Privilige and How it Affects Your Characters

I’ve been reading a lot about privilige lately, and I’ve always gotten that there are various kinds of privilige:  white privilige, class privilige, male privilige, heterosexual privilige.

But the concept of privilige is so much more wide-spread than that.

There are all sorts of little ways in which we judge people, and all of these involve privilige, sometimes they are tied into bigger chunks of privilige.  And sometimes it’s just this one little thing, and because you can’t tie it into a larger idea of privilige, you classify this person as less because of it.  There are all sorts of things that fall into this category.  Using a credit card at the store, writing a check, how to hug somebody properly.

And I know that if everyone in the world read my post, many of them would be saying:  “What do you mean ‘hugging somebody properly’?  You just hug them.  How could you not know how to hug someone?”  But hugging is a learned behavior.  You learned how to hug people during some period of time (if you have learned how to), likely when you were growing up.

And so when you go to hug your 21-year-old roommate, or girlfriend, or cousin, or friend, and they pull back, or are a limp fish, or manufacture some excuse not to hug you, just consider: maybe they don’t hate you, maybe they aren’t secretly angy, maybe they don’t not care about you, maybe they aren’t planning to break up with you, stop being friends, or whatever else.  Maybe they just didn’t grow up in a household where they learned how to hug.  Or maybe the reason they’ve never been in physical contact with you is because due to something in their life, they associate physical contact with negative feelings or treatment.

The same thing goes for writing a check, or making an appointment with a doctor, or anything else.  Maybe they didn’t get a bank account when they were sixteen to keep their birthday money, or their trustfund.  Maybe they don’t know how to call a doctor because they didn’t have money for medical care.  This person is probably already feeling awkward, or scared, or like shit, because they know they don’t know how to do this thing.  And they know how people are going to react.  I’m sure most people have seen this happen.  “How do you not know how to use a computer?”  “Anybody knows the “A” button means “yes”.  “How can you not work a dish-washer?”  “Dude, how hard is it to order a drink at the bar?”  “What?  You can’t read?  Are you stupid or something?”  “You can’t ride a horse?  What the fuck have you been doing with your life?”

Some of these things we already associate with privilige.  Some of them we feel are bigger problems, and desverve more sympathy.  But what they have in common is they are all learned behaviors.  Do you know why this person doesn’t know how to do that thing?  Because they didn’t have someone to teach them how.  You know how to do it because someone taught you, or you learned yourself.  But even if you did learn yourself, guess what?  This person is going through exactly what you went through:  watching other people do this thing while trying not to be too obvious, covering up the fact that they don’t know how and hoping they won’t be found out, feeling like shit because how dumb must they be to not be able to do something everyone else seems to know how to do, and knowing that if they are found out, that’s exactly the question other people are going to ask about them.

Now, I’m only here to preach at you a little bit.  I do actually have a writing-related point to this.  When you’re trying to figure out how a character would act in a given situation, or what they might reasonably know how to do, consider:  What skills would they be in a position to learn?  Did they cook the dinner in their house as a kid?  Did they have spending money?  Are they familiar with physical forms of affection?  If their parents don’t trust them with money, there’s a good chance they won’t know how to write a check or use a credit card.

Perhaps more relevant: How might they react to what other people can do?  What do they see as common life skills?  What do they see as a common reaction to a situation?  Someone who butchers their own animals for meat might see being scared of blood as weak and a personal failing.  Someone with rich parents and a trust fund might be surprised to find a friend doesn’t know how to pay with a credit card, or order in a fancy restaurant.  Someone with an old hand-me-down for a car might be curl their lip at a rich kid who needs a mechanic to check their oil.

All of those are pretty obvious examples.  But your characters will have specific set of prejudices and abilties, based on their background and social group and living situation.  And if these factors don’t match up with what your character actually knows or can do, I’m going to be very suspicious.  The same for if they are mysteriously blind to various forms of privilige when they shouldn’t be, or aware of them when their background doesn’t explain why.  And I’m going to wonder if maybe you as the author are blind to this privilige.  I’m unlikely to judge you personally for this, but I’m not going to have any sympathy when someone else calls you out.  Because as a writer, this is something I expect you to know.  Writers research all kinds of things during the course of writing a book, and privilige in all its forms is something you damn well better be aware of if you want to portray the real world accurately and fairly.

 

Why I Subscribe to Blogs

I have recently subscribed to a new blog, Invincible Summer from lovely YA writer Hannah Moskowitz.  This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually the first new blog I’ve subscribed to in a year.

So why did I subscribe to it?  Did I stumble upon it on Google?  Find a link on a bookmarking site like reddit or delicio.us?  No.  I kept running into links on other sites and blogs.  Took part in some conversations on Absolute Write.  After about the fiftieth link on blogs to which I am already subscribed, I stopped by and read the first ten posts on the blog.  Several of them were exactly the sort of thing Ilook for on a writing blog, and so I copied the url into my googlereader.  Now, I’ve done similar things with other blogs, but I ended up not subscribing.  Here are the five most common reasons I subscribe to a blog, and the five most common reasons why I do not:

Why? (In no particular order:)

1.  Links from blogs I already follow.  The more the better.  They tell me that there is a consistent pattern of valued and valuable content.  These can be posts about the link only, or they can be round-ups.  If I start to recognize your name on a round-up post, I am very likely to give your blog itself a look.

2.  Meeting the blogger in a community setting, such as a forum for writers.  My top forum for finding good blogs?  Absolute Write.

3.  I buy one of the bloggers books and like it.  if I like your book, then I have a reason as a reader to look you up.  If I like your blog, it’s because I enjoy it as a writer, as well.

4.  I see one of your books on Amazon or Wikipedia.  These are the places I go when someone recs a book to me.

5.  Guest posts on blogs I read.  These are fantastic advertisements for your own blog.  They mean someone I trust likes what you have to say, and they are a good sample of what I expect to find on your blog.

Why not?

1.  I go to your blog and I see advertisements.  If I get to the point where I’m reading through your recent posts to see if there’s a pattern of value, I don’t want to see adverts for your books.  I don’t want to see contests, or giveaways.  All of these things are fine.  But they are not what attracts people to a good blog.  A good blog gives something to the reader, it does not only solicit money for the writer.

2.  I go to your blog and all I see is pictures of your cats, covered in bacon or otherwise.  I am not looking for cat blogs.  I am looking for writer and/or writing blogs.  If you want to occasionally post pictures of your cats or of sunsets, or of your cute little kid, that’s fine.  But it’s a grace note, something you can foist off on me as content once I am engaged and interested.  John Scalzi likes to post amateur photos of sunsets, and they are very pretty.  I like them.  But they are not why I read his blog.

3.  If there have not been any posts for over two months.  I don’t think I need to explain.

4.  If the posting schedule is inconsistent.  This is not a big loser.  It’s why people invented blog readers, so I don’t have to check every day to see if a bloggers has dug up and displayed some nugget of wisdom for me.  It’s a small issue, but consistent posting does tell me that this blog is likely to survive long enough to be worth my inital investment.  (I am also a hypocrite for saying this, since I have updated irregularly of late.)

5.  Boring stuff/stuff I have seen before.  This is tougher.  These sort of posts will attract blogging newbies, because they have not seen all the other examples out there.  But the best blogs provide something new, something you can’t get elsewhere easily.  After the thirtieth generic query advice post, they all start to seem the same.  If they are well-written, I will forgive you.

So, here is the conclusion.  I want good content on a consistent basis.  I understand that promotional posts will pick up when a book release is imminent.  I understand tha real life gets in the way.  But if your entire blog morphs into promotion when a book is coming out, or you suddenly veer into all extras about your cats and kids, then I am likely to not subscribe, or else to drop my subscription if I already have one.

 

Check Your Divs

People are always trying to convince me to switch from IE to Firefox, and I’ve always decided not to.  And so have a significant portion of other people.  So when you’re building or switching templates for you blog, you might want to make sure they work in both IE and FF.

I’ve had several frustrating experiences lately where folks have decided to use fancy image files as blog backgrounds.  But they’ve chosen images where the test doesn’t show up against them.

But wait!  They can just put a solid color <div> tag on top, so the text will show up.  Unfortunately, in my IE8 browser, these divs do not display properly, which means I have to highlight the text to read.

Not surprisingly, this makes me less likely to come back.  If you want to have a writer blog, you have to hold up the blogging side of that, not just the writing one.  So check your divs!

 

Don’t Judge a Series by Its First Book

Series are very common in speculative fiction, and especially in fantasy.  And even more especially in Urban Fantasy.  Normally, when you read the first book in a series and find it less than satisfying, you don’t read the rest of the books in that series.

So, when I finally put down Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts, the first book in her Downside Ghosts series, I was very disappointed.  Here was I book I had greatly been anticipating, and had recommended to me, even though I don’t usually read a lot of Urban Fantasy.  The author is also active on Absolute Write, my favorite writing forum, and I have in fact spoken to her there.

But after the first 50 pages, I found the book very slow going.  The magic system was interesting, there was a unique twist on the post-apocalyptic world, the character was a strong but flawed woman with drug issues and ties to the underworld that actually caused conflict with her everyday job.  The writing was good.  The villain was interesting.  Yet the book wasn’t.  (Keep in mind this was my first Stacia Kane book.)

I tend to finish things I start, and so I finished the book.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy books, and I felt let down.  Even though I was desparate for reading material, the other two books sat on the shelf for two or three weeks.  If I hadn’t bought all three currently available books in the series in one mass splurge of book-balancing, checker-shocking hemorrhage of cash, I would have written it off as bad luck and moved on.  I would not have picked up the sequels.  And I would have missed out big time.

Because the sequels were both page-turners, which I tore through in one day instead of studying for my finals.  I loved them.  I could see how much they benefitted from the set-up in the first book.  There was a bit much re-hashing from Unholy Ghosts, and I think the books could have still been good reads if I hadn’t slogged through the first book.  But overall, they were great, and I’m glad I bought them.

I’ve heard similar stories about Steven Erikson’s Malazan series.  Fans are constantly explaining that the series really gets started after the first book, Gardens of the Moon, which is apparently slow and boring in its overwhelming detail.  (Personally, I loved it.)  The point is, even though writers are often advised that the first whatever–sentence, paragraoh, page, chapter, novel–is what makes or breaks a sale, those criteria don’t always match up with reality.

While it’s true that there are more books out there than a single person could read in ten life-times, that you can always just move on to a series that is good from start to finish, that doesn’t mean you should never read a book by that author again.  Some authors deserve a second chance.

If you haven’t taken the hint already, Stacia Kane is one of those authors.  But this post is not about how much I now love Stacia Kane.  It’s about how no matter the amount of polish you grind into your first whatever, it won’t always be good enough to hook someone’s interest.  But that doesn’t mean it sucks, or that you should give up on further work in that direction.  So keep writing, and keep reading, and hopefully you’ll find what you’re looking for.

 

Book Review: The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron

Learn more about Rahcel Aaron by visiting her website.

Read more about The Spirit Thief on the Orbit website.

As I said the first time, I normally don’t review books.  But, having reviewed the first book in this series, The Spirit Thief, I figured why not review the second?  So, here’s my review of The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron.  And, to pack even more goodness in, I’ll use it as an example of good series structure.

There may be minor spoilers for the first book, but hopefully none for the second.

Book Two of the Legend of Eli Monpress starts out Miranda Lyonette returning to the Spiritualist Court to face charges of improper acquisition of a spirit and conspiracy with our anti-hero Eli.  Eli is of course looking for a way to replace Nico’s dampening coat to hide her presence from the spirits.

Both of these opening conflicts have fairly high levels of tension and are built strongly on the foundations laid in the first book.  While the main plotline of Spirit Thief was clearly resolved, it has lead to some very good opening subplots for Spirit Rebellion.  And while these subplots are based on the first book and follow cleanly from the events surrounding that book’s climax, they do not undo what has occurred, nor make it irrelevant.  Thus, the previous book could have served equally well as a standalone novel, and so can the second.

Now, I like long interconnected epic fantasy as much as anyone, but a good fantasy series does not require video-game style stakes elevation, and I personally prefer when it doesn’t.  if you don’t agree, the rest of the post will still be interesting and relevant, but ymmv.

So, we’ve  established that each book has its own personal conflicts but that the second book builds on the first.  I’ll also note that the main plot of the second book is very similar to the first.  It is first and foremost a caper, in which Eli runs around stealing fantastic things from their less than fantastic owners. 

That said, the series is not episodic, as many urban fantasy series tend to be.  The two main plots still rely on one another.  In fact, the main event of the first novel is key to solving the conflict of the second.  While avoiding the common fantasy trope of “plot coupons”, where the character runs around exchanging one valuable artifact for another, Aaron manages to incorporate previous material into the solution of the present conflict.  And all this is accomplished while widening the readers understanding of setting and character.

We’ll start with the first.  In Spirit Rebellion, we learn a lot more of the functioning of the spirit world and the Spirit Court.  Both have their important figures and inconvenient politics.  The politics of the Court are an obstacle to Miranda, while the politics of the spirit realm serve to frustrate Eli’s attempts to steal the thing which will absolve him of a rather large debt to a rather dangerous person. 

What really makes these believable conflicts is that they cannot be easily solved with the skills and powers that got the characters through the last story.  Eli finds out that all the charisma in the world won’t help when no one will talk to you.  And of course, Miranda’s strong belief in the difference between right and wrong gets her in a great deal of trouble.  There’s no black and white in politics.

We also learn a great deal more about Nico’s part of the story.  There are several hints and clues as to the nature of demonseeds and how they grant their hosts their powers, as well as some revelations into their true nature and their relationship to the spirit realm.  Fascinating stuff, but I won’t be going into it here.  You’ll just have to read the book.

As for Josef, I learned that even publishers get confused by names, unless there’s an identical twin named “Joseph” somewhere that we have yet to meet.  Anyway, while we get basically zilch in terms of character backstory, there some lovely character-building scenes and a lecture from my newest favorite talking sword that do a good job of making him more than just Nico’s bodyguard.

Finally, there are relatively few minor characters cluttering up the pages, but those that are there are well-portrayed within their limits and move the plot along without being obvious plot-bots.

Okay, now for the bad part.  I’ve seen this mentioned in other reviews, most notably the one of the Spirit Thief over at booksmugglers, so I know it’s not just me.  While the books are fun and the plots competently constructed, the main characters tend to be a bit flat.  They’re fairly archetypal, I suppose you could say.  Eli is the charming rogue, Miranda the feisty female mage, Josef the stolid swordsman, and the Nico the quiet girl with a mysterious past and incredible powrs.  I like to compare Eli to David Eddings’ Althalus, and Miranda reminds me of Jordan’s Morianne, or possibly Siuan Sanche.  I could make many more comparisons, but this is fantasy, so I’m sure everyone has some character they find a bit similar to every other.  The point is, while there are three books left in the series, a little bit more info wouldn’t have hurt.

And now for the MCs.  Miranda is not so bad.  Things tend to go in her favor, but she’s a fantasy heroine, so it’s neither surprising nor especially damaging to the plot.  But, Eli is another story.  While he’s certainly powerful on his own, he would never have gotten so far without the backing of a powerful patron.  As Mellinor remarks in the climax of the Spirit Thief, how could any spirit be allowed to bring Eli to harm?  This backing has many positive and almost no negative effects on Eli.  While it’s impressive of him to refuse direct help in tight situations—it’s typical of Marty Stus in that he doesn’t really seem to need it.  It’s an empty refusal.  He doesn’t lose anything precious that could have been saved, and he gets to keep his pride.

Of course, I appreciate the unique approach to making Eli special.  Using a third and difficult method of encouraging the help of the spirits.  But he seems to do little enough of it after the first book, preferring to rely upon his inner “light” to do the trick.  Unlike the rest of the magic, this part seems little integrated into the story.

Overall, I liked the second book.  It’s a good build-up and there has been some writing improvement.  It’s not my favorite style of fantasy, being a lighter, more humorous take on the genre, but good writing and a good story make it one of the nicer additions to the new fantasy canon.  I am looking forward to the rest of this series.

 

Not All Elementalists Control Their Elements

Another random short-story recommendation:

Elementalism is one of the most common forms of magic in fantasy.  Flinging fire, whipping up the waters, hurlling thunderbolts.  Who wouldn’t love to do that?  But, like many other popular forms of magic, elementalism has lost its grip on real magic.  Because, real magic has a price.  And real big magic has a real big price.  Being tired for a few hours just doesn’t cut it.

And along some Helen Keeble and makes the magic magic again.  In Helen Keeble’s world of elemental magic, it’s the elements that are in control, and the humans who are just poor vessels of that power.  Specifically, I’m refering to two short stories in Strange Horizons, entitled “In Ashes” and “In Stone“, where we learn just what price you pay to control nature, and just how cruel the choice of who pays it.

And I guess what I’m saying here is that that’s how true magic works, or should be.

 

I Don’t Normally Do Book Reviews, but…

Whenever you make a rule for yourself, there’s always going to be a “,but…”  No matter if it’s word count, books a year, limiting your research.  It doesn’t matter.  You can be the most organized, planned-out person in the world, and there will still be times when you come across an oppurtunity that is too good to pas up.

For this post, the rule in question is that I don’t do book reviews.  I have written a very few reviews of things, books and otherwise, and while some of them may have been good, it’s just not something I’m good at.  Also, I have so many other things to do, or even to just write, that doing any sort of regular book reviewing would be an enormous dissruption to my schedule.  And of course, I only buy paperbacks, and I make a small number of large buys a year.  I don’t have time to officially work my way into being an arc reviewer, either.  Finally, I’m terrible at not giving spoilers, because I don’t mind them all that much myself.  I’d prefer not to see them, but it doesn’t destroy the story for me if I do. 

So, I try to avoid the temptation to review things.

But, then one of those oppurtunities came along:  Rachel Aaron was having a giveaway to celebrate the release of her book, The Spirit Thief over on The Magic District.  I read the blog all the time, so of course I wanted to read the book, and support Rachel.  I’ve just recently caught up with the last 400 posts of my blog reading, and I was lucky enough to catch up just in time for this giveaway.  Twenty people were going to come away with a free, autographed copy of this book, and I haven’t read any books for the past two months.  (I love my college, but it’s in the middle of nowhere, and I hate Amazon.)  So I threw my name in the hat, and out of 28 entries, I was one of those picked.  Not tough really, since there was about a 75% chance of winning.

One of the caveats of this giveaway was that it wwas promotional.  In order to enter, I had to promise to post a review of the book somewhere online.  Now, I don’t use Amazon(though I have an account), LibraryThing, or GoodReads, so that just left my blog.  So, sometime in the next week or so, I’m going to be posting a review of this book.  I anticipate a fantastic read, and I’ll try not to give away too much in the throes of my enthusiasm.

Other days,

Atsiko

 

Who Are We Blogging For?

I just finished reading a fantastic post on how the Internet is affecting YA literature.  It was written by the wonderful Hannah Moskowitz over on her blog “Invincible Summer”—which I have only read about two posts on.  And that has clearly been my mistake.

The gist of the post is that we writers, or at least those of us with a significant investment in the authosphere, have moved away from writing for readers, and fallen into the trap of writing for writers.  As someone whose first significant strides in writing came from the poet’s perspective, I can tell you that one of the greatest criticisms I have ever heard about the poetry community is that poetry is no longer written for everyone, but only for other poets, who have the knowledge, background, and exposure to appreciate the currently popular poems.

We do not want this happening to fiction.  We do not want to become a community of people writing only for each other, having lost track of the true purpose of our craft.  It’s all good and well to learn and discuss trends, and clichés, and how “proper” books should  be written.   But we can’t lose site of who we’re writing these books for.

I’m going to ask you now to follow the above link, so that I don’t have to repeat everything Hannah has already so elegantly articulated…

Okay, here goes.  I completely agree with Hannah that the YA writing community has moved in the direction she describes.  It has not completely lost itself, but it hasn’t stayed completely true to its mission either.  And the horrible, terrible, throw up a little in your mouth truth is…  The entire authosphere, the entire online writing community, is falling into this trap.  I see signs of it everywhere.  Writers blog for other writers, sink their valuable writing time into maintaining their status among online peers.

Part of this can be laid at the feet of the aspiring writers who have infiltrated and conquered the author community.  Everywhere, we are encouraged to start blogging, to build platforms, to make connections on Facebook and Twitter, and other blogs.  But we haven’t published anything.  What can we say to readers, who haven’t read us because we’ve given them nothing to read?

And so we build a community amongst ourselves, aimed towards our goals.  We share info, support each other, and work to build up everyone’s careers.  And it’s wonderful!  But it doesn’t really have much to do with our initial reason for joining this community:  to create things for other to enjoy.  Others who do not write, do not know the difference between submitting to an agent or submitting to a publisher, may not be fast friends with every aspiring and published writer on the web.  They do not go to every writing con they can afford, or buy six copies of a book because they want to support their best friend who wrote it.  When we take advice, and suggestions, and encouragement from those just like us, we can easily forget who we’re trying to please. 

Readers matter.  Readers have a voice.  Readers may even use that voice.  In fact, there are innumerable readers taking part in the authosphere as a whole.  But many have neither access to nor interest in the authorial, writerly community with it’s focus on mechanics and mutual support.  They want to hear about new books, win ARCs, make recommendations, and read reviews.  To those of us who are unpublished, these are not relevant to our main goal.  And so we listen more to each other, and less to the readers.  And that’s a dangerous road to take.

 

Bloggers I Wish I Was

One of the best parts about becoming active in the blogosphere, or, more specifically, the authosphere, is meeting all the awesome people follwoing the same track, published or unpublished.  One of the worst parts about becoming active in the blogoshphere, or, more specifically, the authosphere, is meeting all the awesome people following the same track, published or unpublished.  If there’s one thing that can drive home the dismal chances of a writer beating out the pack for publication, it’s seeing what the pack really looks like. 

 There are quite a few published authors with impressive and thriving blogs and their surrounding communities:  John Scalzi at Whatever, Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, and also the folks at Deadline Dames, Magical Words, and The Magic District.  There’s also Lauren Oliver, Justine Larbelestier, and Carrie Ryan.  And that’s just the people I’ve looked at recently.

For the unpubs, we have: Sierra Godfrey, CKHB, and many, many more.

So, I’m definitely in great company here.  I guess the title is a bit isleading I would love to reach the same level as any of the people on that list.

Now, I have to admit, competing against these people is scary.  A lot of them write in different genres than I do, but considering the number of people not on my list, I think it’s safe to assume that there are just as many fantastic writers in my genres, published or not.  And while writing is not a head-on-collision sort of competition, there’s limited space on the lists of agents and publishers, so to an extent, someone else getting published means I have less of a chance.  And just wait ’til we’re talking about the marketplace.  I can read a few hundred books a year, and that’s not even scratching the surface of published material out there.

So, yeah, the authosphere is a very scary place, but I’m enjoying it.

 

Revised Comments Policy–Please Read and Complay. kkthanksbi

I’ve revised the comments policy.  No big changes, mostly to incorporate some elaboration on inline links.  Please read and comply.  Thank you.