Not historically accurate, but Balian’s got a good arc, too.
The hero is introduced to us in a relatable fashion. He may be flawed, but his heart or his mind is in the right place for the journey about to take place. It begins when he is presented with a dramatic question. His journey takes him through the wilds unknown both without and within, and in pursuit of the answer to the dramatic question he will learn something about himself. By story’s end, he has not only answered the dramatic question, he has changed, grown or even evolved.
This is your standard character arc, the sort of thing Campbell explores in detail and tale after tale emulates. The protagonist can be male or female, young or old, initially naive or villainous, but an arc like this keeps the character from stagnating. It takes the reader as well as the character from beginning to end without making things too boring.
This is remarkable to us, I think, because it’s rare for us to have this sort of coherency in our own lives.
Stories begin and end around us every day. If all of these starts presented the sort of dramatic questions we remember from our favorite tales, Seth Godin wouldn’t have needed to write Poke the Box[1]. Unfortunately, not every day or situation launches a clear arc that leads to significant change, be it in ourselves or the world around us. When those changes do come, it’s only in retrospect that we trace the journey and know in full what we’ve learned and how to use that knowledge in the future.
Campbellian arcs show us the potential of the human spirit. Take a look at Luke Skywalker, or Harry Potter, or Frodo Baggins, or John McClaine, or Marty McFly… quite a few of the heroes we enjoy reading about or watching follow these patterns. In each instance, the characters grow beyond their origins to achieve something greater, either for themselves or beyond themselves. It’s a tried, true and oft repeated pattern because not only does it work, but it also inspire.
This doesn’t mean that said arcs can’t be played with. Relating this sort of growth to modern characters can be difficult and can require modification or outright subversion, e.g. the characters in Clerks. Plots can also twist and play with our expectations – see Memento or The Sixth Sense. Finally, a writer might take a character on this arc and push them in another direction, throwing their journey into conflict with itself, the way Scott Pilgrim must confront his immature behavior to overcome the obstacles before him.
I know I just threw a lot of examples at you, but I’m sure you can come up with more. That’s what the comments are for, folks. Fill ’em up.
1. Yes, I know, I harp on this a lot, but it’s a really good book if you’ve got a creative mind and want to make a living with what that mind provides you. Read my Amazon review here.
There’s a picture of me out there, and I wish I could post it here with these words. It’s of me, at around 8 years old, proudly showing off my Transformers backpack. Optimus Prime, in all of his 80s glory, is ready to stand up and protect my books and Trapper Keepers from anybody trying to subvert my freedom, which is the right of all sentient beings. I knew Prime wasn’t real, but I believed his philosophy to be true.
As you can imagine, I got bullied as a kid.
My peers made fun of me. I actually got beat up once. I probably caused concern from my parents at more than one point. Somewhere along the way I tried to dial down the behavior that was causing such strife, in the name of fitting in. I never really did, and the behavior remains to this day. At this point, it probably isn’t going anywhere.
These days, though, I wonder why ‘fitting in’ is such a big deal.
The people who we remember, the ones we admire, aren’t people who fit in. Galileo, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Nikola Tesla, Rosa Parks, Issac Asmiov, Gary Gygax – these are people who refused to fit into the molds cast by the world around them. They sought change. They embraced their natures. And we love them for it.
Why do we demand so much less of ourselves? Are we just lazy?
Let’s face it, fitting in it easy. It requires almost no effort. Just do what everybody else around you is doing. Buzz in time with the rest of the swarm. Contribute to the overall productivity that will bluesky that turnkey solution. There is no ‘i’ in team.
Because they’re all hanging out in imagination. Innovation. Initiative. Plenty of ‘i’s there.
The problem is that imaginative, innovative people might not always channel that energy effectively. There are lots of mixed signals out there that can muck up one’s internal compass. We look for immediate payoffs. Benefits with minimum investment. Bigger bang for our bucks. To get them, we settle. We compromise. We take the safe road.
There isn’t anything wrong with this, in and of itself. It’s good to have certainty. Especially if you’re in a situation where you need to concern yourself with the wellbeing of others as well as yourself, you need to find a middle ground between dangling by your fingertips and keeping your feet on the ground. The nice thing about not being alone in this is the potential for someone to watch out for you, or you for them, as you make your way towards that goal, inch by inch, one foothold at a time.
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time building LEGOs. And not always with instructions. In fact, I probably spent more time digging my fingers into the big plastic bin, fishing out blocks and assembling them by the blueprints in my head rather than going by established plans. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that sort of initiative. I started doing what other people did and were successful at, rather than seeking my own path. I followed well-trod trails around the mountain, rather than looking up and figuring out how I’m going to get all the way up that thing. I’d take a few steps up the incline but then back down when it got hard, because those trails are much easier to follow.
I forgot what it meant to be a kid while still occasionally acting like one.
I’d lament lost time but not consider how better to spend it. I’d rage against my situation and take no steps to change it. I’d experience rejection and loss without using the motivation it was handing me. Kids at their best don’t just cry over scraped knees. They let the pain out, wipe their faces and get up to try again.
At some point, if you’re on top of things and really want to hold onto that initiative, you’ll fail enough that you’ll realize why you’re failing, and instead will begin to succeed. You can’t get there without failing, though. Learning to ride a bike means falling a few times. Ditto traversing the monkey bars. The first few sandcastles you build are going to crumble before your eyes, possibly before you even finish. What matters isn’t necessarily the scrapes, the bruises, the wipeouts. What matters is what we do after they happen.
It’s okay to fail. It’s okay not to fit in. We have to find a way to make the most of those failures, to make not fitting in matter. When we do, the successes mean more, not just because of the failures that lead to it but because we can take full ownership of it. We had the crazy idea. We stuggled to make it come to life. We were aware that we’d get odd looks and skepticism. We got to the finish line anyway, and something new and exciting is the result.
That’s reason enough to abandon the set paths. It’s why we remember those luminaries I mentioned. And it’s why, at this point, I’m probably never going to ‘grow up’.
It’s Hebrew for “pause and consider.” In case you haven’t noticed, some of my recent posts here have been concerned with things other than fancies about dragons, review of movies or ruminations on the written word. I’m entering a period of my life that feels transitionary, and rather than simply get shoved around by circumstances, I’ve been trying to find ways to forge my own path through the storm, to wrest some sort of order out of the chaos, even if it’s a matter of “too little too late.”
I haven’t been all that effective as yet, so it’s time to pause and consider.
I’m pausing to consider just who the hell I think I am.
Writer
I’ve been published two and two-half times.
Yes, I know, that makes three, but what’d you expect? I’m an English major, not a mathlete.
My first real short story, the first one that had teeth and weight and actually meant something on its own without relying on being fanfiction or entirely derivative, found a place in a horror anthology. One of the pitches I sent towards the Escapist landed in the editor’s mitt and bam, I got paid for being a nerd. Huzzah!
I’ve contributed as a writer to others’ projects twice so far, and while my part in Maschien Zeit was far less than half since my only contribution to the game’s actual design was in playtesting, the amount to which I put myself into the other collaboration makes up for it.
So, on average, so far I’ve gotten published once a decade.
Considering some poor slobs never get published at all, that’s not too shabby.
Blogger
This blog is about change.
I know that I post about some scattershot things at times, it might seem. But the process of alchemy is a process of change. Every day I encounter something that I thought worked but doesn’t, or I find a part of my life isn’t what it was yesterday, or there’s something new to see… it’s all about change.
Even ICFN deals with change. I’ve changed formats, microphones, ways to get the audience involved. And watching a movie can change you, even if it’s just a moment of introspection or dire sorrow or jumping for joy. A good story does that, and a bad story should. I examine the whys and wherefores, and yes, sometimes I parrot some of the ramblings of other critics, but we all had to start somewhere.
If you’re still around after some of my more amateur stabs at being a critic, thank you.
Selah.
Editor
Criticisms are editorials. By looking at works like movies, books and games from the stance of a critic rather than a rank-and-file audience member, I see what changed since the last attempt at that style of story, what could change to make it better, And if I were to go into said story with those changes in mind?
I’d be editing.
I don’t have formal, on-the-job, business-and-resume-friendly training for it. I’m not going to get huge piles of cash shoveled in my direction for it. But it’s a skill I feel I need to cultivate. The better I get at editing, the higher the probability that whatever I end up submitting to a magazine, anthology, agent or Kindle store won’t be an absolute pile of dogshit.
It’s also closer to writing than programming is.
Programmer
I may have given the impression in a previous post that I’ve fallen out of love with programming. That isn’t the case. What gets my alchemist’s robes in a knot is reactionary programming. Bug fixes. Code rot. Sudden new demands made by folks who think a swish and flick is all that’s needed while a programmer says ‘pagerankium leviosa!’ to make their business the next smash hit on Google.
And yes, it’s lev-i-OH-sah, not lev-i-oh-SAH.
I know it’s part and parcel of most programming jobs when they’re being handled by a development department or a design shop, but I’ve gotten to a point in my life that I shouldn’t have to shrug my shoulders and accept a situation as given or unchangeable. Remember, this is all about change. Hopefully, most of that change will be for the better. Some things will work, others won’t. And there will be times you don’t know how effective a change is going to be until some time after the change is made. But the important thing is not the mistake in and of itself.
It’s what we learn from the mistake, and how we move forward and past it, that matters.
Selah.
Slacker
Nobody’s perfect.
I’m not going to pretend that there’s anything positive about my lethargy. I’m a sponge for media. I consume books, drink films, inhale the fumes of gaming and exhale a thousand tiny ideas that evaporate before my eyes. I accomplish nothing of value while I do this.
Except for learning about what’s out there already. Who’s already playing in my sandbox? Do I find merit in what’s been done? Do I think I can do better? How would I approach X or portray Y?
It doesn’t even happen, necessarily, as I’m soaking in whatever it is that’s drowning out the doldrums of the day. It can strike me later, in bed or in transit or over a bowl of Shreddies. That experience was awesome. That line sounded forced. That plot point made no sense. Those characters shouldn’t have behaved in that manner based on what we know. That reveal corrects that previous mistake or answers a hanging question, but what about that other thing, and what happens now?
A body at rest remains at rest but the mind might not necessarily be resting.
Ergo Sum
‘Therefore I am.’ I can’t think of a better way to sum up the preceding. I know it’s been ramblier than usual and some of it might not make a whole lot of sense to everybody. The thing is, though, it doesn’t necessarily have to make sense.
We often don’t understand what happens to us and those around us as it happens. We can grasp the basics of the situation, draw from previous experience and education, and act accordingly. It’s only in the aftermath that we piece things together, make connections, really understand those events. And that only happens if we take the time to pause, and consider.
Days may come when you feel overwhelmed. Things seem out of control. The world is simply moving too fast, or maybe it isn’t moving fast enough. Our impulse can be to speed up, to react more quickly, to make snap decisions – to panic. I do it. I’ll probably do it again.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. If we stop and think, just for a moment, things change. When we pause and consider, the situation clarifies. The storm calms. We regain our grasp of who we are, look across the Shadow to who we want to be, and when the moment is right, we catch a glimpse of the elusive path between the now and the what could be.
You see it happening more often than not. People in a situation that isn’t working as intended or isn’t yeilding the results they need or anticipated try repeating the same behavior of failure instead of doing something new. They attempt to capitalize on repetition rather than initiating change. Albert Einstein (reportedly) calls it the definition of insanity, and Gordon Ramsay has admonished more than one flagging resturaunteur to “change, or die.”
There are a plethora of reasons why people don’t change. Some are convinced that the failures are flukes and the forumla that’s produced the failures will yeild success sooner or later. I guess they’re right, but as they say a broken clock is right twice a day. Others grow complacent or even lazy, and when something they’re doing fails, they either scramble to restore the status quo or shrug their shoulders and let circumstances fall back into place whichever way the world around them dictates.
It’s an attitude I can no longer tolerate within myself.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s a result of Seth Godin’s excellent Poke the Box. Maybe I’ve seen too many friends succeed where I struggle to ignore the signals. And maybe I’ve been ignoring an essential truth about myself that’s gone unexplored for too long.
You see, I would never define myself as a programmer first and foremost.
It’s not that I consider myself bad at it. I’m not great, but I can get the job done while being easy to work with and puzzling my way through the problems that arise. The value I add to projects on which I work goes beyond my somewhat rarified knowledge of ActionScript and might have more to do with the way I work with people. The person down the row of cubes from you might be great at their job, but if they’re a pain in the ass to deal with you won’t take them work if you can help it. It’s the way we are.
However, it’s only ever been a job for me, never a career. Programming just pays the bills. It’s a rare morning when I wake up thinking of code and functions instead of distant worlds, fictional lives, even blog posts like this one. Excellent eloquence and deftness of syntax are things I’m far more passionate about than any of the programmatic challenges I’ve faced before or will face in the future. And bringing an attitude like that into a workplace where everybody around me does wrestle with code in their sleep, puts their passion on the table and made it their purpose cheapens things for them and makes me feel false, like an outsider looking in. It’s a world I understand, can relate to and appreciate, but it isn’t my world. And I need to face the fact it never has been.
We only have a few short years in this life, and I’ve spent too many going down a blind alley chasing a dead end.
I became convinced, by good people with good intensions, that writing would never pay enough. That I couldn’t make a career of it, that I needed to pursue something else. And I believed it. Instead of sticking to my guns, I hung up my spurs and took up a shovel. I’ve tried to get the spurs back on a few times, but every time I do at least one person with whom I work on a daily basis on this or that job looks at me funny. Why the hell would you wear spurs into a coal mine? It makes no sense, it’s silly is what it is, take them off or find yourself another mine.
And I did. Mine after mine, job after job, one after another for this reason or that circumstance. It isn’t working. When things are this cyclical, this consistently fraught with failure, one can react to it by struggling to maintain the status quo as quickly as possible, or examine the circumstances of the various failures and find a way to end them. If I’m to have any hope of accomplishing in my lifetime what I’ve wanted to accomplish since I was seven years old, when I wrote my first short story in my gifted education class (it was crap, but it was my first), I can no longer in good conscience treat my desire and acumen for the written word as just another hobby. I need to make more time for it, and that means being proactive in my pursuit.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared by the idea. My lizard brain would rather I fall back into old patterns, maintain the status quo, lower my expectations. For once, I’m disinclined to listen to it. It might be the safer, more responsible thing to do, and I acknowledge the possibility of yet another failure exists, but I can’t shake the feeling that it is long, long past time for me to try something different.
Being where I am now has everything to do with myself. As much as I’ve been given advice from others, it was me that listened, me that bought into certain ideas, me that interpreted signs and portents. I don’t blame my failures on anybody but myself. It’s because of me I went down those blind alleys, and it falls to me to get myself out again.
It isn’t enough simply to be. A reason to be is essential. It’s what changes mere existence to really living. I’ve taken hard roads to get where I am, and I’ve stumbled along the way. I’ve crashed and burned, broken promises, engendered disappointment and shattered hearts. Every mistake has taught me something and I’ve had to find ways to keep moving forward in the bloody aftermath. I’ve come too far to quit now, and I honestly feel I’m closer to being where I truly want to be now than I ever have been before. Listening to the lizard brain, giving into the fear of the unknown and the cold comfort of the status quo, feels more like a step backward. And if I step backward, I can’t move forward.
In other words, as Sun-Tzu put it, “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
Yet another way:
Excellence isn’t about working extra hard to do what you’re told. It’s about taking the initiative to do work you decide is worth doing.
With March here, I’m taking a look at how this Free Fiction project’s gone so far. It hasn’t been bad, but it hasn’t been that great either, especially if I want to do anything significant with it.
I think the idea of retelling old myths with newer genres still has merit, but getting it out to people in such a way that I know it’ll be enjoyed and distributed, as well as being quality writing I can truly be proud of, is going to take more than dashing off a story as quickly as possible to meet a deadline.
What I’ve already written is not my best work, taken overall. Some of it’s not bad, some of it needs some revision and editing. Rough patches need smoothed over, sketchy corners need to be filled in and it all needs to flow together properly. This is something that will take some time, and it will mean that the end result will be different from what’s currently sitting in that subdirectory of the server.
The big question is if people will be willing to pay for the final result.
Anthologies, even on a service like Kindle or B&N’s BuyIt, can be a dicey proposition. They’re cheaper than mass market novels, to be sure, especially with some publishers still trying to figure out a reasonable price point. Blizzard, seriously, $13 for the Kindle edition of The Shattering? Maybe the price will come down when the paperback edition arrives, but I’m not going to hold my breath, if I’m honest.
The question becomes, if I mean to blend these currently raw ingredients into a tasty anthology to earn some extra bucks, what becomes of the extant fiction? For one thing, I need to move it to a monthly schedule for the time being, until things on my end of the keyboard shake out a bit more. Maintaining a day job, working on a new novel, churning out query letters for a completed work and brewing up articles to feed into my pitching machine can be a difficult schedule to juggle, and I mean to up my game on all writing fronts. I’ve been letting my real passion lurk in the areas of ‘hobby’ and ‘passing fancy’ for far too long, and it’s time for me to change that.
What I think will work best is paring down the current offerings in the Free Fiction section to samples. A synopsis of the story, background on the origins of the myth and the genre, and a snippet of the actual text. This will pique interest, show my writing chops and maintain the content in the area, without needing to worry myself overmuch over the final fictional product right away. I can also release samples of novels and other works this way, and if a story does spill out of my brain with no place in either a novel or anthology, up it goes on Free Fiction!
Writerly types, those of you with real ink to your names, I need you to sound off. Is this a good idea? Am I going in the right direction? Or should I forget the thing entirely and keep on filing those TPS reports?
