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Tag Archives: the sword in the stone

TCWT: What’s normal?

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

authors, baroness emma orczy, bbc sherlock, brian jacques, captain america: the first avenger, catholic culture, catholicism, christian fiction, christianity, creative writing, dee henderson, disney, dynamic characters, editing, editor, fantasy, frozen, generations, invented religions, jorge luis borges, living life with passion, loyalties, macguffins, magic realism, marvel, novels, o'malley series, paranormal, redwall, religious themes, roman catholic, sherlock holmes, sir arthur conan doyle, spiritual, star wars, story dynamics, story tools, supernatural, t.h. white, the avengers, the scarlet pimpernel, the sword in the stone, uncommon heroes series, urban fantasy, world building, writing

I thought that I would not be doing TCWT again. I’m almost too old to do it. But I decided to come back at least one last time. So, here you go.

The prompt was “What do you think is commonly done well in literature? Done poorly?” I think it depends on the author and genre as much as anything else. Some things are well-done in one genre and horrific in another, or okay in one and marvelous in another.

Religious themes. A character’s religion, how they practice it, if they really live their faith, if they even practice what they preach at all, is a marvelous tool in character development whether you are religious or not. I have never been able to understand why some people neglect it. A character’s beliefs, including their religious persuasion, tells us quite a bit about that character. (This is why, if someone leaves the religion space on their character sheet blank, I often have headcanons about their beliefs.) Some books where this is done well: Dee Henderson’s “Uncommon Heroes” and “O’Malley” series (among the only romance I actually read). Living what you preach is a sign of sincerity, honesty, and sometimes even of courage. Often, it takes courage to say more than “non-denominational” on your forms, and the thing is, these characters don’t overtly try to convert others. It is the way they live that makes others think, “Wow. I wish I had what they have.” A book where this is done poorly: Many books (sadly) in the Christian fiction genre. (Oftentimes, Christian fiction is like romance; you have to be extremely choosy to find the good stuff.)

Religious themes in general: If a character actually lives what they preach, then religious themes in the plot itself are generally a given. Normally, you won’t run into actual angels or demons “on-set”, but the forces of evil vs. the good guys will probably happen. I very much prefer the sort of stories with a fallible main character, who falls and fails and then gets up again and apologizes for it (or, sometimes, doesn’t apologize and then sees the error of his ways.) Everything else just feels like another Christian fiction forgettable Mary Sue.

I also like to see slightly-different versions of real-world religions in stories (such as the world where Christianity developed slightly different, though all the teachings are still the same, the practices are different; some practices never evolved, while some that don’t exist in the real world did.)

Magic Realism. Now and again, I love a good story with spiritual/supernatural themes in the magical realism style, where it’s all strongly realist and then seamlessly in comes a bit of the supernatural. I love it when the plot twist throws me off, but when I look back into the rest of the book, I can see how it was subtly setting it up the whole time. Sadly, many “paranormal” stories tend to be “paranormal” throughout, without any magic realism. For me, it’s not urban fantasy if they don’t have the urban before they have the fantasy. Otherwise, it’s just fantasy.

A few notes on urban fantasy: I have read a couple of very good dystopian/urban fantasy novels where the story was very well-written. One of the biggest shockers, in my opinion, is when something that’s out of our normal experience happens and the characters treat it like a normal occurrence, because in their world, it is normal.

Items with character and/or significance. Now and again, there will be a MacGuffin that really ties everything together; it doesn’t even matter what the MacGuffin is, it is the significance that goes along with it. For instance, in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, it was Padme’s charm that Anakin gave her when they were both very young. (I swear, Attack of the Clones would have been so much better if at some point, Padme had slipped the japor snippet out of the collar of her dress and said quietly, “I still have the amulet you gave me.” I would be shipping Anidala so much harder than I do now, trust me.) In my novel Loyalties, it is the multi-generational hand-me-down amulet, the symbol of a master’s care for his apprentice, which is worn hidden in the French braid across the back of an apprentice’s head (or, alternatively, depending on the circumstances, hung on its ribbon around their neck,) that ties the generations together, as it is passed down from Rynnar to Winter (who tries, upon his leaving active service as a Ranger, to return it, but Rynnar refuses to accept it), and later from Winter to his apprentice Elían, and is constantly there to remind Winter of Rynnar, even in Rynnar’s absence, during the first book. (I’m certainly praying to the Muse that I end up doing it right.)

Martin the Warrior’s sword, in the Redwall series, is a recurring object that serves to both tie the series together, and to remind everyone of Redwall’s first Champion. Another example would be Sir Percy Blakeney’s “pimpernel” signet ring in the Scarlet Pimpernel books (which, though not recurring, was key to the first book–was that a spoiler? I hope not…)

Items that get left behind. In my opinion, many authors these days tend to forget about this. Things get broken and left behind. Things are not overly important, and things should not be overly important to the characters. For instance, someone can and will lose their arrows or throwing knives (which, believe it or not, is a loss that was, in the past, a very hard one, since both were very valuable, especially arrows, which were hard and time-consuming to make by hand and thereby expensive. There will be times when someone rips their shirt or goes swimming and loses it. For some reason, authors these days seem too often to ignore these instances.

On the other hand, a character losing something with sentimental value can be a very emotional moment. It can be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Or it can illustrate that at this point, the character doesn’t even care any more, or is just grateful that they got out of there alive. Martin the Warrior loses his father’s sword, which Tsarmina snaps in half, pushing him into vowing vengeance on the wildcat, as it was the only thing he had left to remember Luke by. Someone’s horse dies, and it’s a very emotional moment. Beaumont the hound in The Sword in the Stone (book, not the movie.)

Or, someone escapes a burning building to find that they left their old notebook behind. When the other character offers sympathy, the first just says, “It’s all right. It was only a notebook. I’m just glad we both got out alive.” Or even, “I don’t need it any more,” illustrating a dynamic moment in a character’s journey. Moments like these are a tool that is sometimes sadly neglected. People tend to forget that in a prior era, people would attach value to things using a different methodology than we do today. They would keep things because they were valuable or hard to replace, not because of sentiment, quite so much. In realistic historical fantasy, this is sometimes a stumbling block, though not always. (Kristoff losing his sleigh in Frozen could have been done so much better. At least they weren’t afraid to have people lose their gear in the movie.)

Use of small cues. This is a big one. Some people nowadays seem to want everything to be blatantly obvious and to avoid the search for small meanings and symbolism. This is the reason why some people hate character movies and characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi; they don’t see anything past the not-really-action of the movies or the character’s quiet, unassuming exterior. Forsaking dynamic characters for the sake of flash, some people end up creating Mary Sues.

However, I believe there are authors out there who do this really well (Brian Sanderson, Liam? I think I got that impression,) using small character cues, such as a slight movement, a nervous habit (such as fiddling with one’s sleeves) that recurs throughout the book, and tiny facial expressions that are left open for the readers to interpret to subtly build well-rounded, fleshed-out, dynamic characters. After a while, the reader becomes familiar with a repeated movement (“oh, Halt’s up to something; there’s the eyebrow!” “He’s reaching for his cuffs, even though he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Poor kid.”) and learns to associate it with certain moods or actions. After a while, if you’ve seen The First Avenger, you get to recognize Steve Rogers’ nervous half-smile and distinguish it from his awkward smile, his stage smile, and the genuine article in Avengers. (Did anyone else notice how eerily similar Coulson’s non-offensive “I’m not a threat or even important to the plot at all; take no notice of me” half-smile is to Steve’s awkward smile? Since we know Steve better than we know Coulson, this tiny little fact, whether intentional brilliance on the part of Joss Whedon and whatsisname who plays Coulson or happy serendipity, tells us loads about Coulson as a character.)

Excessive stage drama queens. Basically, some characters just draw attention to themselves when they shouldn’t, detracting from the plot and being blatantly obvious (“don’t be obvious!”–>Moriarty’s best advice ever!), so much so that it’s sickening. This is just annoying. If it fits into the plot and the character, all well and good; it works! (This is why we actually can like Tony Stark.) But if not, then… then what’s the point? Seriously. All you have is an over-made-up actor who can’t even recite his lines properly. BORING. *shoots the wall* Sickening.

For me, most of what annoys me is blatantly obvious or lacking when it should be there. Of course, my pet peeves will be different from other people’s, but I think that all authors should try to improve their work based around these issues.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this listing of things I think are well-done but could be improved in fiction, thanks for reading and God bless you, as always, and don’t forget to drop by the other blogs on the chain through the rest of January! 😉


5th – http://whileishouldbedoingprecal.weebly.com/

6th – http://jasperlindell.blogspot.com/

7th – https://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/ (you are here) and http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/ (this would be Rosalie; I still need to read her post so now I’m done with mine I’m heading over to do that.)

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

9th – https://ramblingsofaravis.wordpress.com/

10th – http://semilegacy.blogspot.com/

11th – http://kirabudge.weebly.com/

12th – http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

13th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/

14th – http://dynamicramblings.wordpress.com/

15th – http://theedfiles.blogspot.com/

16th – https://horsfeathersblog.wordpress.com/  

17th – http://www.juliathewritergirl.com/

18th – http://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

19th – https://gallopingfree.wordpress.com/

20th – http://www.alwaysopinionatedgirl.wordpress.com/

21st – https://deborahrocheleau.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://irisbloomsblog.wordpress.com/

23rd – https://clockworkdesires.wordpress.com/

24th – https://introspectioncreative.wordpress.com/

25th – http://wanderinginablur.blogspot.com/

26th – https://anotefromthenerd.wordpress.com/

27th – http://randommorbidinsanity.blogspot.com

28th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

29th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll announce the topic for next month’s chain.)

(Hey, look! Rosalie and I share a day! Awesome. ^_^)

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Teens Can Write Too!: Books or Movies?

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

a&e, alice in wonderland, baronness emma orczy, bbc, bbc sherlock, c.s. forester, c.s. lewis, courageous, disney, dumas, film, filmmaking, fireproof, horatio hornblower, hornblower, independent films, iris, j.r.r. tolkien, james fenimore cooper, jane austen, joe morlino, lewis carrol, movies, navis pictures, novels, pixar, plans of trust, pride and prejudice, seaward, sherwood pictures, star wars, steven graydanus, susan cooper, t.h. white, tangled, teens can write too blog chain, the chronicles of narnia, the last of the mohicans, the lord of the rings, the once and future king, the scarlet pimpernel, the sword in the stone, the three musketeers, the war of the vendee, through the looking glass

First of all, I’d like to say that if my books ever get published, and if I ever get a proposal to make movies based on my novels, I definitely want to be in on the process. Not only do I want my books to stay at least reasonably like the books–I don’t mind characters who don’t look like they did in the books so much, as long as they act like the characters in the books–and not only have I seen too many movies where the essence and messages of the books were lost, but I’m also fascinated by all things filmmaking. 😉 See Plans of Trust. Also see The War of the Vendee, from Navis Pictures, and the Sherwood Pictures films. All of these movies are done by independent groups and have more charm and in most cases better acting than Hollywood movies. I have not seen Plans of Trust yet, but Vendee, Courageous, and Fireproof are among my favorite films of all time. Thank you, Mr. Morlino! And I know that was off-topic… In the case that I have passed away by the time my books catch the eye of some director, then I hope my estate will definitely be consulting. (My de facto, informal will at this time is pretty much that Iris inherits all my writing stuff, including unfinished texts, with the hopes that she will continue them. Also, anyone else may build on my work with Iris’ permission. The rights to my completed poems and novels go to my family, to help support them.)

Wow, I just got really off track. I’ll blame it on my cold. (The same cold that Obi-Wan also caught and is still recovering from… *sigh*)

Now, I think that it’s only fair if we judge the movie by its own criteria and not by the industry in general. There have been marvelous adaptions (aka, The Lord of the Rings and the Hornblower series,) and there have been bad ones (Alice in Wonderland… *shudder* Frankly, I’ll take my chances with the Balrogs and mumakil. I don’t want to face a Jabberwocky or a Mock-Turtle. Ever again. But maybe I’m unfair, even if the movie sucked. The books was almost as creepy… Sorry, I just can’t read Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, or any of the book clones *cough* Seaward *cough* without suffering nightmares. The book destroyed my childhood, and the movie freaked me out.)
The adaption of The Lord of the Rings is a great movie, but it does play free with certain parts of the books. And yet, at the same time, it goes very well as an adaption of the books. It can stand alone, yes, but it also ties in very well with the books, if we can stay our bookish-snobbishness for the time being as we watch the movies. The only thing that really annoys me is if someone takes only what happens in the movies as “canon”. To me, the books will always be the only canon. People love to hate on The Lord of the Rings for eliminating Tom Bombadil, having other elves than Legolas at Helm’s Deep, the too-early deaths of Sauruman and Wormtongue and Frodo telling Sam to go home on Cirith Ungol (yes, those last two are my own private pet peeves), but frankly it’s probably the best book adaption out there if you use both epicness and true-to-the-book-ness as your measure.
The A&E adaption of The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Richard E. Grant, is another really good adaption, if you can temporarily suspend your sense of disbelief and/or your booksnob attitude. True, it plays free with the situations, historical accuracy, and (to an extent) Chauvelin’s appearance and character, but if you like action and historical movies, this is your cup of tea, courtesy of the BBC. (To balance out the blah-history-ness in the third movie of the trilogy, Mademoiselle Guillotine, I highly recommend The War of the Vendee, above. Also, this same movie has the best villainess I have ever seen in any movie! She almost beats Lady De Winter from The Three Musketeers for sheer evil and disgustingness and oh-heaven-I-so-want-to-slaughter-her!)
The Hornblower movies, also from A&E, are perhaps the only franchise about which I will ever say “I actually liked the movies better than the books.” The C.S. Forester classics, while good reading, can be very dark and a little depressing at times, not to mention the blood. C.S. Forester is nothing if not honest. Not necessarily family-friendly material. However, if you ignore the four-letter words (which, let me promise you, is pretty much limited to just ‘hell’ or ‘damn’), you find yourself in the middle of a movie just about everyone can like. If there is one disappointing thing about this series, it’s that it didn’t follow the course of all the books and take the unfinished one–Hornblower During the Crisis–which would have had Horatio as a spy *swoons*!–into the cinema world as a full blown story.
And I need not even mention Sherlock, which is sheer brilliance!
Now, for the not-so-good.
The Chronicles of Narnia (the old BBC adaptions.) While these were charming movies and re-created the charm of the books quite well, they weren’t all that imaginative, and they cut some of my favorite scenes from the books. Also, the series was discontinued, leaving the count at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair. And… *cough cough* I would like to see anyone try to make a movie of The Last Battle. It could never be as awesome as the book!
…Ahem.
The Sword in the Stone. It is a cute family movie, but let’s face it–except for bits of the face-off between Merlyn and Madame Mim (Yes, I spelled Merlyn right! This is how he’s spelled in the T.H. White-verse–probably to differentiate from the falcon species… which does appear in the book…), this movie is absolutely nothing like the book. It lacks the book’s charm and humor and incredible detail. It cuts out chunks (the more interesting ones) from the book, it completely mutilates Kay… I could go on and on. Not that I have any particular hate for this movie. Like I said before, it’s a nice little family movie. It’s just not… all that memorable. Unlike the book. I’m glad they stopped there rather than trying to make the whole Once And Future King cycle into animated movies. It’s a movie about Merlyn educating the Wart. It’s not a movie about the Wart, the Wart and Kay, or even the Wart and Merlyn. It’s not exactly character-oriented, which is probably why it’s less than memorable. (Though Archimedes was adorable. Which is almost sacrilege, to a fan of the books… No spoilers. >:-D)
The Last of the Mohicans. (The animated one.) It’s another charming family movie–and not really forgettable–it might even be a cult classic–but it’s just not the book. Characters were different. Different people died. (More people die in the book, which gives it a more complex aspect. No spoilers. :-3) Again, recurring theme here, it lacked much of the humor of the book, such as SPOILER Major Heyward trying to impersonate Hawkeye END SPOILER.Now, the book might be both sexist and racist, but let’s face it–almost anything could be labeled sexist or racist in one way or another. And it’s a classic, and a good read besides. Need I say more?
But about the movie, I did rather like it. But if I’m looking for entertainment when I’m not absolutely worn out by Raya’s antics, I’m going to the book.
Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley. Most Austen movies tend to be very close to the books, but this one… All I can say is pretty much… meh. The acting may be good, but the story is pretty much insipid–at least to someone who’s seen the version with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Its only advantage above the latter movie is that it’s shorter–and some people wouldn’t call that an advantage. (I only do because I’d really rather read Austen than watch Austen. No offense, people.)
This movie is also fairly good, but next to the A&E version… it does not stand a chance.
I would like to present a new set of criteria for judging movies (and especially book adaptions) as a whole, which is based on the way Steven Graydanus breaks down the good and the bad in his film critiques. It is based on systematic evaluation of the message, the way it executes the story, and the divergences, which should be justified. While critiquing any art form is in itself an art, this should at least simplify it for people who don’t have much experience with critique. Be forewarned, though, it takes a little math, and some familiarity with negative values.
  1. Message. Is the message true to the book? On a scale of one to five. How good or bad is it? (Yes, add points to score; no, subtract points from score. If the message is virtually unrecognizable or mangled into a twisted dark clone of itself, subtract up to ten points.)
  2. Trueness to the book. (Yes, +0points; no, -1point unless it’s really really bad. Then -3points.)
  3. Diversions from the book. (Yes, +0points; no, -1point. Come on. It’s a movie. It is a separate entity. And if it has no diversions, it’s unimaginative.)
  4. Execution of diversions from book, on a scale of one to five. (Well done; +points. Poorly done; -points.)
  5. Execution of book canon portions, on a scale of one to five. (Well done; +points. Poorly done; -points. Superbly done; +7 to 10 points. Extremely badly done; -7 to 15 points. Yes, I’m a cynic. The real question is… are you?)
  6. General inventiveness, on a scale of one to five. (Well done; +points. Poorly done; -0points. Unless it’s completely unimaginative, in which case -up to 5 points.
  7. For Christians, believers in moral absolutes, and concerned parents only! Moral value, on a scale of one to five. (Moral value positive: +0 points. Moral value extremely positive: +5 points. Moral value negative: -up to 7 points.)
  8. Special effects, on a scale of one to five. (Good; +0points. Poor; -1point. Poor but ignorable; -0points. Poor for a reason–such as to emulate another era or style of film– +1point.)
  9. Other. For depressiveness, euphoria, simple beauty, etc. + or – up to 5 points.
Bear in mind, this system is not perfect. Different people will most likely get different scores on the same movies. Lord of the Rings scored 20 (17 without morality points), and the BBC show Sherlock scored 27 (24 without morality points), due to its sheer inventiveness and addictiveness. Alice in Wonderland, on the other hand, scored a -11, or a -13 without morality points. *shudders* I really, really dislike that movie.

So, in general, I am a connoisseur of movies, and a lover of books, but I have my limits. And some things (such as blatant departures from book canon without any justification, or book canon so badly done it doesn’t even recall the book canon,) just drive me nuts. In general, I’m not as hard on fairy tale adaptions as I am on book adaptions (Tangled scored a princely 23, 22 without morality points–yes, I only gave it one morality point, because she runs away from the only parent figure she’s known and disobeys and rebels–she got the point because she’s a peacemaker and willing to sacrifice herself), but that’s mostly because folk tales belong to everyone and sheesh, I know what it’s like to slave and suffer over a book for months and years and then realize it’s not what you want and overhaul it and spend blood from your paper cuts and tears from your text cuts on it! A book is a little piece of the author’s heart. With something that personal, it needs respect. Just as movies are little pieces from the hearts of everyone who worked on them.

I hope you enjoyed the post. Be sure to check in for the other bloggers’ posts in this blog chain!

5th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

6th – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

7th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

8th – http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

9th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

10th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/

11th – http://charleyrobson.blogspot.com/

12th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

13th – http://theweirdystation.blogspot.com/

14th – http://fairyskeletons.blogspot.com/

15th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

16th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

17th – http://magicandwriting.wordpress.com/

18th – http://mirrormadeofwords.com/

19th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

20th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

21st – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

22nd – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://aaronandtamarabooks.blogspot.com/

24th – http://www.butterfliesoftheimagination.weebly.com/

25th – https://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

26th – http://turtlesinmysoup.blogspot.com/

27th – http://missalexandrinabrant.wordpress.com/

28th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – The topic for July’s blog chain will be announced.

Thanks for reading, and God Bless! 🙂

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