Next Short Story: All-Seeing Eye

It's never a bad idea to use the momentum of an idea to propel you where your writing wants to be. After the last post's musings about the short stories built to enhance my published series, my muse played along and I started the next draft of a story that goes into my nameless mercenary's recovery after he'd nearly died as a teenager.

I've always felt that I might have omitted too many of the events that shaped his character yet it's also possible that I'm doing the thing I don't want to do: begging people to like a character. Even if that were the case, I shifted from his adult traits of dry humor and flatline deliveries to the rebooted amnesiac teenager who doesn't really know what to draw from. He's still a little shit and an inappropriate smart-ass but I'm hoping to display more of how his personality coincides with that ridiculous mix of resourcefulness and dumb luck.

I'd purposely made him a character a little hard for most people to relate to, but I found something charming about even his worst moments, reflexes that made him human, drawn from personal tragedy that even fewer people would want to survive. I didn't beg the reader to like him then, but in my doubting writer's mind, I may have avoided some important subtleties that I've later felt could be expanded on, bits that might have made him too unlikable at times. Yet setting out to make him neutral would be an impossible task.

It's not the sort of thing I believe even a content editor would catch. I always make sure plots tie up and I've said before that the story never finishes just because the book ends. Although I like to leave that option up to the reader, sometimes I feel like the ultimate textbook, the canon, since they're ultimately mine, are fine game to dabble with some short scenes that expand.

Perhaps that was another page I took from Stephen King. My first foray into the Dark Tower series actually began with The Sisters of Eluria and I still remember the thrill of knowing that a story was never just confined to novels or anthologies, never more the truth with the internet giving writers every opportunity to share formats they're passionate about.

This is also why I'm not beating myself up about UnNamed. It's a solid story, still using my unique voice and with so much potential to grow, but I'm going to boost their adventures when the whim strikes.

By way of confession, I'll admit now that the Rain Maidens are the most challenging for me. It's not easy to maneuver them when they all occupy same space in a way that doesn't make them improvisational puppets, so I'd like to do more personal windows for them. Brute has a little hook between the first three books. Dolly isn't just that dumb, pretty, naive arm-candy/yokel she lets on to be. I never intended them to be placeholders for a plot device. Even as a woman, I have to admit I have difficulty writing them. Centuries of male-centered literature make it easier to get into the mind of a man but when I must write women, my personal experiences don't cover the more feminine spectrum so I do have to really mull over the creation of a believable woman that isn't me.

That's something I discussed with another writer friend of mine, Matt Roberts. He admitted that he felt lost when it came to writing women, a sentiment that I admitted I shared. One of the reasons why it's tough isn't because women are needlessly complex but because most women are really flexible by nature. We play the what-if game just like men, yet you still often get meek woman in reality that lift cars off of their children and strong women who crumble with the most confusing of triggers. Complex isn't true so much as we're often reactionary to the point that nothing is ever really out-of-character, part of the reason we're sometimes marked as hysterical or irrational when the true word is more along the lines of unpredictable-- the same you'd explain it in reactionary men, for that matter. Yet from an outside perspective, what is seen as 'uncharacteristic' for a man's reckless behavior is often labeled as 'hormonal' in women.

This isn't something just men erroneously do either. I've had plenty of female bosses that have sabotaged my reputation over one missed day of work. In fact, at my last job, I only missed one day, which I called into the general manager herself one hour before the shift. There was a freak snowstorm and my dad's car was buried. There was a foot of snow and it took me an hour and a half to walk there on a good day. It was also dark and still snowing so the roads, which included crossing a highway, were dangerous for pedestrians. Even though I never missed another day, covered people's shifts whenever asked and did all of my work, I was not only constantly reminded of the day I missed but she also intentionally shortened my hours so that I couldn't qualify for paid time off the following year.

Women can hold each other back. A lot. This certainly wasn't my only retail experience where I was belittled by a woman and the times women did it far outweigh the couple of times that men were the culprit. And yes, retail often just sucks by proxy anyway, but it was often prolonged and subtle harassment from women that also led to leaving a job. It's hardly just in retail. Even as a writer, I've experienced other women who are willing to trash a woman who writes about consensual sex or sexuality in any vein. They are the ones quickest to claim that men write more books that they like and that there's something 'off' about women's voices in literature. Women are more likely to defame new women writers or tell a woman what she needs to write to be taken seriously.

I'm not out to bash women, but this is often why it is tough for men who want to write believable women. There aren't many bold examples of honest women in literature. If men use female stereotypes (despite the fact that stereotypes exist because of an overwhelming majority of said group displaying them), then they are accused of molding a woman to some hive mind selection and not delving deep enough. However, women also tend to prioritize the feminine need to know what a character is thinking, which might not be a male writer's interest in how she fits into the story. This isn't to say he's trying to make her a token and perhaps he carefully considered what the minority of women portray in trying to fit in with males: keeping her feminine side and thoughts secretive and displaying more masculine traits.

This is often why women will be weirdly proud of being like 'one of the guys' or why male voices speak to them more. To dismiss traits considered weaker in favor of whatever elitist ideas they are groomed into, where their hobbies and careers are concerned, keeps them from ever being dismissed for having a weaker or, in reality, unique but unpopular opinion. They are more likely to support the sort of gatekeeper opinions that keep women from succeeding, with the excuse that strong women will find a way. Yet articles concerning the practices of male agents, producers, gatekeepers, often show that women who do not perform sometimes degrading acts are not giving a voice, even blacklisted against seeking representation or work elsewhere.

Not just for women, but this is yet another reason I'm for self-publishing. Taking the maneuvering of corrupt gatekeepers out of the equation so creators can get their work through could be the thing to revive integrity in art. I watched an interview with Frank Zappa where he was asked why the music industry was starting to die and, surprisingly, he argued that it had nothing to do with the old guys and their cigars that were putting up all the red tape. He said that those guys, even though they knew little about the industry, were more likely to throw out wads of cash on a whim to give something a try, whereas the hip, young sorts that were coming in were actually damaging the industry. Why? Because they were more likely to decide which audiences to target and what the in-crowd wanted. They were the ones creating elitist ideas that damaged more work from even being given a chance, creating a gateway where they could even shelter perversion and sexual favors from hopeful artists, not just threatening their current work but any future work as well if they thought to refuse.

I've admitted before that low-quality work will also trickle in. So be it. People are also able to post honest reviews concerning scams and cash grabs and vendors also reserve the rights to remove these from their marketplace, often because too many of these hurt their reputation as well.

lol Well, I've clearly rattled off the rails of that post header up there, but I do feel it's important for writers to have honest discussions about practices in the industry. There's also a reason that, even though I've made general statements, I haven't linked articles. I may be exercising a bias, but I've gathered my impressions not just from articles but from actual experiences in popular writing groups and life in general. Before I bring things up, I often think over whether there is a pattern, a frequent recurrence or whether I'm inserting a bias. Even if bringing it up initially was an impulse, the thought I've put into it over time is certainly not just an emotional reaction.

Back to the header topic though, I'm actually writing a great deal of these stories in the first person narrative, which isn't common for me. However, I do think short stories are better for this-- an entire book in first person, no, not for my stories, but I do find that the third person isn't what these stories need. For Drawn to Perfection, I even did a hers/his story so you can see where their experiences intersect yet the very different impressions they've gathered from them.

For All-Seeing Eye, I drop an f-bomb as the first word again. I decided that I like this way of warning people my guy is coming. Whereas I used third person for UnNamed, the first line is from his thoughts. Since the side story is entirely from his perspective, it only seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump right in.

I love being a writer. It's not more or less than anything else I do, but I really enjoy how these ideas form into what they become. I can't say I'm becoming more disciplined where time is concerned but my average typing speed is soaring and my prose comes much easier these days. I find that I'm more able to insert my voice without being too cheesy. I've never been a huge fan of dated pop-culture references to begin with, but that's also something I love my otherworldly fantasies for. When the same cliches and references don't exist, I have to try harder to create those styles and expand on them. No shortcuts, but I can draw some contextual parallels that are more fun anyway.

Now I'm off! Plenty to do still!