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Voyage to Alaska—Day 6

For the last few blog posts, I’ve been relating facts, many of which are true, about my recent cruise to Alaska with my wife, Jean, and traveling companions Brenda and Mike. I’ll resume my account on the morning after we slept aboard our cruise ship, MS Hellandam, moored in Juneau.

I awoke to see the vessel backing into a slip in the town of Skagway. It’s at 59°, 26’N, 135°20’W, where the sun had risen early, at 4:34 am, and wouldn’t set until 9:23 pm. This was as far north as we would ever travel on our cruise.

Feeling adventurous, Jean and I bundled up and walked into town, despite the 48°F temperature, gusty winds, and spitting rain. As with Juneau, the town sat at the feet of huge, snow-topped mountains. Once again, we passed many tourist shops, mostly selling jewelry. We walked to the far end of Broadway Street, found the Post Office, and mailed post cards.

Then a strange thing happened.

The wind and rain picked up, buffeting us and steering us down a side street. We felt driven toward a lonely hotel, far from the areas where tourists go. Why would someone put an inn here? Did the sign really say ‘No Vacancy?’ We went in to the White House hotel, and found nobody in its small lobby. Turning right, I saw a woman descending the stairs. Attired in an off-white dress with frills and a high collar, she seemed to fit the 1902-era décor. I told her we didn’t want a room; we were just getting warm and dry for a few minutes. She said nothing, but just stared at us. I asked if I could take her picture, and she gave no answer. I took a photo anyway, and she turned and walked upstairs without a word.

Oddly, she does not appear in the photograph. After a moment, a second, and younger, woman came out to the lobby desk and asked if she could help us. I said we’d just spoken to a dark-haired woman in a frilly white dress. The receptionist said no one in the hotel matched that description, but some previous guests had reported seeing a ghost in the inn, a woman dating from a time when the White House hotel was a day care center.

“Did you find gold yet, Master? Can I stop carrying your heavy pack now?”

On the way back to our ship, Jean and I bought some gifts and passed by a wonderful statue of a luckless prospector and his ever-faithful dog.

Engine and cars of the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad

After a buffet lunch on the Lido Deck, the four of us took a ride on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad. The green-and-yellow engine bore a picture of a thunderbird, making me shudder to recall the previous day’s encounter. The train cars felt warm inside, and came equipped with large windows and an outer, railed platform at each end. Tour guides kept us informed of sights as we clacked along, climbing from Skagway’s sea level to nearly 3000 feet in 20 miles.

This unique track, constructed for the Yukon Gold Rush starting in 1897, featured bends, bridges, two tunnels, and breathtaking mountain vistas. Over the eons, a fast river surging at the bottom had etched deep gorges between the peaks. Along the way, we saw waterfalls cascading down the mountains that towered to phenomenal heights around us. As we neared the summit, the river’s source proved to be a tiny creek fed by a small, deep, icy lake near the top.

At the summit, the engine detached and moved to our train’s other end. All passengers switched seats around to face the other way and swapped sides so everyone could get both views. After the trip back down, Jean and I returned to the ship and relaxed, while Mike and Brenda explored Skagway.

We dressed for a semi-formal meal in the Main Dining Room at 8:00 pm (I had delicious Halibut and Mahi-mahi). Our creative steward had left another towel-sculpture on our bed, this one unidentifiable. The ship got underway at 9:00 pm. We left Skagway in our wake, a town not to be forgotten by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 22, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Day 5

I’ve been recounting a fiction writer’s perspective of a journey to the wilds of Alaska by four intrepid adventurers—me, my wife, Jean, and friends Mike and Brenda Knyght. When we last saw our heroes, they were riding the cruise ship Hellandam through Canada’s Inside Passage.

After waking up on Day 5, Jean and I enjoyed a fine buffet breakfast on the Lido Deck—mine, waffles; hers, an omelet. By 8:40 am, the ship was north of 57°N, on course 036 at a prodigious speed of 21.4 knots. I’d slept through sunrise at 4:45 am. The air outside was 43°F, with southerly winds at 12 knots, and we’d traveled 716 nautical miles from Vancouver. We were snaking our way through the cluster of islands protecting Juneau, our first port of call. A calm, gray sea rolled along beneath gray skies, sprinkled by light rain.

Later in the morning, Mike and I wandered the ship, a favorite pastime for him. We paused at the Main Stage, where the audience watched a quiz show featuring three two-person teams of fellow passengers trying to answer the host’s questions about animals. To Mike’s surprise, and mine, we found our wives in the audience, because their scheduled Mahjong event had failed to materialize.

After eating a lunch of cod and chips in the elegant Main Dining Room, we watched the ship dock in Juneau around 1:00 pm beneath a rainy, foggy sky. Juneau huddles along both shores of Gastineau Channel, which cuts its path between two imposing mountain ranges.

On the shear rock face opposite our ship’s wharf, people had painted messages commemorating various events. The predominant architecture in the city was basic and rustic, each structure plain and functional. Gift shops and restaurants near the wharves catered to tourists, but jewelry shops outnumbered them all.

A fun-looking aerial tram was available to lift you up the mountain, but we refrained.

At 3:30, the four of us boarded a seaplane—more specifically, a floatplane—to take a five-glacier ride. The flight was bumpy at times, but fun.

These glaciers were breathtaking, gigantic, and alive in their ponderous way, a dirty white liquid flowing through mountain valleys at speeds I couldn’t comprehend. Scarred by deep lines, cracks, fissures, and irregular surfaces, the snow was electric blue in some areas, as if glowing with the fantastic potential energy of slowness.

Our plane flew north through Taku Inlet and passed by five glaciers: Norris, Taku, Hole-in-the-Wall, West Twin, and East Twin. All of these were receding now but stood ready to push their mighty fingers forward in the next ice age. Too soon, it seemed, the plane banked to return to Juneau.

Then a strange thing happened.

From out of a nightmare, an enormous bird flew alongside the plane. As long as our floatplane, with twice the wingspan, it looked like a raptor from Hell. Its powerful wings buffeted our tiny craft. I was horrified, frozen in fear, so I can’t describe it in detail, though I recall it being mainly black and brown. I regret not taking a picture, but panic and terror were the only things on my mind. It turned its giant eagle-head toward us and let loose an unearthly and deafening shriek. This blast could have been a greeting, but more likely a warning. The stare from that predator’s glaring eyes still makes me shiver. Our pilot banked away, giving the monster a wide berth. Locals later told us about a seldom-seen, legendary Thunderbird, said to kill whales by hurling “lightning snakes” at its prey. It’s no myth.

Shaken but undeterred by our ordeal, we returned to the ship. After dinner on the Lido Deck and another card game of ‘For Sale,’ (see yesterday’s post) we took in the evening show on the Main Stage. A group of the ship’s performers calling themselves Rock Legends entertained us with songs by Elton John, Abba, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, and others. A four-man band made the music, while ten singer/dancers performed in various eye-catching costumes with well-rehearsed choreography.

Our steward had left a cute butterfly on the bed, which cheered me and banished most recollections of the fearsome Thunderbird from the troubled mind of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 21, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Day 4

I’m recounting, in a mostly true way, my recent cruise to Alaska, accompanied by my wife, Jean, and long-time friends Mike and Brenda. To fend off lawsuits, I’ve changed just about every proper noun. In our last episode, we’d boarded our cruise ship, cast off lines, and began motoring north from Vancouver, BC.

Our ship was the MS Hellandam, of the NetherStates Line. In that cruise line, the ships’ names ended in ‘dam,’ every dam one of them. Hellandam had ten decks, five devoted to passenger cabins. She was 778 feet long, displaced 61,000 long tons, and could make 23 knots. Her officers and crew numbered 604 (of 32 different nationalities), and the ship could accommodate 1432 passengers.

A nice place for drinking morning coffee

Having scouted around the previous night, I knew where to get coffee when I awoke. I drank it on our cabin’s verandah, a 5’ x 8’ area with a waist-high wooden railing and comfortable lounging chairs. As the ship rolled gently, I watched fog lift from distant mountains under an overcast sky. We weren’t scheduled to visit any ports this day, but just cruise north along the Canadian Inside Passage.

Jean and I enjoyed breakfast in our room, making quick work of two delicious ham and cheese omelets. The ship offered many activities, and we thought we’d check out O’s Reading Room (associated with the Oprah Book Club). Only a few others showed up for this activity. The Cruise Director handed us a novel—An American Marriage by Tayari Jones—and said we’d meet to discuss it on the last day of the cruise.

Mountains and islets of the Canadian Inside Passage

While Jean and Brenda attended a poorly attended Mahjong lesson, I watched the scenery drift by. By 10:40 am, we were nearing 52° N latitude, and had steamed 287 nautical miles from Vancouver, BC. We hugged the eastern side of the Passage, keeping land in sight to starboard. On our course of 342°, we maintained a steady 18.8 knots.

The four of us ate lunch at the Dive Inn, a fast food eatery. Jean and I then attended a lecture on Alaskan ports, including places to visit and things to do. This took place in the ship’s expansive Main Stage, a beautiful stage and auditorium, with seats one could fall asleep in…hypothetically. Jean woke me up when it was over.

A place to see whales…and maybe ghostly missing ships

Mike was uninterested in the English Tea event that followed, but I went along with Jean and Brenda. Servers provided black tea, of the Bigalow brand, along with a tray of sweets. Afterward, I spent more time on our cabin’s verandah, and even saw a small whale spouting several times, around 4:30 pm.

Then a strange thing happened.

Ahead and to starboard, I saw a ship in the distance with no wake—apparently stationary. I grabbed my monocular and saw an old ship with two slightly canted smokestacks, neither spewing smoke. Two masts, fore and aft, had broken and were trailing in the water. A tattered British Union Jack flew from her stern. As we neared, I made out a name on her transom: BAYCHIMO, Ardrossan, Scotland. We passed her by at a distance of half a mile and I saw nobody on her deck to wave to. Only later did I learn SS Baychimo was lost in 1931 after being repeatedly stuck in the ice. Owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the ship’s last sighting had been in 1969. So mysterious and weird was this encounter that I completely forgot to take a picture. I trust our captain reported this sighting.

The fun game we enjoyed almost every night of our cruise

In any case, the four of us ate dinner on the Lido Deck, and played a fun card game called ‘For Sale’ in Mike and Brenda’s cabin.

Returning to our room, Jean and I found the steward had left a stingray on our bed, but a detailed examination showed it was neither alive nor dangerous. Our cruising foursome then went to the ship’s theater, ate popcorn, and watched the movie “The Black Panther.” Retiring to our rooms, we set our clocks back one hour in preparation for entering Alaska’s time zone. Juneau would be the next destination awaiting—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 20, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Day 3

Today I’ll continue with the partially true tale of my cruise to Alaska with my wife, Jean, and another couple—Mike and Brenda. I made up many of the names in this narrative (including those).

We rode a shuttle bus from our downtown Seattle hotel to the train station on King Street. I admired the station’s beautiful interior with its intricate white, carved walls and ceiling.

Trains much like the one we rode to Vancouver, BC

We boarded the Continental Train (ConTrain) Line, Train 516 (the Salish) bound for Vancouver, British Columbia. Everyone in that area always specifies which Vancouver they mean, because there’s a Vancouver in Washington State, too. The train proved to be comfortable, with large windows and spacious seating.

Somewhere along the train ride, our ever-joking conductor announced we’d be passing Chuckanut Bay, and rumors spoke of a Chuckanut Sea Monster lurking there. Passengers should get their cameras ready, he said. Sure. A sea monster. I kept my camera packed away. Within moments, though, I saw a long neck and small head protruding from the water on the train’s left side. When it became obvious it wasn’t moving and was a fake, we passengers laughed.

Then a strange thing happened.

A swarm of gigantic tentacles emerged from Chuckanut Bay and amid them, a fearsome head with colossal, glaring eyes. The tentacles flailed, then shot toward our train and got a grip on the first passenger car—our car. Tentacles, with those huge gripping suckers, were all we could see through the windows. The engine strained and the wheels made ear-splitting screeches against the rails. Finally, our entire train began to break free, and the beast’s arms slid off our streamlined car and vanished to the rear. Though we passengers felt shocked and distressed by this, the conductor made no announcements about it, and I suspect ConTrain will try to hush up the whole thing.

Arriving in Vancouver, late, we ate a quick lunch and took the SkyTrain (Vancouver’s elevated subway) to the Waterfront station at Canada Place beside the quay. Signs there directed us toward our ship. I’d like to praise the quickness and efficiency of the boarding process. I really would. Instead, some masochist had devised an endurance test to see how many escalators, back-and-forth lines, long waiting stretches, and passport viewings people could stand before either collapsing or screaming in agony. The four of us made it through, after stepping over the twitching bodies of many who didn’t. Toward the end, even I felt an agonized scream coming on. In fairness, the authorities had to process three cruise-ship-loads of passengers at one time, and shepherd them through both Canadian and U.S. Customs.

Finally, we crossed the gangway and boarded our ship, the MS Hellandam of the NetherStates Line. Helpful crewmembers directed us to our cabin on Deck 6, the Verandah Deck, on the starboard side, forward of amidships. At 3:45, the ship held a scheduled “emergency” drill requiring all passengers to muster at their lifeboat stations. Considering the chaotic way that went, I vowed, in an actual emergency, to take the quicker route and swim to shore.

Leaving the pier, as seen from our verandah

The ship got underway at 4:53 pm. From our verandah, we marveled at the view, with lush, green mountains rising to majestic snow-topped heights under cloudy skies.

Unfortunately, some misguided crewmember had assigned the four of us a dinnertime of 8:00 in the Main Dining Room, and by then I could have walked to every table and devoured snatched everyone else’s meal. Luckily for all but a few diners, I have deep reservoirs of self-control. Designers had furnished this gorgeous two-level dining room with large chandeliers, a ceiling with blinking stars, and wrap-around stern windows. The chefs’ skill equaled that of the room’s designers, and I can heartily recommend the Beef Stroganoff.

A bird only a female Horned Grebe could love

Back in our cabin, we noted how late the sun got around to setting in these latitudes—after 9:00 pm. I liked the efficient arrangement of our cabin; it came equipped with everything we could want. Beyond that, two very large pictures by Audubon hung on the wall opposite the bed, with near-life-sized paintings of two Turnstones and two Horned Grebe, watching us in bed. That male Horned Grebe won no beauty points from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 19, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Days 1 and 2

Starting today, and for the next ten days, I’ll be charting a new course for this blog. I’ll tell you about a cruise I took to Alaska, along with my wife and another couple.

As all my steadfast readers know, I write fiction. Some parts of these blog posts may tack a bit downwind of the truth. For example, I traveled with my wife, Jean, and the other couple—Mike and Brenda Knyght. None of those is a real name. I’ve changed a few company brand names, too.

Our plane flight to Seattle went without incident. Why we flew to Seattle to board a cruise ship departing from Vancouver, BC will remain one of the universe’s mysteries. There being four of us, we rented a large SUV. Black and rugged, it resembled the Batmobile, and I signed a form promising to use its Bat-missiles only for fighting crime.

We checked into a hotel in downtown Seattle, chosen since it was near the train station. You may only reach this hotel via a series of right turns so labyrinthine I had to leave a trail of Bat homing devices to find my way out. An antique flying saucer loomed overhead, or maybe it was the Space Needle. That night, we enjoyed dinner at the delightfully quirky 5-Point Café.

Love & Loss, in Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle

Due to clever prior planning, we’d left the next day free for us to explore the wilds of the Seattle area, since Jean and Brenda had never been there.

Steampunk art in Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle

Mike and I woke early, and walked to the Olympic Sculpture Park and marveled at the artwork.

For Mike, marveling at artwork consumes very little time. After our wives woke up, we drove the Batmobile aboard a ferryboat bound for Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound.

After a brief drive, we walked through picturesque Poulsbo, a village founded by a band of Vikings whose longboat got terribly lost. For lunch, we had Mexican food at the Hop Jack, a nice restaurant at the edge of Dyes Inlet in Silverdale. The ferry brought us back to Seattle, where Brenda and Mike met some local friends for dinner while Jean and I dined at the Green Lounge, nearer our hotel. The salmon portions there may be small, but given my over-fondness for food, that’s a fortunate thing.

Then a strange thing happened.

With the sun still up, Jean and I walked down toward the shore of the Sound. Jean spied a corner of some object sticking up from the ground. I dug it up and it proved to be a tan leather parcel or satchel, cracked and flaking with age. With care, I opened it and extracted a folded and mildew-damaged flag—a British Union Jack—and a page of parchment. Despite the paper’s torn edges and faded ink, I made out the following: “…do hereby claim the entirety of this continent, from its western extent to its eastern, for England in the royal name of Queen Elizabeth, said continent to be called Nova Albion. Set by my hand on this 4th Day of July, in the Year of Our Lord 1579. Sir Francis Drake.”

I looked at Jean and she looked at me. We discussed the matter, imagining all the consequences of finding this and of showing it to others. We did what any two Americans would do: without taking any pictures, we set fire to satchel, flag, and parchment. Having no regrets, we walked away, Jean and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 18, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Dawning of Solarpunk

The Punk Family just keeps on growing! Its new addition is Solarpunk, a subgenre and movement pointed out to me by a kind fan on Facebook.

The Punk Family started with Cyberpunk, which spawned a series of literary subgenres. Of those, the most popular is Steampunk (a favorite of mine). Most of them are marked by a prime mover, an energy source or main motivating agent, that is part of each one’s name. They all incorporate a ‘punk’ aspect, that is, that at least one character rebels against some aspect of society. Finally, each one comes with its own décor, or visual style and clothing design.

As near as I can determine, Solarpunk started with a post by Olivia Louise in 2014. She envisioned a world of renewable, sustainable, ecological green energy where people are closer to the earth and specialize as craftspeople and artisans. She proposed an aesthetic along Art Nouveau lines.

Others took up this theme and incorporated related threads of thought into Solarpunk, including:

Transcendence beyond war, aggressive violence, and scarcity;
A culture celebrating ethnic and sexual diversity and inclusion;
A decentralized society, including micro-farming, with individuals not dependent on a commercial, global economy to furnish their needs;
A technology level we already have; no new breakthroughs required; and
Glass structures and ubiquitous solar cells.

Solarpunk is a reaction against a society marked by the burning of fossil fuels, hierarchal political arrangements, corporate greed, global warming, intolerance of marginalized groups, capitalism, and globalism. That, of course, is the ‘punk’ aspect of Solarpunk.

Given this description, you can understand the appeal of this movement. A quick internet search for ‘solarpunk’ reveals beautiful designs incorporating flowers and other plants, and utopian depictions of a near future within our reach.

Some great descriptions of the Solarpunk movement include posts by Connor Owens, Adam Flynn, and Ben Valentine. Goodreads has a list of Solarpunk literature here.

Solarpunk is still blossoming and forming itself. Its literary landscape is rather sparse, and there’s a clear demand for more Solarpunk stories. This represents a new and potentially fruitful opportunity if you’re a writer of fiction, like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 6, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Suffering for Your Writing

You’ve heard the phrase “suffering for your art,” and you know the stereotype of the writer who’s deeply disturbed and probably insane. Let’s reason this out together.

First, I’d like to define some terms. Suffering means simply to experience something undesirable, some hardship. Given that definition of suffering, it’s something no human escapes. We all have undesirable experiences. Suffering is universal and inevitable.

An insane person is one who does not exhibit normal perception, behavior, or social interaction. Imagine lining up all people in order from the most sane to the most insane. Even psychologists would have a difficult time marking the boundary separating the sane from the insane, though most would agree about those at the extreme ends of the line.

For my purposes here, let’s consider insanity a rare condition. Let’s use the term as a psychologist might, and not like the hyperbole we use when seeing someone do something remarkable: “He’s insane!”

In this post, Wency Leung cites a study showing that creative people are more likely to receive treatment for mental illnesses, and likely also are related to people with mental disorders. The study specifically found authors to have high likelihoods of anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse, and to be more prone to suicide than the general population.

Michelle Roberts cites the same study, but her post details a similarity between the brain scans of creative people and those of schizophrenics. Both seem to have fewer mental filters, thus allowing a greater capacity for seeing connections between unlike things. Those two groups make associations and links not made by the general population.

Exploring the study’s implications for writers, Kimberley Turner warns against glamorizing mental illness, saying it can bring on depressions that are far from desirable. Given the higher incidence of mental illness with writers, she asks if writing causes the illness and its associated unhappiness, or if the mentally ill are more likely to take up writing. She concludes that depression is not a necessary condition to be a great writer, but that a writer must have endured some suffering to portray believable characters contending with conflict.

This post from Kevin T. Johns focuses on the suffering writer, without delving into whether that suffering results from, or causes, insanity. He contends writers must suffer for their art. However, they need not seek out suffering; life supplies enough suffering by itself. Writers differ from most people in that they use suffering. They don’t shy away from the hurt and pain—they write down every detail. They force characters to suffer, thus producing engaging literature.

Considering that question of whether suffering sparks people to write, or writing itself causes suffering, Mark McGuinness distinguishes between two kinds of suffering. Suffering from life, he contends, is different from suffering from your art. We all suffer the pain of living, so you must face and overcome it. Writers use it by learning from it and writing it down. However, he spares no sympathy for writers who suffer from their writing. He finds that self-pitying and unhelpful.

As for me, I agree life provides enough suffering for any writer to use. However, I recommend you not allow your writing to cause you undue suffering, let alone to drive you insane. Your readers await your next quality story, and you can’t deliver if you’re sliding into depression and madness.

Life throws bad stuff at all of us, but we get to choose how to respond. I’m in favor of remaining as optimistic as you can. That’s the best advice available from your fellow suffering writer—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 29, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

12 Types of Combination Stories

The reading public raved about your book. Readers loved the characters, the setting, everything, and they’re asking for more. More? Yes, more novels with those characters in that world you created.

What can you do? You could start a series, and I have a dozen suggestions on how to do that.

This ‘problem’ happened to Homer in ancient Greece. The Iliad was popular, and fans demanded more. So he wrote the Odyssey, very likely the first sequel in history.

But straight sequels aren’t the only type of combination novels you could write. There are many more, and I’ll define each one. I’ll use the term ‘base novel’ to mean the one you wrote first, the one fans loved so much. I’ve included an illustration that attempts to depict these types graphically.

Sequel. This picks up where the base novel left off. It has most of the same characters and takes place in the same fictional world as the base novel.
Stand-Alone sequel. This is like a sequel, but is so self-contained that readers need not have read the base novel.
Threequel. This takes place after the sequel. It’s also called a second sequel.
Prequel. This takes place at a time before the base novel, and establishes the base novel’s backstory. For readers who already read the base novel, there won’t be a surprise ending, so it can be challenging to keep prequels interesting.
Interquel. This is set in a time between two already existing works of your series.
Crossover. This is a sequel to two different base novels that weren’t previously part of the same series. Say you have a compelling character in Base Novel 1 and an equally compelling character in Base Novel 2. You could write a Crossover novel in which they meet and interact.
Remake. This is where you write a new version of the base novel. You take the same concept but redo it, abandoning any connections to it, or continuity with it. It’s more common in the movie industry.
Reboot. This is like a Remake, but you’re redoing the base novel of an existing series. Again, it’s more common for movies.
Spinoff. This is when a secondary character stole the show in your base novel, so you write another novel featuring that character. It can take place at a time before, during, or after the base novel.
Parallel. This is a novel that takes place at the same time as the base novel. It is set in the same world, but may involve different characters.
Spiritual Successor. This doesn’t build on the base novel, but contains many of the themes, elements, and the style of the base novel. You write it in the same ‘spirit’ as the base novel. It’s also called a Spiritual Sequel.
Companion Piece. This is associated with and complementary to your base novel. It needn’t take place in the same world, but it expands on ideas and themes of the base novel and you intend for your readers to think of it in the same context as the base novel.

You can write novels in any or all of those forms. There are so many ways to please your hungry fans. One problem can occur if your enthusiasm for the series wanes before the clamoring from your readers dies down. Let’s call that the Misery problem, and we’ll leave that for a future blog post by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 21, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Your Antifragile Hero

Is the protagonist of your story antifragile? Should she be?

I wrote an earlier post on ‘antifragility,’ but there I applied the term to stories themselves. Today we apply it to heroes/protagonists/main characters.

Here’s a brief introduction to antifragility. In his book Antifragile, Things That Gain From Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb sought an antonym of the word “fragile.” He didn’t mean words like ‘resilient,’ ‘tough,’ or ‘robust,’ which refer to sustaining shocks without damage. He wanted to describe things that improve their resistance to stress by being stressed. There being no such word, he coined the term ‘antifragile.’

What does this have to do with literary heroes? Remember, all stories involve conflict.The writer must subject the protagonist to a significant conflict. Stories are about the hero contending with the problems arising from this conflict.

Conflict needn’t involve bombs or guns, swords or knives. The conflict can be verbal jousting with another character. It can be internal, as the hero wrestles some inner demon.

Note the mention of ‘disorder’ in the subtitle to Taleb’s book. Often, a story begins with an orderly, logical world for the hero, a world soon thrown into chaos, subjecting the hero to confusion and unfamiliar surroundings. The story then becomes the hero’s struggle to contend with this new and disorderly world.

The best stories take some weakness in the protagonist’s psychological character or some aspect of the hero that deviates from the norm, and exploit it. That is, the author designs the conflict to attack that weakness or stress that deviating aspect. In this manner, the author fits the specific conflict to the specific hero.

Moreover, a good writer will show no mercy, and will ramp up the conflict throughout the story to the point where it seems the protagonist can stand it no longer. Authors do this, not because they’re sadistic, but to get the reader to care about the character, to want to read the story to the end.

The story ends soon after the resolution of the conflict. In a few stories, the resolution involves the death of the main character. Most of the time, though, the protagonist prevails in the struggle and wins the day. This occurs when the hero faces her fears, defeats her inner demons, beats the bad guy, etc. In the best stories, the main character learns something in the process, changes for the better, improves herself in some way.

In this manner, the protagonist exhibits antifragility. She encounters several stressful situations and emerges stronger from the ordeal. She changes and learns from the experience. She is antifragile.

Maybe this idea extends beyond the hero herself. In stories where the protagonist prevails in the conflict, we could say the protagonist is teaching us, the readers, about antifragility. To be more specific, as we read such tales, we learn how to become antifragile ourselves.

Maybe you disagree. Go ahead and submit comments disputing my statements. Such slings and arrows only serve to make me stronger. Antifragility is the middle name of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 15, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

How to Write When You’re Not Writing

This post’s title sounds kind of Zen, doesn’t it? What does it mean to write when you’re not writing?

Let’s say you’d like to be a writer, or a more prolific writer. The trouble is time. There’s not enough of it in your day. The rest of life sucks up too much time. Just when you find yourself with a few free minutes to write, the words won’t flow, or you’re too exhausted.

What if you could get some writing done during the rest of the day when you’re not writing? Moreover, what if I told you that if you could write when you’re not writing, you’ll write more and better prose when you do write? Is that even possible?

It is possible. I’ve hinted about it in previous posts, but today I’ll describe what I mean. First, I’ll discuss the available time, and then I’ll go into what you can do with that time.

List the activities you do during a typical week or month that have the following properties: (1) you are either alone or don’t have to interact with others, (2) you are performing drone work that doesn’t require full concentration, or you’re waiting for something to happen.

Examples of these activities might include:

Cleaning your place;
Commuting to and from work;
Waiting in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room;
Showering or bathing;
Preparing or eating a meal alone, and cleaning up afterward;
Sitting (ahem) atop a porcelain throne in the bathroom;
Yard work or gardening;
Exercising;
Waiting to fall asleep;
Etc.

Your list would be different, but you get the idea. That represents an amount of time when you’re awake and alert, but may not need to focus all your attention on your activity. (Be careful with the commuting one, though; that works best if you ride in a vehicle someone else is driving.)

That’s the time you have available to write when you’re not writing. What kind of writing can you do during that time? Especially if you can’t actually write anything down?

Here are some examples:

Think of your next story idea;
Flesh out a character, including her specifics like strengths, weaknesses, personality, quirks, motivations, life story, etc.;
Imagine the details of a scene’s setting;
Work out a solution to a plot problem;
Do some people-watching, for appearance quirks, gestures, and speech patterns you can use for your characters;
Lay out how the next scene will go, including dialogue and action;
Etc.

This list will vary quite a bit, not just between different writers, but it will vary for you, day to day. These are the things you will think about during the times you’re not writing. Sometimes the process may be almost, or entirely, subconscious. You emerge with the problem solved in your mind even though you’d don’t recall thinking about it.

Oh, yeah. Remember I mentioned that writing when you aren’t writing will help you be more productive when you are writing? Here’s how that works. Since you solved some problems when you weren’t writing, you’ll sit down at the keyboard and you’ll know what to do right away. No need to ponder things. Those ideas you had will spill out.

Some ideas won’t look as good when you write them down as they did in your mind while you were showering. That’s okay; you can always modify and improve them.

By the way, this process of having your non-writing time influence your writing time—it also works the other way around, too. When you’re writing and you come across a problem, relax. You don’t have to solve it right away. Just file it away for future thought. That’s what your non-writing time is for. Simply move on. In this manner, your writing time also serves to prime the pump with problems to work on in your non-writing time.

Practice writing when not writing, my diligent apprentice, and you, too, will attain the skills of Zen Master—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 8, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink