized a copy of a Faulkner novel and retrieved what happened to be The Sound and the Fury. To this day I have not read The Sound and the Fury, nor do I see myself doing so in the future; however, I still remember to this day, and more than likely always will, remember what happened next.

            Eric opened to a random page – though, admittedly, he could have turned to the first page; I wasn’t really paying attention to which page he was reading from – and read the passage that serves as this article’s epigraph. I thought it was a bit much, and Eric read from it a bit ostentatiously, but I had to admit it was the work of a word-smith. The word-smith’s work just wasn’t for me. After this brief literary exchange, we made our purchases and then proceeded back into the thickness of the Beijing afternoon.

            After that experience, I sort of forgot about Faulkner. When I think about it now, I sort of forgot about the whole exchange – the layout of the bookstore, the smell of the Beijing air, the oration of The Sound and the Fury. But maybe it’s not fair to say that, though. Perhaps I just put the memory in a box and threw it up in the attic of my mind, so to speak.

            Coming around full circle, Faulkner showed up again, as you might have guessed by now. Yesterday, I was watching The Walking Dead with my girlfriend, and during one of the scenes a character recited the same exact passage from The Sound and the Fury that Eric had. At first, I think I must have wrinkled my nose as some do when they smell something they can’t quite put their finger on. I was physically uncomfortable, knowing that the quotation was sitting somewhere in my memory, but then it all hit me, and instantaneously I was transported back to Beijing. I sort of remembered the clothes I was wearing. I remembered almost getting mugged in a phony art exhibit we were taken to. All of these minute details came flooding back, all because of the damn Faulkner quotation.

            So why is this important or even interesting? I’m sure you don’t care about my personal life, nor should you, really – it’s pretty boring. What is interesting, though, is that literature, even the stuff you hate, the stuff you loathe, is worth something sometimes. Sure, you might hate Chaucer with all of your heart – if you do, I think there’s something seriously wrong with you, but that’s just me – but sometimes we all wake up in a cold sweat, chanting the general prologue, and if we find ourselves thousands of miles away, engrossed in a country completely foreign to us, these words we love (and, perhaps, love to hate) provide us a way back home, if only for a moment.

           

So please, go ahead and share a story like this, if you have one. I’d like to hear your experiences with literary transportation.

Until next time,

J

Letter To The Leaves: Ima Show You How Great I am

My Fellow Contributors,

This is suppose to be the week where I continue my series and speak about Framing. But this morning something happened that has sent me in a tail spin of inspiration and sharing it with you is the only way to right my flight.

I was posting a clip from Youtube today for Shakespeare's birthday (it was an audio recording of Act III of Titus Andronicus) before class when I came across this video. It was the advertisement but instead of automatically clicking 'skip' I decided to continue watching the video as I heard Ali's voice in the background.

As I starting watching more and more, it was the commentary going on in the background that made me realize that Ali was a poet. A smile stretched across my face as I began to appreciate the poetry coming from Ali's mouth.

Here's a few of the lines he said in the video

"Ima show you, how great I am.

Last night I cut the light off in my bedroom, hit the switch, and was in the bed before the room was dark.

Ima show you, how great I am.

Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick, Im so mean I make medicine sick.

Ima show you, how great I am."

I was taken aback by the images he created, but more show by his delivery of his lines. It was the force and bravado that he carried in his voice that gave me goosebumps. 

I think sometimes we get caught up in what kinds of narratives we are going to tell with words or what poetry can tell us about the human condition and we forget the power and inspiration and motivation words can give us. 

Language is unique from others in that it unites us all in a blanket of expression. We can share ideas, fears, loves, pain and strength. We can come together as one and also be torn apart.

Here are some of the lines that Sylvester Stallone said in the video:

"Let me tell you something you already know, the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows, its a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life; but it ain't about how hard you hit, its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward.
That's how winning is done."

Nobody has the right to tell you who or what you can be. Follow your heart and get what you deserve. We all have greatness inside of us, waiting for the opportunity to find a way to make an indelible difference on this Earth and the people who inhabit it. Whether with word, deed or song, we are all bards of humanity, all musicians of bliss, and all doers of good.

I want to end this by sharing a few lines from the video that really spoke to me and I hope do the same to you.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

As Always

Undoubtedly Yours,
Bermuda

Playing with the Medium Part 3: Implicit Goals

Hey all,

What's better than to follow up a blog about weed with a blog about video games?

As implied by the title, today I'll cover implicit goals. What are implicit goals? Well, they're the reason you start a book or a video game. The implicit goal of a book is to read the book, and the implicit goal of a video game is to play the game. However, video games prove to be more complicated in their goals. Often times, when people pick up a controller, the first thing he/she asks is "what am I supposed to do?" This question is not asked when a book is picked up (though some may ask "how am I supposed to read this" or "what should I think of this").

Often times, the implicit goals of video games are not commented upon. People don't stop to ask "why am I shooting all of these people?" Like a literary narrative, the "reader" participates in order to advance in the story. The game Bioshock, however, plays with the concept of this unquestioning advancement though the story. A first person shooter, the game opens with the main character (you) standing in a broken down elevator with tons of demented mutated enemies outside. A voice comes on the intercom and asks "would you kindly step out of the elevator?" So you do, and start blasting baddies when you walk out because, well, that's the point of the game. Of course, in real life, I doubt anyone would step outside of the safety of that elevator. About midway through the game, it is revealed that the "you" have been hypnotized prior to the games beginning and the phrase "would you kindly" is the trigger to make "you" submit to orders.

This may come off as a bit heavy handed and a bit of a cheesy twist; however, I find it to be quite a subtle trick. It is very reader response like, insofar as it questions the interplay between reader and text (in particular, it asks "what assumptions did you bring to genre?"). The player is asked to fill that roll of being controlled without actually having control taken from them, just as the reader of a text fills in the gaps of a text when he/she reads it. Whether it be a video game or a text, the "reader" is always subject to the whim of the "writer." But, very good writers, through knowledge of genre and audience, can make their way into the readers' heads, and make them a part of the narrative without them ever knowing.

I'm interested to know if you've experienced any books that have played with your assumptions, and purposely misdirected you by making you a part of the experience. I'm sure there are many out there that I haven't read- Let me know.

'Till next time,

-Rainamoinen

Cannabis Culture: Writing on 4/20

Hey folks,

I don’t think there is a better day than today, the 20^th of April, to talk about cannabis, its influence on literature, and the current debate about the legalization of drugs that is going on within the Americas and around the world. [If you don’t already know about the origins of “420” and the growing use of the term to describe the subculture of medicinal and recreational marijuana users, then read about it all here: 420 explained.]

 I’ve always found cannabis prohibition to be a bit confusing; how is it that a simple plant that would thrive across the world without government interference has developed such a negative stigma in society – especially when the plant is spoken of so highly by those who choose to partake? It simply doesn’t make sense in a free society where alcohol is accepted as a controlled substance and the drug of choice to countless addicts to so readily dismiss the use of a potentially healthier drug. I could probably spend the rest of this blog post pointing out the benefits of cannabis and the many ways that it beats alcohol when it comes to fulfilling society’s need for recreation and escape, but I’d only be wasting my breath; the argument has been made (read one rational and informed comparison here: Alcohol vs. Marijuana), and it has been – for the most part – ignored by prohibitionists. The fight for legalization has been fought for quite some time now.

***********************************************************

“I smoke marijuana every chance I get” – Allen Ginsberg in “America" 1956.

***********************************************************

            Allen Ginsberg was a very open individual – from his homosexuality to his cannabis use. There is appropriate suspicion that many of his poems and works were written under the influence of marijuana. In his essay, “The Great Marijuana Hoax: First Manifesto to End the Bringdown,” an interesting read which points out the ways the federal government gave bud a bad name, Ginsberg explains his views on cannabis, saying that “marijuana is a metaphysical herb less habituating than tobacco, whose smoke is no more disruptive than Insight.” This sentiment didn’t go against the views of many of Ginsberg’s fans and followers, men and women who often smoked pot with Ginsburg at his public readings. Other beat poets partook too – plentifully. William Burroughs, a close friend of Ginsberg’s, was known to be a cannabis user, and often wrote while stoned. Naked Lunch, Burrough’s most notable work, is said to have been written as short episodes under the influence of marijuana – among other drugs – and later revised and arranged with the help of his friends Ginsberg and Kerouac.

           

Now, almost 70 years after the beats, many countries in South America are pushing for a widespread legalization of not only cannabis, but nearly all narcotics, arguing that America’s drug war is causing more harm and trouble than it is worth. Still, stuck in its ways, America stands against an overwhelming amount of support for the legalization and fights on, spending billions enforcing its laws, and bringing violence to its borders. To the support for legalization, Obama plainly says, “legalization is not the answer.” (check this article)

So, finally, here’s my question: World of the internet and academia, what do you think about 420 and legalization? And, as an interesting side question, is there anything wrong with writing under the influence?

Trapped in 140 Characters: Are Twitter and Facebook Ruining our Capacity for Argument?

I had a disconcerting moment earlier this week with Brett Easton Ellis.  I know I keep bringing him up in my blogs, and I swear it's not in the hopes that he will one day read one of these and say something to me on Twitter…really.  Anyway, Ellis twat (I mean tweeted, sorry) the following: "Girls [referring to the new HBO show of that title]: post-Empire Sex and the City. The very very talented Lena Dunham is post-Empire Candace Bushnell but am I too Empire and feeling meh?"

I've already been intrigued by this notion of Girls being a younger, more realistic take on the sometimes-glamour of Sex and the City, and I've recently become a quick fan of Lena Dunham (as I mentioned in last week's blog) after viewing her film Tiny Furniture.  So, needless to say, Ellis' tweet, the day after the debut of Dunham's show, caught my attention.  I was somewhat amused by his twittentary (that kind of sounds like a disease, but it's supposed to be "twitter" and "commentary" married) and a bit ecstatic to see someone like Ellis (someone so, to use his own analysis, "Empire") commenting on someone like Dunham (someone so not Empire, at least not yet).  My initial inclination was to re-tweet to let more of the world know about the "very very talented" Dunham (cuz, ya know, she needs help from me). 

But I hesitated. I realized, plaguingly, that, though I'm appreciative and entertained by Ellis's words, I don't exactly agree with them.  What's that? A variation of ideas? Yes, exactly.  I didn't retweet because, damn it, I don't feel the same way as Ellis.  I don't feel in anyway that I am too Empire to enjoy Girls.  In fact the only complaint I have about the show is that it feels just a tad commercial and contrived (or maybe just in possession of a much bigger budget- it's hard to say at this early stage) in comparison to her movie.  So, even though I was amused by Ellis's tweet, I felt that to retweet was to fully agree, with no room for further commentary. 

And therein lies the problem with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.  They are set up to encourage passive compliance. And it is so frustrating to realize that a dialogue is really not feasible.  I could have done that whole "@" thing.  But what I really wanted to do was quote what Ellis said, show my appreciation for it having made me laugh, my excitement at his seeming knowledge of Dunham, and add my feelings about the show.  And yes, I could have essentially done that with the "@" thing.  But then there's the problem of 140 characters.  And I suddenly realized that the academic part of my heart- the part that will forever want to quote, analyze, and respond- will never be satisfied with Twitter. 

Nor will my academic heart ever be okay with just how accustomed to the infamous "Like" button I've become.  How many times have you posted something on Facebook, an earnest question perhaps, only to receive a slew of "Likes" and no commentary?  Well, thank you, I'm glad you liked my question; now answer it please! But no one really is anymore, and if they are, they're really pissed off (but more on that in a minute).  I fear that we may be in the process of losing our ability to argue and reason.  If more and more of our social interactions are paired down to simple "like"s and retweetings, doesn't it stand to reason that we are not keeping our reasoning muscles in shape? Crafting an argument is all about contemplating someone else's words and responding.  Compliance and repetition are not responses.

All of this is not to say that nobody is arguing online.  I think we all know that's not the case.  Responses are to be found, particularly in the lands of Facebook and YouTube.  But the arguments that you'll find here- polarized, uninformed, offensive- only confirm the contention that rhetorically constructed communication is a skill not highly valued in our current culture.  Possibly because of the ease and safety with which we can speak our minds to one another online, we find outpourings of anger and nastiness in most any internet comment sections.  And it's unseemly.  As much as we each feel at ease when sharing our unformed arguments online, what I think few people give a damn about are the countless individuals who have to read the vile shit we say to one another just because our faces are concealed.

So my main question is, if we continue to restrict our thoughts to 140 characters (which would have no inherent harm if we didn’t do it so damn much), press "Like" instead of share our thoughts, and then, on the rare occasion that we do say something about something, we only demean and insult one another, while embarrassing ourselves, we will certainly damage our communication skills.  I hope you will at least consider posting a blog every once in awhile rather than a tweet, a comment rather than a "Like," and refraining altogether from taking part in the mindless arguments that take place on YouTube. You only live once; don't waste it talking to the mentally handicapped online.    Now, excuse me while I go post a link to this on Twitter.

Until next time,

Leena  

Building Your Writing Toolkit: Part 6.3 – Bits and Characters, the Tool for the Job

So now I’m hoping that you have some idea of what a character is, how it functions, the round/flat static/dynamic spectrum, and (here’s what really matters) at least a modicum of knowledge about how to make a character do what you want it to do. This week I’m giving you some tips on how to keep your character from getting away from you, and how to make sure that they’re projecting the personality that you want them to project.

A fictional character can get the better of its author in a number of ways, but the most common way that characters have of escaping your control is by turning into somebody you know, or worse yet by turning into you.

Hemingway could get away with writing characters who were basically Hemingway because, in spite of his tremendous unpopularity with feminist audiences (and probably the root cause of that dislike), Hemingway was a stupendous badass with giant brass balls who killed large animals and fascists, and who slept with lots and lots of beautiful women. The same is true of Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond books based on exploits he had when he was actually working as a secret agent. These men were not your average author and stories about characters who were thinly-veiled versions of the author were still interesting to read because the authors were interesting characters themselves.

John Irving, though, is not very interesting. He’s a writer who has been a writer for a long time; the narrators of his stories tend to be writers and many of them are named John – they also mostly live in New England, encounter bears, have strange experiences at hotels and are fixated with wrestling in one way or another. John Irving’s Johns are boring, so he does the smart thing and makes the book about the interesting characters (Owen Meany, Fran, State of Maine, Freud, Jenny Fields, Roberta Muldoon) who surround the various faceless, clever-but-boring Johns who tell the stories in his books. You, however, are probably not as smart as John Irving and if you are you still probably haven’t written as many books as he has, so you’re not at a point where you can write yourself into your novel.

The problem with writing yourself as a fictional protagonist is that you’ll find the character slowly becoming the coolest, most awesome, smartest, prettiest, most fashionable version of you, which I’m sure will be wonderfully masturbatory for you to read, but which will bore the tits off of anyone who is looking at your book going “why the hell is the main character here supposed to be so awesome – he hasn’t even done anything.” If anyone who reads your fiction says this to you, congratulations, you have written a Mary Sue, and if you’re not outright insulted just by reading that please make note that the term was spawned by Star Trek FanFic and see why what you’ve done is terrible by clicking that link and realizing that you’re an asshole.

Mary Sues are the worst mistakes that inexperienced (and some experienced) authors make, and they almost uniformly piss off audiences. A Mary Sue is a character that is good at everything without working for it, amuses or fascinates other characters even though the Mary Sue is dull, they’re given tremendous license by the author and the other characters to throw hissy fits and participate in damaging behaviors, they have few flaws and the flaws that they have are minor and endearing, they break all the rules of the universe the author has written them into, and they usually end up getting everything that they want. There are actually a lot of things that contribute to the Mary Sue-ness of a character and the reason a lot of writers accidentally create Mary Sues is because they want an everyman character, someone the audience can relate to who isn’t an outstanding person but manages to do outstanding things – it’s a fantasy that many readers will be drawn to at a superficial level.

If all of that sounds appealing for your character, consider that the most famous Mary Sue character in the fiction world right now is Bella Swan of the Twilight Series: she’s clumsy, suicidal and self destructive, boring as sin, comes from a broken home, and for all of that manages to fascinate the like omygod totally hottest immortal male lead, be the center of a love triangle, have the first human-vampire hybrid child that anyone knows of, and live happily ever after as a bloodsucker who doesn’t take human life. Mary. Fucking. Sue.

But enough ranting. So why shouldn’t you make a character based on other people you know? After all, just last week I was telling you to observe the people in your life and write their traits into characters, so wouldn’t a whole character based on a real person be awesome? No.

Let’s pretend that you’re writing an abusive boyfriend into a story. You’ve decided that he’s a younger version of the German professor you had sophomore year, the one who made a girl cry in class and gave you a D and called students morons on a regular basis. Mr. Deutschmeister sounds like a real asshole, so he’s the perfect basis for an asshole character – except for one thing: you already hate Mr. Deutschmeister. Because you already hate this prick you’re less likely to spend any time convincing your audience to hate this prick. Every time you read what you’ve written you can hear his snarky voice boring into your skull and belittling you, but your audience can’t. Every time your character smacks his girlfriend you’re seeing Mr. Deutschmeister’s hands and frame and snarling face with the perfect clarity of rage-fueled memory – a memory your audience doesn’t share and can’t relate to. But Mr. Deutschmeister is a good start – you know what kinds of behaviors he had that pissed you off, you know the kinds of things he would say to hurt students, so all you have to do is have your character do and say those kinds of things in the character’s body and voice, not Mr. Deutschmeister’s.

Alternately, let's say you're writing a female lead or love interest, and let's say that you think your girlfriend is the perfect platform for a heroine. That's great, you adore your girlfriend and I'm sure you're very happy. We don't know your girlfriend and we probably won't see her strengths the way that you do because you know her as a whole person with flaws and secrets and passion and humanity while we only know those traits that you chose to share with us - which will probably not include the most interesting or damaging things about your girlfriend (because if you put those in a book she has every right to kick you in the nuts) that would make us sympathetic to or admiring of a character. But you know that your girlfriend has a great sense of humor, tremendous integrity and a gentleness that you would like to build into your character, so start with a fresh character and allow those qualities to infuse her without overwhelming her: if your character has a unique voice that is separate from the people you know it will be stronger and more independent as a character than it would be as an homage to a person.

This gets us to the problem of voice – how the hell do you get a character to sound like someone who isn’t you and who isn’t someone you know? That’s both very hard and very easy – you get to know them as an independent entity, in exactly the same way your audience will eventually get to know them. This works well if you have a plot planned – you meet your character as you drop them into this plot and watch them jump through the hoops that you’ve set up, you let them solve problems the way that THEY want to solve them, not the way that you do, and you let them evolve to meet challenges. A good character can become powerful enough to completely derail your plot, which can be good or bad – if they take the plot in a direction that undermines what you’re trying to write then you’ll probably want to revise the character a little, but if they hijack the plot into a new and better direction than the one you had planned you’ll probably see the value of changing a plot to better serve your character.

Characters are hard to write, and the best ones are like siblings – they can irritate the living shit out of you, but they’re there when you need them and they’ll do what they can to help you out. Try as hard as you can to keep your characters independent and not products of narcissism, blind admiration, or revenge and they’ll serve you well.

So to review:
Don’t make a character out of you.
Don’t make a character (entirely) out of someone you know.
Keep your characters relatable but realistic – they have to have our sympathy but they can’t be perfect.
Let your character become its own entity.
Don’t let your character overwhelm your plot.
Keep your characters as round or flat, or as static or dynamic as you intend them to be.
Characterize with what you’ve learned from the world around you.
Practice characters all the time by building up a stable of bit characters.
Have fun getting to know these little strangers.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next week with a new topic – voice as stain, the indelibility of a good literary voice.

If you get bored between now and then, check out these cool Mary Sue character tests and see how your characters stack up (please remember that the Mary Sue concept started in FanFic so some of the questions will seem strange) – though feel free to disregard the results; a personality test isn’t necessarily any more valid for your character than another one would be for you.

OnlyFiction Mary Sue Test
KatFeete Mary Sue Test
Ponylandpress Mary Sue Test

Anyway, cheers until next week,
-Alli

"I Sound My Barbaric Yawp..." In Free Verse, of Course

Folks,

This week I read a lot of Civil War poetry. As some of you might know, this is kind of my area of expertise – I’m a big fan of Whitman, Melville, Crane, and all those guys (and gals, of course; I love me some Emily). The reason I bring this up, though, is that I’ve spent most of my time studying the poetry of the latter half of the Civil War – more specifically, post-Whitman free verse; however, much of the poetry I’ve studied over the last week was the poetry from the first half of the Civil War. This was a switch for me, and the first thing I noticed was the use of form.

Poetry from the first half of the Civil War often appears to be written in what could be called “borrowed verse.” Early American poetry and the poetry leading up to 1865 was almost exclusively written in sonnet form or other forms of traditional British verse. Many of the canonized poets such as Longfellow, Bryant, and Emerson employed British verse into their poems – the subject matter of the poetry, in addition to the mirroring of the form, sort of echoes the thoughts and sentiments of the British romantics. The transcendentalists are especially guilty of this. In this regard, it appears that the American poets of the early 19^th century were finding their poetic sea legs, so to speak; the poetic tradition had not yet taken a uniquely American turn in terms of form.  

Whitman, however, changes things on many levels. Whitman may not have been the first to ever experiment with free verse, but I think it is safe to say that he is definitely the front runner, if not the forefather. Whitman’s revolution in poetic form begs the question of what exactly is the role of the form of free verse. Prior to the breakthrough in this poetic form, traditional forms were used for specific purposes: epithalamion was used for weddings; sonnets were used to express love; villanelles conjure up musical festivity, and so on. Free verse opens up a wide variety of possibilities, in that the tradition is not grounded in formal purpose, per se.

Since 1865, we have seen free verse grow into a widely popular mode, if not the mode, of American expressivism in the contemporary poetic tradition. Free verse is a playground of sorts, I suppose, in that there are no latent fetters in the form. An interesting question arises out of this freedom. What is the purpose of the form of free verse? If traditional poetic forms are dictated by occasion or thematic intent, then what are these things for free verse? Let me know your thoughts. If free verse seems appropriate for the form of your response, please use this form. If you want to leave a comment in Rhyme Royal, though, that’d be awesome.   

Until Next Time,

J    

A Novel Idea Part 4: iFrame

My Fellow Contributors,


I want to take a slight detour before I get into the structure of a frame.

This past Saturday was our one year anniversary. There are a lot of things that have changed over the course of this year. We have added more people to the original four. We have a blog, an online store, and a publishing company. We're on Facebook and Twitter. We've hosted open mics, book launches and late-night meetings fueled by caffeine.

But through all of these changes, our commitment to bringing you the best pieces of Individual Expression has not wavered. We are still a collective of human thought and insight and continue to strive to bring you the best product possible.

We seek to continue our goal of bringing people together in multiple mediums so that they may have meaningful conversations.

I want to end this by thanking all of the people that have made this possible, and for all of you who continue to read and share this magazine.

Thank you.

Now, onto Framing.

So below I have posted a photograph of what a page from my notebook looks like.



There are three key features that I would like to point out and each is marked by a different color and shape. Each color coded section refers to a different question I ask myself before I start any frame.

Who are the characters involved? What is the plot/conflict? What is the narrative voice?

By asking these questions I give myself a clear path to follow and it makes getting a few lines onto the page a little easier.

The first section, "Characters Involved" circled in green, helps not only to get you thinking about the who of a frame but allows you to group related frames quickly and easily.

The last section, "Narrative Voice" highlighted by a yellow rectangle, is important because it makes it explicit how the narrative is going to be told. In my frames I have used several narrative voices. For example Jacob's narrative is told in 1st person while Mark's narrative is told in 3rd person witness. I have also tried experimenting with narrative voices.

A new voice I am experimenting with is for William's narrative. I call it 1st person witness testimony (I'm sure there's some fancy literary term for this, but I'm a Law Student so please humor me). In this narrative voice there is no dialogue. Everything we get is from one person's mouth and by that fact hearsay. But what will make this narrative voice work will be the frames before this one. If I put frames before this that make William seem sympathetic then you will be more inclined to believe what he says. If I have a frame before this one where he is cheating on his wife, then you are less inclined to believe him.

The most important part of the Frame outline by far is the Plot/Conflict section underlined in red. This section helps me avoid writing meaningless details in the body of the frame which only serve to distract from the dialogue and narrative. This section also helps me to keep the pacing of the frame quick.

One additional benefit of writing out the Plot/Conflict before hand is that if I have to step away from my writing I already have a summary or rather an abstract of what the frame is going to be doing so I can quickly pick it up.

It' s important though to remember that just because you have outlined it in your Plot/Conflict section doesn't mean you have to follow it strictly in the body of the frame. The Plot/Conflict section is more of a guide to follow and is meant to help you. It should not be treated as though written in stone.

Remember, inconsistencies in your Frames are fine, and I would argue that they are preferable. These nuances and slight variations allow you to explore multiple ripples in the time/space fabric of your ever evolving world. These wrinkles will be ironed out in subsequent drafts so don't slow down your writing by trying to solve everything now.

Well, that's it for this week. Next time I am going to be finishing the second part of Framing and discussing how your Frames should work within their respective local narrative as well as the over-arching narrative.

Until next time,

As always

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man

What is it about Language That Makes Us Laugh?

We often laugh at a good joke or a well-crafted comedy without considering why we are laughing in the first place; in analyzing the comedy, our minds do the work for us, and we react according to the outcome of whatever process is going on in our heads. If the comedic occurrence happens to align with whatever secret guidelines of ‘funny’ have been hard-wired into our human minds, then we almost involuntarily let out a repetitive gasping for breath that we have been conditioned in this culture to call ‘laughter’. Surprisingly, this phenomenon, which also includes the baring of teeth, does not incite aggression in others around us – as it surely would in most other mammals – but creates an atmosphere which makes us feel comfortable with them. I don’t know about you, but in my opinion this whole humor thing is just plain weird.

With a joke, we hear the punch-line, and nearly instantly, according to a set of unwritten critical guidelines, we judge whether or not the thing was funny, and we involuntarily act accordingly. What exactly is it in a joke that causes our minds to be amused to the point of an uncontrollable fit?

I guess I’m so interested in all this because I recently came across Isaac Asimov’s “Jokester,” an odd short story about the origin and nature of jokes (online here), and it really got me thinking about how humans have evolved to understand the secret language of ‘funny’.

I’m no professional psychologist, and the following really is all just slightly-informed speculation, but I’d like to try to put my finger on ‘funny’. Here’s one of the best jokes I’ve picked up:

“A woman and her three young daughters were sitting around the dinner table when the first daughter turned to her mother and asked, ‘Mom, why did you name me Rose?’

‘Well, my dear, when you were born a rose petal floated in through the window and landed on your head, so we named you Rose.’

The second daughter chimed in. ‘Why did you name me Butterfly?’

‘Well, my dear, when you were born a butterfly flew in through the window and landed on your head, so we named you Butterfly.’

Finally, the third daughter spoke up. ‘AHRJAGUFAAEE’

‘Keep it down, Cinderblock.’”

I’ve always thought this was hilarious, but why? When I look closely, I see that this joke, beneath all its framing, is really just a brain puzzle – a rat’s maze for your mind as Asimov might say.

The joke can be split into two parts, with the first part being the steady and predictable flow of information, and the second part being the sudden shift in the sequence of information that happens to still perfectly follow along logically. In this joke's case, the first part would be the repetitive questions regarding the origins of the daughters' names and the mother's repetitive responses, and the second part would be the unexpected break in the pattern of the story when the mother reveals the third daughter's name -- which still follows the mother's presumed process of naming.

When the second part of the joke reveals itself as something that does not follow the pattern of the first part, the mind instantly goes to work and quickly checks to see if the new unexpected piece of information logically fits with the rest of the information in the first part. Plugging the second part through the sequence, the mind finds that it works in an unexpected way and feels accomplished at its own understanding. As the mind practices its logic like this, the ‘funny’ reveals itself to us as a reward – perhaps an incentive to strengthen the mind with more exercise. Unconsciously, our minds amuse themselves with this little logic exercise, and we can’t help but laugh.

I know I've only scratched the surface of the nature of laughter, and I'm no where close to putting my finger on 'funny', but I feel like I'm off to a good start, and I'm excited to read into the subject some more. If you know of any good sources, please feel free to let me know.

Got any good jokes to analyze?

"I don't like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...it's just about drug addicts in the desert"

How many times have you heard someone complain about a movie, show, or book with the reasoning of "it has no plot"? Examples of movies that have elicited such reactions tend to be either dialogue or reflection heavy, such as Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, Lost in Translation, Sideways, The Shining, etc. I am always inclined to ask one of two questions: "what exactly do you think plot means?" or "so?"

Let's first address the definition. A plot literally is a storyline, and, so, I assume that people who throw around this "no plot" reasoning mean more precisely that not much happens in the given story. This, while initially seeming reasonable, is the most egregious belief of all. People who say this- that a given story has "no plot" and that "not much happens"- likely have little to no conception of symbolism. Returning to an example above- The Shining- you'll clearly see what I mean by this. So it's literally nothing happening for Jack to sit at the bar and stare at the liquor cabinet. But, symbolically, what is happening in that scene? He's letting the alcohol back into his life; he is becoming an alcoholic again. Did we really need to get Michael Bay in there to blow up the bar in order for everyone to get that this is a dire situation?

For another example, take a show like Mad Men. What literally happens most of the time on that show? Not too much. The characters talk, and they often talk about work-related issues. However, over time, viewers watch this show week after week because they are invested in the characters' lives and what is revealed about them as time goes on. In other words, we become invested in characters for the same reason we become invested in real people: because we care about them. Would you say that you care about your friends because of the things they do? No, and you wouldn't say that about Peggy Olsen either. We have come to love her because we have spent so much time listening to her talk and watching her slowly (and realistically, I might add) grow as a person.

Okay, so the other way I sometimes respond…the reason I choose to respond with a "so?" or a "what do you mean?" is largely based on my emotions at the time of the conversation. If I kind of feel like engaging the person who would rather be watching Transformers than Amelie, I may ask him to define his terms. However, if I'm annoyed or generally viewing humanity as a lost cause, my inquiry will likely be monosyllabic. Moving on…

I recently watched another film that I'm sure many have decried has "no plot." In anticipation of the upcoming HBO show, Girls, I chose to watch Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture. First of all, let me say that this is a fantastic movie with a challenging and, at times, devastatingly honest portrayal of a less-than-confident young woman. There are many seemingly unmomentious scenes, such as one that depicts Lena's character, Aura, standing in front of a row of white cabinets, inquiring to her mother across the apartment "where are the light bulbs?" in response her mother calls, "in the white cabinet." To the uncareful, uncaring eye, this scene is nothing more than an out-of-shape girl standing in her pajamas, looking a bit obscene and pathetic, staring at a wall in a house. But anyone who knows anything about symbolism and has the briefest of notions of what this movie is about could tell you much more about what this scene conveys. Aura is lost, and no one is helping her find the light.

The truth is that movies like these have a higher purpose than just conveying action. Creators of such stories understand that there is, after all, more to life than action and that the most seemingly still and quiet moments of our lives may be the ones where the most significant change is taking place. And they know that "plot" can mean much more than just action.

Building Your Writing Toolkit: Part 6.2 – Bits and Characters, the Tool for the Job

Last weekend I was talking to my friend Gene when he made an interesting observation. “By and large,” he said, “Stephen King movies suck – they shouldn’t suck, because they’ve usually got a great story, but I think the problem is that he writes people so well; actors in a two hour movie just can’t live up to the people he makes in a seven hundred page book.”

I agree with Gene’s assessment of the situation (it should be clear by now that my appreciation of Stephen King novels borders on obsessive) for two reasons: one, because King is the king of characterization, and two, because people who decide to make King novels into movies generally wouldn’t know what characterization was if it bit them in the face.

Characterization is, as the word should imply, turning something into a character or adding character to something. This is important because if you don’t work at characterizing your characters nobody gives a shit about them.

There are four categories typically used to define characters: flat, round, static, and dynamic. A flat character is one who is two-dimensional, has little to distinguish him, and who has little depth. A round character is one who is interesting and complicated, who has strengths and weaknesses; she isn’t “just” anything – she’s bright but antisocial, friendly but with an evil streak, cruel but loves her family – she has depth. A static character is one who doesn’t change or develop; she is the same character at the end of the story as she was at the beginning, with no highs or lows and very little learned from her experience. A dynamic character is one who changes (for good or bad) and who learns from the experiences he has in the course of the story.

Characters may be flat and static (the dullest and most remedial part of this spectrum – think Bella Swan from Twilight), round and static (interesting but infrequent, Daniel Day Louis character from There Will be Blood is an example of this, as is John McClain from Die Hard), flat and dynamic (most representations of Tarzan and Superman fit this – the generic action hero/cowboy character who is essentially faceless but who makes an important change at some point), or round and dynamic (generally these are the most fun characters to read or watch – Huckleberry Finn is round and dynamic, as are Dexter from the TV series Dexter, Darth Vader, Elizabeth Bennet, and Bilbo Baggins).

The Harry Potter series has good examples in almost every one of these groupings. Harry himself is round and dynamic: he’s not just a perfect, flat little hero – he can be a whiny little bitch, he lies an awful lot, gets into loads of trouble and makes a few huge mistakes – and he’s dynamic in that he learns from his mistakes, is capable of seeing the bad in himself as well as the good, and is capable of changing roles (to the point that he accepts that he may be more of a sacrifice than he is a hero). Draco is round but static: he’s deliciously nasty and lets everybody know it, he struggles with the task of killing Dumbledore, he loves his family even though he is a spoiled brat, and is scared of Voldemort even though he’s supposed to be a death eater – but for all of that he doesn’t really change or grow in the novels; in the end (even in the epilogue) he’s just a sneering aristocrat who doesn’t like Harry – the same thing he’s been all along. Sirius is a pretty good example but not perfect fit for flat and dynamic: we’re told that he used to be a Marauder and that he was really cool when he was a student, but that’s about all that there is to his character except that we see the transformation he takes from ravening criminal to warm (but childish) guardian. Voldemort is, sadly, both flat and static, which makes him a substantially less interesting villain than he could be; he is and always has been evil (even the childhood scenes Rowling tosses in suggest that he tormented other children simply because he could), there’s no depth to him, he never experiences internal conflict, and he fails to interact meaningfully with any character around him – he’s just a monolithic Bad Guy who you never have a chance to identify with as you read the books.

This is not to say that all of the characters in everything you write need to be round and dynamic – you shouldn’t spend as much time characterizing your main character’s distant cousin who shows up for on scene as you should spend on your character – but it’s good to give some depth to most of the characters who show up on your pages. Dickens was brilliant at this – his characterization was sometimes as simple as coming up with a name that perfectly described a character, for instance the anti-change Barnacle family in Little Dorrit, Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times, who drowns in a well, or Sir Dedlock, a staunch and stupid conservative aristocrat in the legal novel Bleak House.

Where your characters fall in the spectrum of flat/round and static/dynamic is up to you, but you need to be aware of what you’re trying to create – if you’re looking to make a really compelling antagonist you’re going to be better off with a round character than a flat one because that will provide a challenging foil for your protagonist. Do you want to write a goofy, fun story, something along the lines of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Then static versus dynamic doesn’t matter as much in a main character, but it might be important to have dynamic elements to a supporting character – Ferris doesn’t change in the movie because he’s supposed to be perfect, but Cameron gets to stand up for himself at the end and Jeanne turns into less of a bitch – these supporting character transformations make the main character look better than if Ferris had undergone some profound change because he’s supposed to be a silly, flawless, inspiring hero.

Plotting your story before you start will help you make your decisions about what kinds of characters you want, but we’re not at plotting yet so we’re going to just assume you’ve got something of a story planned already.

Okay, so let’s say you know that you want a round, dynamic female protagonist with a flat, static boyfriend, a round, static female friend, a round, static evil stepfather, and a round, dynamic potential love interest. That’s fantastic. How do you make that happen?

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again – writers can’t be cloistered. You have to go out into the world. Think about the characteristics of people you like and admire. Your mom is stubborn but gentle, your brother is loyal, your father is kind, your friends are funny, your professors are intelligent, your TAs are zealous – no matter who you’re thinking of you can find something admirable about that person. Now describe it. How would you explain to your friends that your brother is loyal? What things has he done in the past that express his loyalty. Did he protect you from a bully once? Did he stick with a friend through an addiction? Does he get angry when someone makes fun of his friends? What makes it obvious that your brother is loyal? Now think of another admirable person – your zealous TA for this example. Your TA shows up early every damn day. She’s talked about the courseload she’s taking in addition to teaching your class. You heard her talk about the job she works on the side, and about the really long commute she has to get to school then back to work every day. But in spite of that you can tell she really loves teaching biology. A professor wandered in during your lab and while everyone was working she was talking to the professor about her thesis – you didn’t even realize that there was a whole community of people dedicated to studying the movement of water in plants, but this woman is one of them and she talks about stalks like they’re holy fire.

When you really think about the people you know and what you like about them (or what you hate about them) you begin to understand how characterization works. How would you describe your roomate’s sense of humor to your cousin from out of state? You’d tell a story, and you’d start that story with a little background: “you have to understand,” you’d say “Jim grew up on a farm fifty miles east of the middle of nowhere. He had more siblings than their family had cows, and…” and from there you’d tell your cousin something exceptionally funny that Jim had done, adding in some of his more common mannerisms for color, and by the time Jim came home your cousin would be itching to meet this funny guy from the farm who keeps her cousin laughing. The way you describe the people you like (or hate) to the people you want to like (or hate) them is the exact same way you need to write your characters, only more so.

The details that you don’t share person-to-person when you’re describing a friend or nemesis are the kinds of things you do need to include in your story. What does your protagonist walk like? How do they take their coffee? Where were they born? What do they think of hairstylists? (That one may sound stupid, but if you’re writing an independent female lead then telling your audience that “her hair is a usually neglected shoulder-length curtain, combed more often by fingers than a brush and mottled by several dyeings of the do-it-yourself variety to an odd, varied brown” does a lot more to characterize her than just telling them that “her hair is brown and wavy, curling softly to her shoulders.”)

So work on details, write down details, but most of all go out into the world and think about the people around you. When you see someone make an interesting gesture, try to figure out why. If the guy in class next to you has green hair then you should make up a story for how it got that way – what the first color he dyed his hair was and the progression he went through. If the teller at the bank keeps her nails short, question it in your head – does she bite them because of an anxiety disorder, or did she once scratch her eye as a little girl and learn a lesson from the pain? Look at the people around you and see what they say about themselves without saying anything – what comes off as practical in clothing versus what comes off as douchey? What do the colors that someone’s wearing suggest to you about their personality? Once you’ve thought about these things in the real world it will be much easier for you to write your characters with some character.

That’s all for this week because I’ve run long once again. I’ll be back next week with some things NOT to do to your characters, as well as some tips about making your characters speak in their own voice.

Until then, Cheers. Go write something.

- Alli

Dolce et Decorum Est: An Examination of the Physical and Poetic Landscape of War Poetry from World War I to The War on Terror

I've been reading a lot of war poetry lately -- well, I guess it's more accurate to say I've been getting ready to read a lot of war poetry lately. In my graduate poetry class, we're discussing poetry of witness or poetry of trauma. This is an interesting course, and we've read some pretty outstanding texts thus far. One of the texts, Bomber County by Daniel Swift, brought up something that has been making me think about modern war poetry as well as poetry in general.

In Bomber County, Swift repeatedly mentions that many poets and critics -- these people range from Dylan Thomas to Wilfred Owen -- claimed that there was no place in World War II for poets. At first, I was skeptical, and I thought that they were just blinded by their proximity to trauma; however, as Swift claims in the first chapter -- the chapter I focused on -- World War II differed greatly from World War I. This, of course, seems like an obvious thing to say, but the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated than one might initially think.

Swift goes into great detail about the differences in landscape, both physical and poetic, between both World Wars. The methodology behind the systematization of battle tactics dictated the ways in which soldiers fought, but these differences also extended past the battlefield. In the Great War, trench warfare was the main mode of combat. This horrendous strategy spawned infamous literary gems we all know. Dolce et Decorum Est might be the most famous poem inspired by the atrocities of World War I. Poetry aside, we all know about the glamour and valor of dying in the mud on the Western Front -- an action which is said to be truly brave and beautiful. The Western Front, it seems, essentially created the poetry of World War I.

There was nothing like this in World War II, though. Trench warfare was usurped by bombings and U-Boat battles. The Luftwaffe was expelling thousands of pounds of bombs onto London daily. Airmen fought, killed, and died over foreign territory, and their bodies littered the middle European countryside. The landscape changed.

Technology, to a large extent, changed the makeup of warfare, and, thus, changed everything about the way nations approached winning the wars. The battlefield was no longer like the one from World War II. Civilians became more and more involved in the war – people were indirectly slaughtered as a result of night after night after night of carpet bombing over the city of London. This, in effect, changed the way that humans – not just soldiers; not just civilians – perceived war. This change in perception changed the way that people approached writing poetry about war.

This is interesting, in that World War II’s physical landscape – a landscape that included ground forces, air forces, and civilians – dragged new people into the poetic conversation. Prior to World War II, the war poetry produced in Britain was derivative of mainly soldiers; however, when civilians were introduced, first-hand, to the reality of war, civilians were given license, so to speak, to talk about war in meaningful and poetic ways.

Before I delve too deeply into that time period, though, I need to stop before passing the point of no return; so, to make my point clear, I’ll say what I want to say: as the physical landscape of war changes, the poetic landscape of the people involved changes as well. Different players come into the picture, and, thus, create different forms of poetry as a result of different experiences of war. This, however, is rather problematic when looked at in a modern context.

War, largely, is something that the common American knows nothing about. Sure, someone may know someone or have someone in their family who is involved in the military; however, the average American is disconnected from the reality of war. Nations can be annihilated at the push of a button, and military leaders and dictators – people who might have been, at one point, considered untouchable – can be killed by drone planes powered by impossibly complex technology.

So, what is there to say about war poetry in a modern context? Do any of us have a good enough understanding of war to write about it in a meaningful manner? Perhaps we cannot write about war directly. Maybe we instead have to focus in on the disconnect from war, and thereby explore the themes that are inherent in this disconnection. What are your thoughts on the subject matter? Will there be any Wilfred Owens of the infamous “War on Terror?” Let me know what you think.

J