The Sci-Fi Fantasy Battles

Science fiction isn't fantasy, if you believe the detractors. Yet to me, this is just nerd battles of denial among those gatekeepers and purists we must wade through in every fandom ever.

Science fiction can be fantasy.

Fantasy can be science-fiction.

But science fiction is based on a possible future while fantasy is sword and sorcery (I'm going with the simplest argument or we'll be here all century.)

Not wrong, but you know it's not wholly honest either. 

Science fiction is certainly about heavily exploring science, logic, possibility, droids, space operas... The future is certainly distinct from your medieval-based dragon and knight combo, but either argument is like stick a couple flags in the desert and considering it fully explored. The minute you walk it, you're in for a world of cacti and quicksand.

The thing is not every part of science fiction is cushy in its base of science and logic and some of the elements are purely fantasy. There are elements like the Spice in Dune or even elements/metals that don't exist and have properties that defy logic. It's not always a feasible possibility like space travel being as easy as a cab ride or touchscreens. Time travel and teleportation are very unlikely possibility that are essentially fantasy for that very reason.

Don't think I haven't seen the argument that they are based in the real world so that makes them science fiction. As resented as the genres are by purists on both sides, urban and dystopian fantasy is often largely and even exclusively based on what it meant to be our world. I know that science fiction is protected as being more technical less whimsy, but only the nerds make Star Wars technical forays in their free time and not all hardcore fans do more than just love the hell out of it for what it is. Fantasy nerds can ALSO be technical with building the logic. You can create dividing lines between reason and whimsy all you want but there is nothing in either genre that suggests they aren't perfectly comfortable bedfellows.

(I'm not using 'nerds' in a negative sense since I do enjoy nerdliness. I'm using the purest form here, which are simply the ones that dissect the fandom down to the nooks and crannies. In the same way that geeking is simply the passionate consumption of its existence.)

Fantasy, no matter how medieval or downright primal often evolves purely into the realms of sci-fi. Worlds change and timelines with horses and swords sometimes age into flying cars and ray guns. Purists of EITHER will brag about the infinite possibilities yet place some pretty absurd lines on what you can call the main or subgenre or twitch at combining them at all. People can be hardcore fans of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings alike, but god forbid they share the same spaces. Is it just information overload that keeps people from appreciating the blends?

Hard to say. Writers often cringe at the possibility of being compared to this writer or that, so the same must go for fandoms. I can admit I've had some pretty jarring moments of realization when I made parallels between my work and others, but really, my perceptions were not lines that everyone would draw and was it REALLY as bad as I thought?

In many ways, I believe the dread of comparison is that being better or worse does not work in your favor. Does sci-fi or fantasy do certain themes better and does it really matter? Fan-fiction exists to disrupt canon or satisfy a desire unmet in the original work. It's not meant to be better and most fanfic writers do so with reverence, not arrogance. While I would draw the line at monetizing it or deceiving others into calling it part of the original universe, I think the concept is flattering. Whether a writer is capable of original work or not is moot-- more often than not, they truly love and admire the work they're using and want to play there. As the creator-god in my worlds, I feel benevolent about people wanting to borrow my playground. Play away, but regard my rights to its existence.

Straying just a bit there, but I truly feel the same way about genre. I've never felt some purist guardianship over things I love. It's certainly disappointing when a series I like starts to go downhill. A series will still sell long after it loses its appeal for people and I'd never say it shouldn't. People still enjoying it should be able to without worrying that my dislike will ruin it. Most TV series lose me by the end of the third season. Most books I've enjoyed get a maximum of ten books before I'm done (generous since really, most don't hold me beyond 7). It's not that I don't still play in those worlds, it's mostly that I no longer want to be directed through it.

So, yes, I can be particular, but the difference is, I don't expect my preferences to hold some sway in what is canon to genre. In my mind, genres are meant to be tested and deviated and crossed. Purists want things to be easier for them, but it stifles the progression of ideas to maintain these things, to boot out all rule breakers for the preservation of their particular standards. It essentially makes it difficult for readers who are bored with safety, yet the divisions of genre required to separate everything also end up being a nightmare for the purists. They (general example here) don't want you to use the term 'fantasy' at all if it's not HIGH fantasy or it's not sci-fi if the technology is based in magic. Romance/erotica being allowed to use 'fantasy' at all really irks some of them, even though if you ask someone what their fantasy is, it's usually immediately thought to be a sexual question. Epic fantasy/romance themes like I write really suffer where purities are concerned because essentially it's both and neither where genres lay out the rules. That constant separation completely defeats any claim in infinite possibilities. You might like a LOT of possibilities, but once the boxes are checked, you've become particularly low-res in the scheme of things.

I get that 'you like what you like', but discovering a great read really shouldn't be easy. If it is, that's also where you tend to run into a lot of bored elitism, ones that always claim to always be able to spot the cream of the crop but on observation, really just latch onto debuts that the publishers themselves market the shit out of. They seem more concerned with being 'first' than really exhibiting why it's 'good' and if they do say why, it's never unique to what you'd find in EVERY review. In order to maintain they know their shit, they have some warped sense that parroting these things means that they essentially inspired all of it.

Phew, call me dark, but deflated egos are still a fun shit-show to watch. I am never the one to pop them, but I'm grabbing the popcorn when someone else does...

All right, I won't pick on the most disturbed of my fellow nerds/geeks. I'm sympathetic to what draws the need for an obsession, so I can't say I'm in to see people be completely destroyed by any upset to their traditions. Rattled, yes-- we all need a hard shake from time to time, but the science-fiction/fantasy wars will never end no matter how much more eloquently someone argues it than me. There will always exist a vocal minority that will gain and lose ground with opinions. Wouldn't have it any other way actually. On rare occasion, someone does have a point I haven't looked at, but not every new point is pivotal and most are absurd, Some 'new' points are just reworded or fancier analogies.

Just to shoot the shit, I've actually seen a vegan argument devolve into comparing detractors to pedophiles, cannibals, Nazis... Every argument was an exaggerated analogy, completely using emotion and personal morality to unsuccessfully shame. When their facts can be refuted with other facts (mass agriculture being just as harmful as mass factory farming), then it's back to an emotional temper tantrum. Really, once you've seen how they thrash in the net, everything else is just so tame by comparison.

All right, no more controversy. Fans of everything, you do you. And only you, maybe, because the world is meant to be a colorful place. Oranges and all (if you get how I struggle with orange, this makes more sense. I no longer hate orange, but it took some maneuvering).

Speaking of color (that was not an accidental transition), COLOR-PORN TIME!

As promised, we have the controversial Melchior.

For hair, I went with Persian Plum as the base. He's meant to have unnaturally red hair, but I wanted to steer away from anything to orange and go just a tad into a more purple/pink to cool and darken it. I searched through the crimsons for this one. I never saw him as the strictest redhead-- no green eyes, freckles, skin that doesn't tan but burn. I saw old blood, flame, and bitterness in him so his redheadedness is symbolic of atypical traits as well.

As for the eyes? I found freightliner blue for this one. I always find it fun when sliding around yields a 'named' color in the Encycolorpedia. I wanted yet another dark yet vivid color. In the book, I call it a cobalt blue, but the 'pedia's cobalts were a bit too light and purple for my Crayola memories of this color. I wanted the saturation to play well for this combination.

I don't typically write 'bad' villains. He wasn't born bad or rotten or necessarily IS, for that matter. When I look at these colors, I still see enough light to reflect a human rather than a trope. However you place a villain on the morality scale, creating a conflict in the reader can be a rewarding attempt.

I won't give away too much of Melchior's back story or story here. I consider many of his angles to be pivotal and it would be tough not to spoil anything since his meddling bleeds into so many plots, directly and indirectly.

There won't be any color-porn in the next post (although that's just not in the plans-- doesn't mean I won't change my mind). I don't just want to limit it to a way to talk about my characters at least. I may continue it as a color-for-inspiration theme. I've thought about random picture prompting as well, but I'll throw it around in my head, see what sticks. Either way, we'll see. I did schedule all of these posts within a two-day period, just to be able to push blogging aside to work on UnSung. The next posts might actually contain some updates on that and more since I'm squirreling away time to focus more tightly on those priorities. Will I have some sketches or progress to share? Not sure, but I like to attempt new things on a whim, so let's leave it up to that!

I like to end posts by posing questions, so back on the original topic-- do you think it's important to separate the distinction of sci-fi and fantasy? Marketing ploy, valuable tool for selection; what do you think? If you do feel strongly on genre separation, I'd especially love to hear it. It's the other side of my coin, so feel free to be the devil's advocate!

Ordinary and Something Extra

It's probably tempting for many fantasy fans to make characters with vibrant colored hair and eyes, but personally, I find that when those are a dime a dozen, it's the more subtle characters that shine. Rather than lead up to talking about the character as usual, I'm going to use Lyria directly as the example in this post.

Lyria has brown hair and green eyes. I'm going to cringingly admit that I don't remember offhand how I described them in the book, but I know that over time, I definitely made it head-canon that it was not some startling shade of green but a green more like my own-- just eyes that couldn't decide whether to be brown or blue. I also envisioned hair like mine-- the sort of brown that is common in kids that started out platinum blond, sort of ashen and not exactly dark or light.

There are some parallels between this character in myself, but she was never written to be me and I never favored living in her head more than any of the others, but I did give her something else of mine-- an ordinary existence with extraordinary tendencies.

I don't have anything in common with her origin story, being anything but ordinary. Her mother fled from her home with a newborn her and she never knew her father or really any father for that matter. The closest thing to it was the man her mother chose to live with. When her mother died when she was young, she ended up living with that man who is very like a step-father but was more like an employer since she worked in his tavern/inn to earn her keep.

She has a sort of low-key double edged superpower though and whomever she touches, she knows what they are thinking. She often uses it to reveal dishonesty or danger in the people who stay at the inn or hang out in the tavern, but it keeps her at a distance.

And yes, now that True Blood is a thing, I know how very much it parallels Sookie Stackhouse, but there are a lot of ideas I had prior to these popular themes where I feel like I'm sharing a lot of creepy brainwaves yet absolutely cursed to not beat anyone to it. Remember, the first books of my series were plotted out over 15 years ago. Charlaine Harris wasn't the first; I won't be the last.

But alas, no vampires, werewolves, or fairies in this version of the idea. 

Like most odd/rare/quirky types, they tend to find more people like them and it cultivates this strength that they aren't really so rare or weird, etc. Except Lyria doesn't really get that. What she does run into is Pierait, who is also an anomaly in an anomaly, the closest thing to it. 

Nevertheless, she doesn't run into anyone with her particular issue. Freaks, even when they find each other, are still usually plagued the specific differences that keep them in a feeling of isolation. In some ways, they strive to display their most ordinary qualities to offset what makes them stand out. Even when they let their freak flag fly, they tend to pick their battles as they grow. At best, they find ways to best use this difference for better or worse simply because masking it is a lost cause.

It's human to want what we're not. Ordinary people want to be extraordinary and vice versa. Yes, that's right; it's not always some humble brag or else big celebrities wouldn't fade while their demand is high to simply enjoy anonymity (and probably their extraordinary fortune, but I just don't see anyone going full-hobo on principle).

As a story develops, it's damn near impossible to keep an ordinary character from becoming extraordinary. It would be a waste not to develop that element. How they evolve as a person could reflect either simple humility or extravagant grandeur. They would learn there are consequences to making it known (which was why Tony Stark flat out admitting he was Iron Man was a very different approach to the dual lives most superheroes take on for anonymity. Break that wall and you pioneer unknown territory to consider). They would also decide if they can handle them.

Too much humility can be crippling as well. You've probably met or befriended (or are) one of those types that is ridiculously talented but brushing it off or even apologizing for it. There is a lot to weigh in deciding which aspects of yourself to show or eliminating any consideration at all. A lot of people who were reckless in their youth become cautious when the consequences slammed a harsh reality down. For Lyria, it's hard enough to bear the burden of invading other people's thoughts. It's another problem if they suspect she's doing it.

COLOR-PORN TIME!

While mucking through color sliders, I found one named 'mud' that was oddly perfect for her hair. You can see the ashen quality, the blonde base that darkened to a medium brown that wavers between dark and light next to other browns even slightly different. The difficulty with this brown is that it's not representing one color with this hair type in the least. It's the sort of hair that has odd copper streaks, even black and white strands, and even looks a lot darker or lighter depending on where the hair is parted or how it is styled. As rainbow in the natural hair spectrum as it sounds, it's oddly still a drab ashen brown overall, one that can be overlooked in most light.

For her eyes, I actually used the coloring groupings below the hair color this time and took the green from its square but desaturated it 25% more. Again, a nice natural earthy color without being drab. It's very nearly a mineral green, one that would take a standard blue/grey eye color and mix with a light brown/hazel hue. They look nice together, both greyish and even drab, but with the potential to brighten with different combinations. Actually, let's try that out...

Playing with opacities between them (the original colors at top) we see some ranges where they work together. We could go much lighter and darker with both, but these are lighter towards the middle.

Next up, we'll have Melchior. We'll finish up this color series with the big bad.

Where does your character, favorite or not, fall on the ordinary/extraordinary scale? Sometimes it's a muddy area where perception colors it, but your perception as a writer is often something your fans will be very interested in since it is different than their own.

Give Them Purpose

It's somewhat tragic when people spend such loving care to build a rich character, but end up leaving them flat when they leave out the vehicle that drives them: purpose.

It probably seems ridiculous-- what would be the point of telling a story if that wasn't the FIRST thing you'd consider? For a writer, of course that would be confusing, but not all people arrive at writing first. I've talked about in my own past how I used to make pages and pages of character profiles, all supposedly for this epic story idea I had boiling up. Oo, I'm mapping where they'll go, what kind of crazy creatures they'll meet.

Only when it came down to purpose, they just didn't mesh as well as I thought they might. Precisely why I've also covered topics involved the complication of overplanning and forgetting to connect those rich yet conflicting ideas.

In many ways, we could learn from the way some mushrooms grow. At first, they spread out randomly, looking for the best sources in a comprehensive network, they send out a thin but fast moving gathering network to start. When the thin veins home in on the nutrient rich areas, they begin to concentrate on setting up shop on all of those key points and letting the smaller networks fade but not completely disappear (if a new source appears in the spread, they can detect it and spread resources to it immediately). Logically, they want to benefit from and even feed the source, so they don't just smother it but expand in as many directions as possible to, in turn, feed the source they are feeding from rather than deplete it.

So yes-- plotting is about a) spreading out to find the best ways to support the initial idea, b) locating the places to best develop it, c) keeping the web open to new possibilities and supporting details, d) continuing to build where needed, and e) feeding the ideas rather than exhausting all possibilities.

As a novice writer, one of the things that made me lose interest in a story was loss of purpose, not in my writing but for my character's sake. I ended up burning through all of the interesting points without holding back or developing the story so, once I'd removed all intrigue and mystery and conflict, they'd be left with nothing, including anything worthy of a story.

Lulls can happen in a story; they aren't unforgivable but they should reflect your intent in writing it. I'd be hard-pressed to find a story that is intentionally meant to bore anyone but it can happen, if you don't develop each part with a purpose. Does an informative section of a story have to be outright boring?

I know that 'purpose' is one of those variable words, much like 'voice' or 'style' when discussed by writers. However, when I talk about a character's purpose, it has to exist constantly. A character who comes back into the picture with no actual purpose can kill a story. It's okay if you haven't used them a while and it's okay if they don't come back if their purpose was served. They don't have to have a climactic exit, no matter how important they are in your head. You don't have to kill off characters to get rid of them. Not every exit has to be emotional-- even those can seem transparent or fall flat. A good way to ditch a stale character can even be to have them simply disappear. Maybe you can use that subplot of finding out why as a fresh lead-in to the main plot. Again, this doesn't have to be a focus, but be careful not to create intrigue if you're just going to drop it. 

One bad example for lost purpose happened in one season of The Walking Dead. My guess is that it was supposed to be an emotional or real moment for the character; even the strongest are weak and exhausted, something along those lines. Yet Rick suddenly becoming a sad sack of surrender for many, many episodes while his annoying son Carl was dragging him around with limp attempts to snap him out of it was excruciating and never quite hit the spot as anything but filler. One thing that I just can't jibe with in entertainment is any attempt to 'real-time' a situation. You're not really going to teach anyone how excruciating depression is by big-brothering it in entertainment. I've seen it done rather well across many forms of entertainment by homing in on very key points, showing how it affects others, etc. so you need never resort to rolling it out like that. The whole tedium of it reeked of losing the purpose of the show, not truly displaying a character that lost their purpose. In a world that constantly penalizes people for one misstep in the struggle for survival, Rick got a big fat fucking Mary Sue pass there.

Honestly, I never even made it to the end of the whole Negan debacle before I stopped watching. Killing off Glenn and Abraham was cheap enough. As much as I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan, I was just fucking tired of the badder than the last bad guy crap. It's the Sailor Moon/Dragon Ball formulaic rinse/repeat cycle that I avoid like the plague. Michonne was one of those characters that kept me hanging on longer than I should have, but even she was really running out of steam.

(I might have a purpose to this post, but don't count on it.)

In any case, purpose is one of those things you can't just keep in your peripherals. You really have to kept a solid eye on it. One reason I plan is because there is always the temptation to gush about the flow of great ideas while writing and I realize that the slow-burn (but not TOO slow) is worth detaching for. Unless you've crafted some masterful way to swap out main characters that are burning out with shiny new ones, then you must keep them relevant. You must leave some reason for conflict, some mystery to explore, some bait to lure them on.

Moving onto the next character color-combo piece, we have Pierait, whose entire point is Purpose.

While this very pale blue might also work for Belias's eyes, this is one I picked for Pierait's 'powder blue' hair. I wasn't going for some anime-blue but a subtle one that still differentiates from just a blue tinted platinum. This may be more of a highlight color were I to paint it, but if I had to choose a 'blue' that better represents the basic feeling I was going for, this is it. Clean slate, pure, even a sort of void on a moral spectrum. 

Now his eyes, no less a struggle to choose, needed a warm yet sunny quality. Yellows are tough to avoid being high-contrast bright without ending up more brown than yellow, but I liked this golden yet lemony yellow for it. It was intentional that I went with a reversal on what you'd find to be colors for hair and eyes. Blonde eyes/ blue hair? But then Pierait is opposite of what you'd expect from a human. This combination was actually not picked to be visually complementary as I did with my other choices. Again, this goes to the conflict of the character himself. His sort even had a history of being considered abominations so it's only fitting that his colors break all of the usual rules.

His 'people' are called the Soulless, although it is not a genetic condition. Due to an imbalance in the ways souls are distributed, some human are born without souls, which also leaves them empty containers when it comes to free will or Purpose. They seem to share the trait of apathy as children, although it's not quite that simple. They are capable of learning, but don't retain emotional baggage nor display strong emotions at all. It is akin to a functional state of autopilot.

Their state of being is dangerous and it was quickly learned that they must be granted a Purpose through a ritual in their teenage years or their deaths will release a fearsome deadly creature known as a Fury, that will leaves chaos and death in its wake. Whatever Purpose they are given must be one that can be immediately and constantly fulfilled, so it is more like a job assignment that makes their life one of contribution. Dying with a fulfilled Purpose is peaceful and without consequence. 

At one point, fear caused Soulless children to be killed on sight. If they never reached the age where they needed a Purpose, then they would never risk becoming Furies.

Where does this leave Pierait? His mother, a troubled young woman, decided to take matters into her own hands and go against convention. She discovers how to give her son a Purpose, but an impossible one: to acquire a soul. It's never been done and if his Purpose is discovered, he would be banished to where Furies flee and left to die. It's a lonely and isolated existence, but a Purpose is a Purpose.

(Next up, I'll have Lyria ready for you, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary gift.)

Speaking of purpose, what gives your characters purpose? Is your favorite current purpose the main plot itself or a fun subplot? My current WIP involves a golem, a blocked tunnel and a cryptic mystery while on the way to looking for dragons. All a subplot at the moment, but one I'm enjoying. Share yours below!

Flower Power and Meanings

Ooo, why not flex some of my florist muscle with this one!

In case, you haven't caught on (and it is missable so don't feel oblivious), these posts are becoming inspired by the introduction of the character that appears in the color-porn feature I've been adding to the end of each post. In the last one, we had Freesia promised for today, which is the name of a soapy smelling flower (if that candle in Cracker Barrel was accurate), so why not lead into her with a post about flowers?

This could be a book or twelve in its entirety since there's no real way to cover all of the meaning associated with flowers. Roses alone have a catalog of 'meanings' by color: red (passion/love), yellow (caring/friendship), white (I can't forget you). There are a ton of natural varieties and many more manmade/cultivated varieties. Flowers themselves are quite simple and rewarding to hybridize-- alstroemeria (also called Peruvian lily), a customer favorite for their price and beauty alike, are only cultivated in a few greenhouses over the entire world and are one of the easiest to vary. Wikipedia alone lists 122 named varieties, with most of them being South American.

Stargazer (oriental lily)

Easter lily

Lilies tend to be a widespread favorite. Stargazers are among the most visually captivating and smell fantastic. Easter lilies are the most powerfully fragrant, but like all lilies, have messy pollen clustered stamens once bloomed (if you're a lily lover, then you know that a barely opened pair of scissors or a pair of rubber gloves is handy for stripping those off-- lily pollen stains bright yellow). Lilies are another variety that have just as many meanings as varieties and, while you tend to see them a lot at funerals, I've always thought of them as 'fireworks flowers', looking like just-popped explosions of light.

Fall mum varieties

Sticking with the most salable all-season varieties I dealt with as a florist, another popular showstopper flower with a staggering amount of varieties: chrysanthemums (mums). You've probably seen a ton of them hitting stores for Mother's Day since they are an inexpensive and hardy favorite along with petunias, begonias, pansies, daisies-- 'mom flowers.'

Spider Mum

Aside from the common miniature varieties you buy potted, we also got in the long stem cut variety of spider mums, one of my personal favorites next to stargazers in terms of sheer aesthetics (another 'fireworks flower'). You'll often see rainbow varieties when sold cut; like carnations, they absorb water fast so soaking the stems in food dyes gives brilliant results. Natural varieties can be very colorful as well. Again, meanings vary by color, but the overall sentiment of a mum is happiness and celebration.

Belladonna

But why not jump away from what you find in your florist shop and play with some deadly beauties? Belladonna, the beautiful lady also known as deadly nightshade, a shy drooping bloom resembling the conservative skirt of a ballgown that opens to reveal a brilliant sinister center. While not pictured here, it grows alongside it, large shining berries, black as night, that you do NOT want to ingest. Beautiful to look at-- high shine like mirrors and black as marbles but I can't say I'd be tempted to eat it, especially since it's not a common color in flora.

Beautiful nerium/peach oleander flower

No part of a deadly nightshade plant is fit to eat as is. It is, however, used sparingly in medicines for its anti-inflammatory and numbing properties. Many people aren't aware that tomatoes are in the nightshade family. You may have been cautioned not to eat tomatoes, stems, leaves etc. but the compounds it shares with its nightshade brethren are NOT in toxic levels (or put more plainly, you'd get sick from over-consumption alone before ever accumulating toxicity). Also in this family? Oleander, foxglove, larkspur and hemlock. You'll recognize some of these as herbs and flowers.

The more you flip through larger varieties, the more you see that many of them are very catch-all in the meanings department, most meanings created to sell them, if we're being perfectly honest. You don't get a lot of 'negative' meanings; most inspire love, beauty, grace, friendship, memory, kindness, calm, shyness, honor. I can't say it wouldn't be hilarious for the odd practice of buying negative flowers for your enemies to crop up. Even the poisonous ones are breathtaking.

To wrap this one up, how about a speed round? I'll throw out a couple quick ones with less conventional meanings/origins.

<-------Plumeria (frangipani)- connected with spirits and ghosts

Yarrow (aka Key Flower; really just found this while looking for 'flowers meaning key

------------>

Some of my runners-up for favorite: gardenia, queen anne's lace, and peonies. Gardenias and peonies smell and look fantastic, but I always loved the story of  Queen Anne's lace. What an odd flower to grow mostly flat and white like lace, yet have that pinprick of a tiny violet bloom, truly as if the lacemaker pricked their finger with the needle they wove it with.

Flowers can bring an unconventional hidden meaning into any story, one that can be tragically misconstrued. The poisonous flower picked for its beauty and gifted to a loved one could be seen as an intent to kill them. Culturally, flowers could have vastly different meanings. The color red is lucky in some cultures, yet ill-fortuned in others. White could be a color of purity, but is also the color of mourning. Color has its own context despite assigned meanings. Often a created convention is not as commonly held as we think. The best place to hide evil intent is in beautiful things, be they aesthetic or just presented as safe. When I use them in stories, I like to delve into those possible hidden meanings. Sometimes they can inspire a plot I might not have thought of otherwise.

So now we move onto another color-porn selection!

Freesia's hair was always meant to be a deep reddish brown. I needed her character to be grounded, yet with a taste of that notorious red-headed temper. She is my wounded animal type, skittish but defiant against being victimized again. She sees through a lot of the petty and frivolous aspects of human behavior, but displays a hopeful naivete when her defenses exhaust her.

As for her eyes, I wanted something cooler than Krose's warm violet brown yet not too dusky/cold. It's not Freesia's intention to be cold so she needed a cool rich violet to portray the guarded softness within. There's probably a shade deeper peeking from the pupil's borders, but I chose this purple and brown for the visceral draw of them and their link to her (with an artist's consideration for their complements as well).

I don't mean for that to sound pretentious. Sometimes it might. I'm not waving the expert flag, just saying this artist likes them together!

As for Freesia, perhaps there's a touch of the shrinking violet impression, so I wanted her to challenge that as much as fit it. I think even the starkest personality conflicts are found warring in the same vessel and this is true in her as well. She tries to be light and friendly, but it can seem forced and transparent for what it's trying to hide. She is broken at first, but she hangs on the edges of a new life, drawn to being a part of it. Because of that need for acceptance, she gives her entire being to learning how to be the best.

Up next: our boy with a Purpose, Pierait. What is a human without a proper soul? This guy!

So, my garden of kinder-grownups, are you man enough to tell me what flowers resonate with you? Is it smell, aesthetics, size or poisonous qualities that make you shiver? Spill it below!

Embrace the Dark Side

Do you need to be a dark and dismal person to write dark themes?

Nope.

Thank you for reading, stay tuned for--

Just playing. And dark humor is my favorite kind, by the way.

The truth remains that even the grimdarkiest fantasy can come from an optimistic and sunny person. At least I assume so, because I'm more of a slightly light grey myself.

I know many fantasy writers are quick to differentiate themselves from the dark trends by emphasizing they write HIGH fantasy or even LIGHT fantasy (or YA as if that somehow works as an odd bit of virtue-signaling with the white flag of 'this one's for the pure eyes of the kiddies'. You know nothing, Jon Snow; the snow is yellowed underneath). I don't think a great deal of them are that afraid of the dark, so to speak, but that sort of shield does get raised often enough that I can say it's a thing.

Truly, it's a challenge to write in the light. It's clear that dark has exploded in trend (but neither assume that the trend is why you should write it. Getting to that...) so I can give credit to people who decide to write the lesser traveled roads for some challenge or avoidance of influence.

Yet light is dark and dark is light and they don't exist without the other. Turning your back on the shadow doesn't mean it's not stretching away from your feet all the same.

To attempt to stay in the light doesn't quite work. Even LOTR, regarded to be high fantasy, has some very deep darkness to counter the pure and light. Hobbits are revered as damn near childlike in innocence but are not immune to the temptation of corruption (I appreciate how dark the Shadows of Mordor game for that contrast). Elves are the shiniest of them all but the most quick to corrupt and world-breaking in the magnitude of that fall. Dwarves were virtually the gods of architectural wonder, yet their corruption all but wiped them out in secret, leaving their massive empires turned to hollow mountain mausoleums.

And the most dangerous thing in their universe? An elf-forged golden ring, faithful to no master, almost sentient in its will to tempt and spread its disease. The light and dark in one otherwise insignificant hunk of metal.

I've seen the most optimistic attempt only their light and happy places. One blurb (and this will have to be from memory since it's been maybe a year or more since encountering it) spoke only of a kingdom of light and the perfection they achieved. The possible book cover was a chessboard, so immediately, people pointed out-- what's on the dark side? Where's the conflict?

I saw the writer's immediate frustration that the story was about the light side. I understood the point of focus, yet they seemed all too keen to create any conflict, any taint, any halt to the progress of the light kingdom or any insinuation it could be corrupted from within.

Conceptually, I can even understand the defense, but the presentation didn't work. It came off as no different than the biased 'Murica Wins education I got in US history class. The bad guys died, the bad guys lost, the bad guys are wholly bad guys and they can't come over to play. Without some justification of that, without some conflict (not necessarily of construction), the idea itself was just boring. If the writer is so set on removing the dark element, then what is the actual story to captivate, the vehicle that makes the light as satisfying as warm honey? Is this a scene for innocent seduction and love or are you subjecting your audience to Sim City: infinite, no natural disaster, screensaver, non-interactive edition?

I could say the same thing about the dark. All dark is dull. Murder and chaos and conflict without context is not necessarily more entertaining. It does however resonate more easily with an audience for cheap thrills. All things are imperfect so by default, corruption in any dosage is relatable. You can shy away from its deepest stains and write all the better for it (there are many dark places I wish I could unsee), but for most people, the light, if not too shiny is just grating as all hell. There be the land of the virtue-signalers pointing down on all who quiver beneath it in shame.

I kid, but no one should be afraid that their high fantasy become too dark by sticking their toes in the water at all. Writing is one of the most wonderful ways to test and even push back what triggers and torments us. It is not a place of depravity but a place to display our courage and resolve. It's only cheap if you flirt with it. Court it properly and it's not the nightmare you think.

There's no deep, deep hole I plan to lead you on from here, grooming you for some horror you weren't ready for. I only want to encourage you to explore. This doesn't mean you have to join the ranks of blowhards that pretend to gleefully kill characters for no damn reason. GRRM might be the body count king, but what makes his characters draw you back in isn't the delight in their death, but the depth of the story, the cruel tease of light flickering in the carnage. On a blood soaked battlefield, it's the glint of sunlight caught on the silver of a breastplate that catches your eye again and again. 

But seriously, abridge the shit out of that content because you really have to wade through ridiculous amounts of pointless filler along the way. Princess Bride is only damn near perfect because they chopped out the skull-fuck-fest that is describing the kingdom of Gilder and Prince Humperdink. To the pain, indeed...

So to finish, I subject you to the colors of Night!

Alas, his hair could not just be 'as black as night' which is atmospherically impossible. I needed a very dark violet as the base, with a very nearly black/violet but never TRUE black (again, digitally impossible since no monitor completely turns off pixels to display some semblance of true black. Also because #000000 is lazy coloring). What I love about this color is that no matter how dark your screen is (yeah, I'm looking at you, writers) there is an illusory dark edge that seems darker than the center. I love colors that contain their own quirks without effort.

Sigh, I know what you want to say about the eye color, but I'm hoping you can see the navy black. Again tempting to simply make this a true black but his irises are the same color-- the eyes are one place that absorb atmospheric light the most which falls in the blue spectrum. Ask digital colorists what shades they use in the 'whites' of eyes and it ranges from dusky purples to ashen blues. Again, atmospheric colors. If the atmosphere has warm tones, then the highlights actually carry that weight rather than the shadows.

Veering a little too much into the art specifications here, but painting skin NEVER uses bases this dark, even for the super dark skin tones. Watch a skin painting tutorial by Istebrak on YouTube for some very precise insight on that. However, hair and eyes can get away with this because the light reflecting nature of hair involved the transparent cuticle and the eyes have their own transparencies (which was a lesson I was mesmerized by when modeling an eye in animation class). As long as there is a noticeably darker option and a complementing highlight (again, nothing like skin), you'll get them right where you want them with a wide range of bases.

As for Night (sorry, guy; stealing your thunder), this is a character who seems very similar to Ashe. Flirtatious, not a care in the world, even has his particular rare fighting style shared. However, Night is not allowed to keep his secrets and is exposed by what grows too big to contain within him. He becomes withdrawn and secretive and lashes out, but he is tormented, wanting to be loving and gentle and kind but unable to withstand it.

Rather than spoil the darkest angles here, I will deliver the next character's color-porn swatches on the next post. This time I'll cover Freesia, another character unable to avoid the tendrils of darkness.

Do you prefer the light but acknowledge the beauty of darkness in your work? And for a bonus, do you prefer metaphorical (mood and tension) or literal (perversion and violence) displays of darkness? Call this a general question though, since it's clear a bit of both is usually measured in how it's needed. In choosing right now, which appeals to what you want to write most? Be indecisive or make your choice below!

You Got You, Babe

I might have said in many ways how grateful I am to have the support system that I do (and that it wasn't always so ideal or even present at all). I see many people twisted up over the lack of support, and namely a very specific disappointment in a certain party. Women upset that their fiancés aren't enthusiastic about reading their work, individuals of all ages (even adults) lamenting discouraging or outright hostile parents, people wondering if they should ditch friends that avoid reading it at all costs.

Yet the more you push, the more resistance you will get.

What must drive you, and what you must never become complacent with or spoiled by even when your support is phenomenal, is you. I know it sounds insultingly simple and you'll hear it said a million ways by writers reaching out to support other writers, but you must do you.

Without knowing how you're built to be receptive to change, most people (myself included) will resist the more people insist. I tried to push people to believe in me at one point, but it's time and energy wasted in how I could keep proving I had what it takes. I'm not a joiner and I don't know why I thought I was so rare in that, but I find that most people aren't anxious to swim with the other fish upstream unless the reward for the effort is irresistible.

Well, what effort is involved in just passively sharing your work on social media, or word of mouth? A great deal of people also want to believe we discovered our most treasured assets and there's also a HUGE amount of pressure you're putting on them to be what you want from them. They do want to be your fan in some sense, but they don't want to seem like that simply because of that relationship. They look like a tool and anyone they talk to is suspicious as to whether they REALLY like it. You may be writing something they've never been interested in and even if its genre is close, it still might not be the tone they enjoy. They might see your writing voice as uncomfortably intimate and don't want to know how you bare yourself as a writer to the public. They also see how much it means to you and even the most honest friends might be terrified to jab too deep and send you into depression.

Even though I offer reasons, this isn't a good way to analyze their motives with a game of twenty questions. Really, you have to go passive on this one. Let them come to you but don't be wounded if they pretend ignorance. You probably exhibit sensitivities that make it difficult to approach you. Work on that.

How? Again, this work is about you. Delve into it, refine it, tear it apart, lay it open to critics and bleed. It can take many, many years to get a peep out of the people closest to you. You might want to find cynical reasons or use that writer's mind to weave a tale of their bitterness and resentment for your passion. Pfft. Get over yourself on that. I mean it. I had to. Jealousy is like that spot in your vision that moves when you look at it. Even if there's a chance they are, you're kind of just the annoying douche that pokes their eyeball to try to make them see it.

Like the header says, you got you. That introversion into your work is your retreat to build and wreck and rebuild anyway you want. Don't turn it into a place of overwork or grudgery in some desperate act of chasing perfection and acceptance. You really have to keep the pettiness out unless it somehow works directly as an arc in your work. You're going to make a lot of work for yourself undoing whatever garbage piles up around you unless you work on focusing on the work. You can sit down angry, cracking your knuckles in an effort to prove something to someone, but once you get going, kick that shit out.

I know some of my readers are in a good place. Even better than the place I'm in on some comparative scale even. You can back me up or refine the idea I'm on then. This is going to be more for the inexperienced or struggling ones who just can't kick the melancholy of where they are as opposed to where they want to be or think they should be.

No one can promise you'll shine like a beacon and turn over all your opposition. In fact, when you do well, quite the opposite is a possibility. What you need at every point of time is the state of mind to keep going no matter how celebrated or vilified you are. Be the consummate hero (or villain) and champion your ideals. Don't worry about whether it's good or bad. It's very unlikely you'll unknowingly pass some point of no-return. Mastery is a slow climb and you'll always find places to change tact, to be more present in life or buckle down on neglected writing.

Only you can give you that state of mind. I know you have you. It's your certainty. You won't become disembodied and regrets are beneath you. Start now. Change now. Work now. Keep at it. Fall off the wagon, get back in. Build a better wagon. Burn the damn wagon and get a sexy Italian sportscar. A sense of humor and a creative view on your life? You'll need them. Now kick some ass and consider every new fan, every loved one who joins your cause a little more, an unforeseen bonus.

You have to earn it to appreciate it. You can't expect it, no matter how hard you work. A loyalty prize is a cheap win-- it feels DAMN good to win the unwinnable. 

COLOR-PORN TIME!

I know I'm driving some people nuts with my damn subtleties but bear with me. This is Ashe's color scheme. That is not the same white as Dinsch's. Ashe's hair is more of a cream-tinted white, as his is not the platinum of albinism but just a truly light shade of blonde with a warm yellow base (platinum is a cooler base, which is I leaned on a green base for Dinsch). I rolled the mouse to choose these so no cheap presets would do (although I was pleasantly surprised to see my 'discovered' white is alternately called Albany Paint Brilliant White so someone liked it enough to honor it with a name). I found this medium blue then desaturated it a bit so it actually feels warmer and less electric in brightness. In the story, Ashe's white/blue combo is noted by Rienna since her fiancé shared those traits although she insists that her fiancé's hair is even whiter and his eyes even lighter, so I'd have to hit the palette for him too, create distinctions that aren't just tuned to my insane eyes.

Ashe's eyes take on a true blue hue called cerulean (link only to avoid confusion), and the Crayola version is what I had in mind. 

Side note: Their actual cerulean crayon was my first color crush. I actually had one that was poorly mixed as a kid so the radiant blue sometimes streaked with flecks of deep green. Every time I used it, brilliant scenes of mermaids and seagulls and worlds where the sea and sky blurred together filled my mind. Sadly, I haven't found another with that magic since but it remains vivid.

As for Ashe, his character is almost irritatingly playful. Seemingly simple-minded and shallow, happy-go-lucky and content to follow but comfortable enough to lead. I needed his coloration to eliminate any hint of coldness, to mask the horrors of his past as much as his outer persona did. If anything, he is adaptable and even perceptive, allowing himself to be insulted or confronted, taking no offense to someone blowing off steam. He knows when to be serious, but it is also a shallow mantle, one he doesn't fasten on too tight and is keen to shed as soon as possible. He is black and white in one container, which makes him a truly interesting character to develop.

Now that Ashe had his runway moment, I'll sneak peak the next color-porn feature to come with... Night. Oy. I'm going to be a pain in the ass again, but he's the dark child of my heart and I'm going to have to justify my pain-in-the-ass distinctions again.

Are you the master of your workflow or is there a chip (or chunk) in your armor? Feel free to vent or brag below!

Time Travel: Doesn't Have to be a Paradox

I have one blog tag under the subject 'time travel' so I may be rehashing some things I brought up before, but I'm fairly certain that one mostly covered its introduction in the UnQuadrilogy. Although I want to assume this is going to be going in a different direction.

Let's start off by my admittance that I wouldn't claim to be deep in the logic holes of time travel as a possibility or not. I rather like the concept of a multiverse, a sort of tragic twist to the Quantum Leap idea where you might be able to return to a version of your world CLOSE to the one you leapt from, but it's very likely that the pioneers of 'time travel' will never truly get to dial into their EXACT point of departure ever again. Not enough to create a gaping butterfly effect in what you knew, but it would be a thorn in the paw sort of difference-- if everything seems right, but your brown-eyed sister is blue-eyed instead. It would either be something you could reconcile with or you'd always wonder if the people you'd really left behind were mourning somewhere.

There are so many emotional aspects to the logical that there's hardly a reason to feel constrained by any logic string you build from. It might be interesting to dive into conspiracy or sci-fi forums dedicated to mulling it over or it might be a little too deep-web for some people. If you wanted to wing it a bit, I could see it very well developing somewhere in between the branches of a character tree and the stacking of a timeline format. If that sounds confusing, let's just use the conceptual vocabulary here. Time travel, as a character, is essentially a choose-your-own-adventure build. From each possibility that exists, they would be a set of consequences. Some people find the sheer amount of choices staggering, so to make it simpler to you, I might suggest maybe drawing up 3-4 scenarios to outline. Keep in mind, each of these would branch to represent a direction you want the affected characters to develop in. This would keep it from feeling too rigid, but if you accept that it would be pretty tough for anyone to follow your exact creative logic, then you might have a single path already carved out with a distant second to represent another choice they didn't take (the presence of a doubt for a path they might have chosen).

Coders are probably following me well enough but I'll give you a choice tree picture to better illustrate the verbiage here.

Yes, you've probably seen funny memes just like this on social media, actually...

So, don't be confused by this, which resembles an asset map for a rigged 3D model in animation. You really don't need to read it to understand the concept of an organized planning tree.

The first example is the simplest- a sort of yes/no binary whereas the second contains branches that connect many assets, more along the lines of a choose your own adventure book. I say this because if you were trying for 'all of the endings', you sometimes noticed how you'd arrive at the same path when you diverged at some point before. It might have been mildly frustrating to reread it, but you could at least note that you were finishing the two possible choices in that scenario at least and if you ran into a third time? Time to start over or backtrack, right?

Assume your time travel does not have the luxury of flipping back like turning a page (although the movie Butterfly Effect did illustrate how you might think you were doing so just to make it increasingly worse and alien). Are there certain conditions to be met to proceed? Blue key for the blue door? Okay, that was patronizing since I know everyone can do better plotting than that (although let's never rule that out in a comedic satire). 

In Quantum Leap, Sam had to fulfill the purpose of the body he leapt into until Al could figure out where he was going next. It was largely comedic but there was an emotional element in that each connection with these human beings seemed to disconnect him further from who he actually was and returning to himself whole seemed slimmer. Some of the people he became were pure and even weak in a way he'd never had to deal with as himself (and yes, I do mean women because historically and even now, we're not exactly in a place to overpower men physically) and some were morally bankrupt, which gave him the troubled conscience of whether he should or could help them at all at what cost to himself.

I loved that that show could dive into deep emotional aspects, in a way that female writers might tackle it as well-- a mix of action, comedy and emotion that was neither too masculine or feminine, simply the human struggle. However, rather than fangirl all over it, we'll move on.

Once you use a sort of tree to map the developmental aspect, you can move into a more linear assortment to choose the path, rather than strictly a chronology as you would with a normal timeline. This is more to map the path of your story, but if you want to mark specific departures, then stacking time lines to mark those as 'scenes' would work too. You get the benefit of the linear path with the flexibility of multiple branches.

Again, a purely visual example of the explanation.

Some people can get away with mostly verbal trees but if you know your way around design programs or spreadsheets, you can generate the given examples with little hassle. Table it or even go the style-sheet route-- these aids for complex ideas are for YOU to navigate optimally so they don't really have to make much sense to anyone else if they work for you.

And yes-- NaNoWriMo is around the corner, so I'm doing a bit of this planning myself while working on UnSung. I'd probably be further on it, but I like to use these blog breaks to ruminate on the creative processes I'm using. About 6K shy of 200K! I'm hoping to pop the 200K mark by the end of the week or blast well past it.

For my fellow stat geeks though...

Ha, I'm clearly not very 'professional', jumping around like this, but who can resist sticking it to every fuckstick manager that ever accused me of that?

You'll run into contradictions here and there. You might need a helpful nerd or two to dig through your blind spots. Some might be rigid pains-in-the-ass and hate your logic, but it's still good practice to be thankful for being critical or passionate enough to irritate you and go with your gut if you are ever more certain that's what you want for your story. If you're rejecting EVERY suggestion, you are very likely wasting the point of having anyone look at it at all. Be honest with yourself beforehand-- were you just hoping they'd worship your ideas or were you really open to having it picked apart and tested?

That's a decent chunk to let you mull over. If you feel confident I might be able to help you, feel free to request some of my time. I can't promise I can be immediately available but I am sincere about helping when I can.

To finish, as promised, I'm digging out Dinsch's hair/eye color for today's color-porn fun. This one might be a little challenging because of it's deceptive simplicity. The white I chose is actually a very light shade of green, making it a tad cooler than a cream with its yellow-orange base. Why did I want a green-tinted white? The natural complement of a red is a green! Although true red and green are nauseating (I like forest green/burgundy for the Christmas season), you can definitely get the right complements for them with saturation and hue adjustments. As for the red, rather than roll this one around, I took to the HTML preset of firebrick, a bright red reminiscent of fleshly oxidized blood, which is essentially what unpigmented red eyes get their color from. Ocular fluid being clear would only reflect light to give it a brighter base color.

Like most albinos, they aren't naturally adapted to blend and even in community-minded animals, they are generally regarded in the same vein as the old or sick-- the ones that must sometimes be sacrificed to preserve the stronger ones. Rabbits may choose to join burrows to create a warren but don't exactly prefer to be communal. They're just the hippies of the animal world and are just okay with it. When threatened, it's every rabbit for itself.

However, Bryfolk are neither human nor rabbit and their identity is not solely one of their animal ancestors' instincts anymore than humans are bound to a general mindset. Bryfolk tend to embrace communal living and are very social, libertines with relaxed social interactions though tensed for flight at signs of danger.

Next post: Ashe. He's a human character, one of the last remaining survivors of his tattooed tribe. His history is one of the grittiest and tragic, but I'll go into that a bit more then.

Do you use any animal hybrid themes in your writing? It can be a very niche one. I actually find it laughable that people could watch Shape of Water and think 'bestiality' to be honest. Like anything different from our little niche of hairless monkey is somehow less-than or wildly different. While I'm personally not into the furrier side of the spectrum (I still prefer to hybridize the face and body as more human in order to justify the human lifespan and stabilize the addition of animal characteristics), I wouldn't see something that structurally human and assume that they weren't more like us than animals. The entire point of the movie, communicated through Elisa herself, was that she could relate to 'the asset', being treated as stupid or lesser simply for being mute. It was also clear that, not socialized, he had wild aspects as well, but again, not different from an isolated human.

This was actually reaffirming towards my own logic of humans that might have grown from something other than monkeys. I specifically use rabbits, birds, big cats, and foxes in my series. Since they evolved very specifically into separate humanoid races/identities, going crazy with dog/wolf, reptile, etc. might have needed many, many more books to integrate.

In any case, if you'd like to share your own human-animal combinations (and yes, dragonkin count), feel free to comment below! Totally understand the hesitation to divulge on a current work, but you can nod your head and name your combo at least. Thanks for reading!