The Cast of 2015

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This is a moment I always enjoy: the moment at the end of the year when I get to look back, sometimes happily, sometimes with a bit of annoyance, at what I've read over the past twelve months.  It's a fun tradition that requires little brain power and no originality, and as Jenny reminded me of it by posting her 2015 book list, I decided to follow her lead in topic and style and roll out the (eclectic) literary cast of 2015.  Hope you don't get bored by the histories.

2015 book list

january

The Moon Spinners [Mary Stewart] - My first read of the year, this one had gorgeous prose on the one hand and a not-so-compelling story-line and romance on the other.  Light, inspiring when it came to description, but ultimately a bit frustrating.

To Change the World [James Davison Hunter] - A compelling, thought-provoking, dense work, one which probably needs to be read more than once to be "gotten."  Hunter's call for "faithful presence" and a Christian challenge to the world via "a bursting out of new creation from within it" is worth reading, considering, and realizing.

february

The First Crusade [T. Asbridge] - Read for a course on the Crusades I took in the spring.  Light and accessible, but heavy on the adjectives and adverbs (history can be interesting without reliance on these grammatical tools! really! it can!) and lacking, in my opinion, a good balance of historical empathy and moral discernment.

They Found Him Dead [G. Heyer] - I don't think I'll be reading any more of Heyer's mysteries - or if I do, it will only be when I really need something light, quick, and mindless.  Characters, prose, and resolution here were all pretty unremarkable; Agatha Christie has more challenging, satisfying mysteries, however cliche that opinion may be.

march

Much Obliged, Jeeves [P.G. Wodehouse] - Needs no commentary.  And honestly, I can never remember what happened in a given Jeeves & Wooster novel; they're all much alike, but make for fun occasional reading.

The Fourth Crusade [D. Queller & T. Madden] - Also for the Crusades course!  This one was at the opposite extreme from The First Crusade: good on analysis, a bit weak on drama.  Seriously, the crusaders breach the walls and all the authors say is that we know these particular people died.  Really? Where's the blood and gore, people?

april

Around the World in Eight Days [J. Verne] - Where is the hot air balloon?  I specifically signed on for a hot air balloon.

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes [A. Maalouf] - For some reason I didn't put this on my Goodreads account; I think I must not have wanted to rate it.  At any rate, while I do think it is excellent to have works that portray the Crusades from the perspective of the Arabs (the Frankish perspective gets most of the limelight), I remember finding this attempt problematic - to say the least.

may

The Great Plague [Moote & Moote] - Doesn't Moote & Moote sound like a law-firm out a Dickens novel?  Anyway, this was the assigned reading in the three-week course I took this past May on "Plague! In the 1660s," and it was excellent.  Cheerful?  No.  Surprisingly compelling and even inspiring?  Yes.

june

Jamaica Inn [D. du Maurier] - du Maurier, why did you let me down?  Your prose was beautiful as always, your depiction of Cornwall haunting and bleak - and then I got to the end and wanted to bean the characters with my life science book.  Go. To. Your. Rooms.

The Perfect Prince [A. Wroe] - I don't even know what to do with this one.  It began so intriguingly, with such attention to detail - even the detail of a signature or an illustration; aaaaand then there I was in a bog of information and names and I was alternately confused, bored, and guilty (maybe I should care how much the pews in the church cost? But I don't?).  I don't think I'm building a summer home here.

july

Sir Nigel [A. Conan Doyle] - This book seemed to alternate between romanticism and realism, and I liked the realism better.  Conan Doyle has some compelling descriptions and interesting side characters, but Sir Nigel himself was too ideal for me.

august

American Lion [J. Meacham] - Totally arbitrary read - I don't do much American history - that unfortunately didn't turn out to be a gem.  In fact I complained about the style and the use of sources all the way through.  I think my family wanted me to stop reading.

Faith and Treason [A. Fraser] - Among the top two or three books I read this year (which isn't saying much, because this year saw a lot of 2 star books).  I was going to say it blew me away, but that's kind of a bad pun for a book dealing with the 1605 Gunpowder Plot...  Drama, empathy, argument, a grasp of the sources: it has it all.  Except it was so good that when the conspirators were caught, I was disappointed.  That might not be a good thing.

september

She-Wolves [H. Castor] - Mini-bios of some of England's ruling ladies since the Empress Maud (who, by the way, is the coolest.  Just pointing that out).  Some were more interesting than others, but the prose is burdened (again) with melodrama.

october

The Ghost Map [S. Johnson] - Congratulations!  You win Worst Book of the Year!  The arrogance of it took my breath away, while the commitment to urbanization and the almost callous treatment of individuals left me angry.  

The Prince [Machiavelli] - Read for a course on political thought, this classic work was alternately funny and perplexing.  On the one hand, it seems refreshing after you've been reading Plato, because Machiavelli deals with things as they are in real life; on the other hand, he doesn't concern himself at all with larger moral truths or with how things should be.  Also, I love how he keeps saying Cesare Borgia was the very model of a modern major general...and yet Borgia got sick and failed at everything.  Score one for "Fortune."

For All the Tea in China [S. Rose] - Pretty sure this is the only book my list shares with Jenny's.  A slim read and good for any tea-drinker, if rather in need of some polishing and FOOTNOTES.  Or at least endnotes.  Please.  Please?  No?  Okay, fine.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [R. L. Stevenson] - I'd been wanting to read this for a while, but despite its atmosphere, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.  "I consider morals to be an admirable trait of character in a book, but they can be overdone."

november

The Great Influenza [J. Barry] -  Like The Ghost Map, this was read for a course on the history of Western medicine I took this past semester.  Better than The Ghost Map in that it has a far better handle on the sources and a much more nuanced reading of them, it nonetheless could have done with some slimming down.  

december

Great Expectations [C. Dickens] - Finished this one before Christmas.  It wasn't actually my favorite Dickens of the ones I've read thus far; the ending was...too happy.  I would have liked some more bitter in that "bittersweet."  Oops.

In Defense of History [R. Evans] - My advisor got me this for my birthday back in January, while I was taking a course on historiography, and I just finished it yesterday (no, I haven't been reading it all year).  It's both solid on its philosophy of history and funny in its treatment of other historians or historical controversies.  A gem with which to finish out the year.

what did you read this year?  was it a good year by the numbers, or did you find some new favorites?  neither? both?

A Critique from Dickens

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I've been reading David Copperfield this month.  It's one of those books that, if all were right with the world, I would have read years ago; but all is not right with the world, and I went against the flow and chose to read Dickens' lesser known works, like Little Dorrit and Martin Chuzzlewit, first.  I'm not sure why people generally start with either Oliver Twist or Copperfield, but my being contrary and departing from the norm has given me, I think, a different perspective on Dickens.  A Christmas Carol aside, I started in on his darker, more dramatic books first; now I'm going back and reading his earlier works, and I can go about it without the notion that they are gloomy and depressing.  Compared to Bleak House, they're positively comic!

At any rate, as I am coming up on the end of David Copperfield (only a couple hundred pages left - I'm practically grazing the finish line), I've begun to think all over again about my appreciation for his writing.  And then it occurred to me to wonder, whatever would he think of my writing?  I thought about it a little while, rather tickled by the idea, and came to the conclusion that he would probably be horrified by modern day writing in general.  And I don't mean what a book snob like myself considers sloppy writing - flimsy characters and thin prose - the sort of things that are objectively bad no matter what generation you live in; I mean the more subjective Standards.

The size of a novel, and the trend nowadays toward "shorter and easier to read books" - mine are large by today's standards, but they're still dwarfed by Bleak House.  The notion of pared-down casts - Dickens would have had a good laugh over that.  Verbose description being the Devil's own child.  And as for characters...!  If he found Jane Eyre appallingly independent, Regina would have him positively thrashing in his grave.

I thought to myself, as these flitted across my mind: "Oh, I can have some fun with that."  So I decided to write up a critique of myself from Mr. Dickens' perspective, as a parody of the Victorian standards and the modern day standards both.  It is at once laughably arrogant on my part and completely self-deprecating, so you are not allowed to take it seriously on any level.

My dear J—,

The next installment is in progress, albeit slow and, at this time, a little tedious. But Bob will keep me going, and being so near the end I cannot stop now. (Though I have half a mind to kill them all and be done with the business.)

You will by this time probably have heard of that new work, released upon an unsuspecting public a fortnight ago, by the incorrigible Mrs. H. I confess it painful, to my sensibilities, at least, to observe the unbridled pleasure with which that public has already caught it up: I hear nothing, morning, noon, or night, but one or another reference to this work. It glares at me from shop windows, and with such garish looks! It is beyond my ability to comprehend its attractions, and yet only last Friday, when I went out for a walk, I saw no less than four persons with it in hand. One of them had the distinctly mouldy air of a dustman; another was, if you can believe it, Lord R. He hid it beneath his hat when he saw me coming.

I had already heard various scathing critiques of Mrs. H.’s new piece of literature, from friends and family, and I soon made my mind up that I should not touch the creature at any cost. It was only when our mutual friend T. happened to mention, in a particularly unguarded moment, that I was featured in its pages that I yielded to my baser feelings, laid down two shillings, and took away the book. It was a moment of weakness, for which I am sure you can forgive me.

Well, I have all but reached the end of the thing, after pausing several times with wounded sensibilities. Mrs. H. performs feats worthy of legend at a speed wondrous to behold; the tale stops for no man; in a mere two hundred pages, the plot is already coursing forward like an ardent tug-boat, bearing the reader in its wake. I found myself appalled at the thought that such a brief work could capture the mind of the public; that the same men and women who demanded to know if Little Nell was dead have now embraced this.  If Little Nell were not already dead, I would be tempted to kill her out of spite.

As for Mrs. H.’s characters, though I admit they are not altogether bad—I was quite gratified by a certain indefatigable female who passes through the pages early on—though I admit, as I say, that they are not bad, Mrs. H. would need a round two dozen more before the story could be called intricate. And the heroine! She is enough to make your blood run cold; Mrs. C. B.’s own rebellious orphan becomes a saint by comparison.

My own appearance, somewhere near the middle of the book, was thankfully brief. I have not yet decided whether it was intended to be favourable or not; I lean toward the latter conclusion. I seem to recall a letter from Mrs. H. some while ago, the subject of which I have now forgotten, but which was (I believe) congratulatory in tone. I can only conclude, judging by her ambiguous reference to me now, that she was not favourably impressed by Dombey. That is of little consequence to me, but I am now turning over the idea of inserting Mrs. H. in the Current Work—as a dose of retribution. I have little doubt, however, that the esteemed lady would not hesitate to return the compliment.

Yours,

C. D.

The Trouble with Imitation

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Back in September of last year - was it really that long ago? - I scribbled a post for myself and for others on writing as an art.  With so many blogs and self-help books inundating us with tips and keys and the essence(s) of story-telling (I think I saw two different essences in the same week), we can easily fall into the trap of looking at writing as a mechanical process.  Fuse this tricky piece called "a good plot" with this other piece called "good writing" and ta da! Bestseller!

This approach appeals to us because it seems at first blush to offer a quick path to perfection in our writing.  We all want to improve, and the idea that if we just follow three easy steps we'll attain to the literary heights is awfully tempting.  In my post, however, I talked about something we probably all know and must simply be reminded of: the fact that writing is not mechanics, but

a process of growing art.

This current post is something of an extension of that basic notion, for even after we're rooted in it, there is still the difficult issue of knowing how to encourage that growing art to grow. We get to the place where we realize, "Oh goodness.  My writing seriously needs help, doesn't it?"  Maybe the pieces we've written before aren't so bad, maybe they're total rubbish, but either way there ought to come a point sooner or later in time when we realize it is not the best that it can be.  We come to grips with the fact that there are writers out there who just frankly do it - or did it - better than we, and then we begin to wonder how to coax further growth out of our own writing.

"Learn from the best" ought, really and truly, to be trumpeted more often than it is.  Read the Greats.  Don't settle for mediocre writers, the ones who don't do it as well as you, or who write on the same level as you, or who are maybe a little better: digest those writers whose works amaze you, blow you away, and leave you inspired (and perhaps a little jealous) after you've picked yourself up and pieced yourself back together.  "A man of ability," wrote William G. T. Shedd, "for the chief of his reading, should select such works as he feels beyond his own power to have produced."  What ho, Mr. Shedd, you said it truly!

Unfortunately, even this excellent advice can be warped, and writers who do try to "learn from the best" frequently fall into another trap of believing that it is also necessary to copy the best.  I wouldn't say this is always conscious; perhaps the underlying reasoning is mere mistaken logic, where writers suppose that if this man writes this way, and is reckoned a Great, then to be great we must write this way as well.  We're told we are supposed to imitate these people, and to an extent - the extent of a child following in the footsteps of an adult, before that child has learned to walk and direct himself - that is true.  But we've got to be wary of taking the principle too far.

We learn from others, ones who have gone before and ones who are going along with us: true.  We glean ruses, tactics, and strategies from them: also true.  We are not, however, meant to piece together little bits and pieces of authors' styles into something we call "our own" (and if we do, it can only ever be a literary Frankenstein's monster - because no one can forge the original author's signature with the same flair).  Even less are we meant to pick one favorite author and imitate them in all things.  That is to say -

we should not try writing characters like Dickens

we should not try writing romance like Austen

we should not try writing emotion and description like Sutcliff

we should not try writing an allegory like Lewis

and we really, truly, for the love of peachy goodness shouldn't try writing fantasy like Tolkien.

For me, this meant a realization that I am not Jenny and should not try to write like her.  I do not share her poetry-prose flair, and to attempt it would appear forced.  I can certainly look up to her and try to write as well as she does, but always in my own style and what people call "voice."  I admire R.L. Stevenson's descriptions and the masterful plots of Dickens.  Austen's wit is positively hilarious.  Sutcliff can take your heart and wring it like a sponge.  Lewis and Tolkien were masters of their art.  We ought to read them, look up to them, learn from them (and never stop doing so!), but we must also find our own ground, plant our roots in it and say, "This is my place.  I'll gain nutrients from all the writers I come across, but I am confident enough in my own voice not to mimic that of others."

It's a growing art, this writing business.  But it is important to realize that it varies from one person to the next, and we're not meant to try to graft ourselves into some other writer's vine - so that when someone asks us, "Would you rather write like this author or this author?" our response should be, "Um, cake, please?"

Sparks

pinterest: tempus regina

Jenny just wrote a post on the elements that have inspired, and continue to inspire, her novel Gingerune.  We both did something like this for our participation in the "next big thing" blog hop back in January, but that was only one question amid several and there was little room for detail; it seemed a good idea to take more space to elaborate.

Since January I have written some 20 or 30k words and I find myself late in the story, staring at what I believe is the descent - ascent, I suppose, but it feels like a descent - to the climactic chapters.  It's altogether mind-boggling.  But at any rate, I am at that thickest of thick parts where just about everything I come across reminds me of the story to a greater or lesser degree.

books

Tempus Regina involves and will involve a great deal of research, since it covers so much time.  One of the earliest to get the story off the ground was, not surprisingly, The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff.  It invoked images of one world I wished to create, giving me the first glimmers of light as I ventured into the writing process, and I would thank Sutcliff for it if I could.  At the other end of the spectrum, Dickens' Bleak House helped sketch the underworld of Victorian London in my mind; I do manage to thank him by letting him make a cameo appearance, albeit not a very flattering one.  And then more recently, and for no particular reason, I found in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew a kindred spirit.

poetry

I don't read a great deal of poetry, but there are a few snatches of verse that fit Tempus Regina: mostly Tennyson, but also Eiluned Lewis' The Birthright and the classic final line from Lord Byron's When We Two Parted:

if I should meet thee

after long years

how should I greet thee?

with silence and tears.

There is also a particular line from Tennyson's Morte D'Arthur that I keep pinned to my corkboard and refer to from time to time:

...the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd,

larger than human on the frozen hills.

songs

Everywhere I turn, there seems to be a song that fits one part of Tempus Regina or another.  I think in many cases it is wholly my own bias.  The first ever to be connected with the story was Escala's Requiem for a Tower, and then Street of Dreams by Blackmore's Night.  The march style of Sarabande, also by Escala, is appropriate as well.  Andrew Peterson's lovely Carry the Fire makes a wonderful theme for the story as a whole, and several relationships within it in particular; Maire Brennan's Hear My Prayer fits nicely with Regina.  They make sense enough, but other songs are rather crazier - like Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Falcon in the Dive (Chauvelin swears), and Adele's Set Fire to the Rain and Skyfall.  

It's all about the bias, I tell you.

Developing Minor Characters

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I love characters.  I love getting to know them, however tricky and long the process is.  I love seeing them develop what writers might call "independence" or "personality" or what-have-you.  I love rubbing shoulders with them.  I just love them. They're always such - characters!

At least, that goes for the major players.  Regina and the Assassin, for instance, or Tip or Marta or Charlie.   These are, after all, the ones I really spend time with: not just the narrator, but the people whose lives are intertwined with that narrator's and who I must deal with in just about every chapter.  As in real life, being with them and trying to get to know them over such a long period makes them (relatively speaking) easy to write.  I know them.  Sometimes they surprise me, but in general I can tell you how they will react in a given situation.  I know Regina has no use for Dickens.  I know the thing Tip misses most when he's miles from land is the trees.  After a while, I just start finding these things out.

minor characters are a different matter.

Just about every story has them - people who exist on the periphery of the story, whose interactions with the protagonist are infrequent, who have a part to play but do not sit at the heart of the tale.  I don't know about you, but I find these ones the tough cookies.  When you have a fellow who drifts in and drifts out, how do you get to know them?  How do you make them memorable?  How do you make them a person?

I've read some tips that advise writers to "give the character a defining trait" - a drawl or a habit or a word they're particularly fond of - to make them stick in the reader's mind.  I suppose if that is the goal, it's a reasonable approach, but it rather smacks to me of "tagging."  You scribble down the defining trait, punch a hole in the card, put a string through it, tie it to the character's leg and voila!  An easy something for the reader to note!  No great brainpower needed on either side of the equation, but the reader remembers (a little remotely) who the character is and so it's all good.

Note, I'm not at all saying that there is something inherently wrong with defining traits; I know there are several in my own books, and I also remember a novel I read some while back where a character habitually said, "Listen now," and it worked.  It fit him.  It was natural, and I liked it.  I'm just not a fan of the dartboard approach to writing - picking a trait and plastering it to the character without even a by-your-leave.  A quirk doth not a person make.

And that, I think, ought to be the goal with every character, major or minor: to make a person of them.  They won't all be equally vibrant.  My word, some of Dickens' heroes were downright pale!  But we ought to do justice to the characters in our stories, and not make caricatures of the poor fellows.

I still find this a tricky business, but one thing I've found helpful in the process of writing Tempus Regina, whose cast is larger than any I have dealt with yet, is to take the time to dig into each person's backstory.  Not that it comes out in the actual novel, mind, because that would be downright tedious.  But when I feel a person is flimsy, it is helpful for me to take them, go back into the bits and pieces I know of their past, and write them a short story.  Casting them as the point-of-view character forces me to study their thought-patterns, and following the snatches of their undeveloped history gives me something to work with.  Then, when I go back to the novel and pick up where I left off, I think, "Nyaha!  I know who you are now."  And even if what I wrote ends up having no bearing on the plot, it still gives me confidence and grants that character that much more reality.

but sometimes what I write does have bearing, and that's even better.

Ink from Other Pens

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Of course the year is not quite over yet (shopping and Christmas have to come first!), and before the New Year I hope to finish Bleak House; but it's near enough for me to scribble up a "yearly reads" post for 2012.

I find it interesting to go back to last year's post and look over the books I read during 2011.  Sherlock Holmes; Mutiny on the Bounty; Beowulf; Rosemary Sutcliff.  I read my first Tale of Goldstone Wood.  Robert Louis Stevenson introduced himself to me via The Master of Ballantrae.  I reveled in Howl's Moving Castle and waded through The Count of Monte Cristo, and read The Christian Mind and The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.  I dabbled in G.K. Chesterton and Eiluned Lewis' Dew on the Grass.  I researched for the Sea Fever books.  And all in all, not counting re-reads, Goodreads informs me that I read 39 books in 2011.

I read more this year, and though not all were particularly lengthy, I loved a good number of them.  The very first book I finished in January was Rosemary Sutcliff's Simon, and later in the year I also read The Shield Ring (gah, so sad!) and The Lantern Bearers (gah, so sad!).  I only have two unread Sutcliff novels on my shelf now, those being The Shining Company, which I hear is even more sad, and The Mark of the Horse Lord.  Her books tend to wring me of all possible emotions and leave me rather limp, so I'm proud of myself having managed three in a year.  Pardon me while I pat myself on the back.

I took a semi-self-directed course (figure that out) in the history of science during last school year, so I read several books for that, with more or less success: I enjoyed Eureka Man, but The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a struggle indeed.  And then of course there were Custance's Noah's Three Sons and Genesis and Early Man, both highly recommended.  I also read At the Evening Hour, a little devotional by E.D. Warfield, which would be highly recommended if it weren't practically impossible to find; and Bunyan's All Loves Excelling, among others.

I continued falling in love with R. L. Stevenson's novels, devouring Treasure Island, Kidnapped (now an adored favorite), and its sequel David Balfour.  I read that last at the beach, and I think it will always remind me of sunshine and ocean and lounge chairs on a balcony.  I got a lot of reading done that week, actually...  Good times.  The Black Arrow waits on my shelf - at least it did, but I think Jenny made off with it - because after all, I couldn't read all of Stevenson in one year.

Fans of Margaret Mitchell will be happy to hear that I finally read Gone with the Wind; I think maybe the only reason I did was because the title is so gorgeous, and perhaps because I wanted to compare it to the movie.  Or the movie to it.  Or something.  I read Peter Pan about the same time: an odd book, but I loved the bitter-sweetness of the ending.  I Capture the Castle, recommended by our very own Mirriam, was very different from my usual fare; it made me think, and puzzled me a bit.  It might have been the time period; I'm not used to that setting.

I read a number of books that I had been meaning to get to for a while: Alexander Hamilton, Cooper's The Deerslayer, Blamires' New Town, Forester's Mr. Midshipman Hornblower.  I read several that I hadn't been planning to read, and had never heard of before: A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, and McKillip's The Riddle-Master of Hed, and A Hanging Offense.  I read Anne Elisabeth Stengl's two novels that released this year, Moonblood and Starflower (hurrah!).  I managed Les Miserables in full, unabridged glory (exactly one page longer than last year's The Count of Monte Cristo.  Were the novels as long in the original French...?) and sobbed over A Tale of Two Cities.  And I absolutely gobbled up Sayers' The Mind of the Maker - which everyone should read, no exceptions.

This year's literature course has been entirely Shakespeare, so I've read more of his plays this year, I think, than all the previous years combined.  Which isn't exactly saying much.  I read As You Like It, Cymbeline, and Antony and Cleopatra without much enthusiasm; quibbled with Richard III ("HE'SPLANTAGENETHE'SEVILCURSEHIMCURSEHIM!"), Julius Caesar (who almost deserved what he got), and King Lear (ohmywordsodepressing!); but thoroughly enjoyed The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing, and Twelfth Night. 

Reading was, unfortunately, terribly slow in November and has not been much better this month, although I am making fairly rapid progress through Bleak House.  Goodreads (a most knowledgeable place) informs me that I've read over fifty books this year, but I think that's a bit unfair, seeing as at least nine of those are Shakespeare plays.  Still, it wasn't a bad year.  I found new favorites in Kidnapped, The Mind of the Maker, and A Tale of Two Cities.  I ventured into Custance, braved my sorrow over Uncas and read another Leatherstocking Tale, and finally worked up the gumption to read Alexander Hamilton.  I read a number of varied and disconnected histories, ranging in subject from Rome to the English Civil War to the French and Indian War.  I soldiered through Les Miserables.  And despite my complaints and mocking, I really have enjoyed this foray into the world of Shakespeare.

Actually, I think "varied" is a pretty good adjective to describe this year's reading list.  Varied, and fast-paced; it was not as regular as 2011.  Probably next year I will keep to a more staid regimen, lest I give myself indigestion.  Too many books in a short span of time is almost as bad as too few!

what have you read this year?

The How and the Why

pinterest: the soldier's cross

I promised a third round of questions to be answered, and the month has nearly slipped by without me posting it!  But here you have another, and I believe the last, batch; if any of you sent in questions that have not been answered, send me an email and let me know.

Also, don't forget that the book giveaway ends tomorrow!  If you have not entered or written up a review of either The Soldier's Cross or The Shadow Things, hurry and do so before November is out.  We'll be announcing the winners next month.

And now, your questions answered.

writer4christ asked...

1. How do you develop your characters?

I write them. Honestly, that is the most helpful thing I have found for developing characters; much as I enjoy memes like Beautiful People for learning things about these people, I really don’t get to know the people themselves until I’ve spent a good 50,000 words with them. Even now, despite all the planning I’ve done for writing Tempus Regina in November, I wouldn’t say I know my characters. By the end of the story, then I should know them. But I’ve got to plug away at Regina’s side, seeing her struggles and her thoughts and her words, to the finish line before I can say I know even a little inkling of who she is—just as I had to plug away with Fiona, and Justin King, and Tip Brighton. They surprise me and, to argue in a rather circular fashion, that’s when I know they’re developed.

2. Do you ever want to write longer books (like 200 page-300 pages and/or longer)?

As a matter of fact, my stories are pretty long already by industry standards (not by the standards of a Dickens or a Dumas, but alas, we don’t live in the 19th Century anymore!). The Soldier’s Cross, since it was a debut novel, is pretty small at 92,000 words. The entirety of The White Sail’s Shaking came in at a whopping 185,000, or thereabouts, and I’ve been obliged to split it for easier digestion. As it is technically one story, however, I still count it as an 185k story. Who knows how long Tempus Regina will be? I’m trying not to think about it.

I like large books. As Jane Austen wrote—in one of her incomplete works, I think: “But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.” It would even seem that my brain produces large books. Perhaps one of these days I’ll produce a tome to rival the bulk of Les Miserables!

3. What is your favorite Charles Dickens novel? Have you read Bleak House?

It’s difficult to pick a favourite work of a man so accomplished. I enjoyed Little Dorrit; I was caught up in the sorrow of Amy Dorrit’s life and in the tortured honour of a hero like Arthur Clennam. I was amazed, too, at Dickens’ skill at bringing all the threads together to create a whole seamless story. However, I must give A Tale of Two Cities much credit for having made me bawl. I honestly had to go in search of a box of Kleenex when I shut the book on the last page. Who can not suffer with and respect a character like Sydney Carton? It made my heart ache, and though it was smaller than most of Dickens’ other works, I think it deserves its high position amid literature.

But I haven’t read Bleak House yet! It waits for me to be in the mood for something, well, bleak. I’ve heard it’s excellent and I really must get to it soon.

4. Why do you write?

I write because I can’t not. I write because of my love for the characters, and the worlds and stories of the characters, in my mind. I write because if I didn’t, the stories would probably burst out like Athena from Zeus’ head. I write because I was made to create—as I believe everyone, because fashioned in God’s image, was made to create—and the medium I’ve been given is that of words. That’s why I write.

alex (goldenink) asked...

5. What was it that got you into writing? 

I’m not one of those writers who has been scribbling from the earliest age, though I was always an uncritical admirer of my sister’s stories. When I was nine or ten, I didn’t have any real hobbies and was most disgruntled about it. I wanted to draw and couldn’t, wasn’t in love with violin enough to pursue it, and wanted very much to write. So I began, and though it was a very rocky beginning, I’m glad I did.

6. What inspired the story behind The Soldier's Cross? 

The story was mostly inspired by a snapshot image of a young woman in a sanctuary, holding a silver cross pendant. It had absolutely no relation to anything else, but it developed quickly after that first thought. I’m sure there was pain in the process, but fortunately I’ve forgotten it now!

7. Who was your favorite character in the book, and why? 

It is a little difficult to answer this, as I am torn between David, with whom Fiona has perhaps five run-ins all told, and Pierre, the young Lord of Gallandon. David was always a breeze to write; he was so brusque and his kindness so harsh. But Pierre had more character, simply because he was present more often, and I knew him best. I liked discovering his strengths and weaknesses and watching his personality develop. And, too—but that would be telling. Anyhow, I think I can say Pierre is my favorite.

8. What is your current writing project, and how is it progressing so far? 

I’m currently writing what someone recently termed a “fantasy-esque” novel called Tempus Regina: taking it through NaNo, in fact. It is something like a historical fantasy, because, while it deals with time travel, dragons, and all that good stuff, it also deals heavily with two legendary points in history. The story is still young and I have not properly “gotten into” it, but I am enjoying it and having fun with the characters. And the research. Really fun, outlandish research.

9. What hopes do you have for writing? 

Ah, this question sinks deep! I think (if I must be honest) that while I strive to write to honor God and for my personal enjoyment, I do have a number of “hopes” for what my writing will accomplish. I hope my writing expands my mind and my spirit. I hope my books find their way into the hearts of readers and inspire love, and many gleeful, inarticulate sentences. There are many things I hope for, and it can be difficult to keep that “rare jewel of Christian contentment” while still laboring to better my work.

10. Do you have any advice for beginning writers? 

If you’re just beginning to write, do your very best to ignore the host of writing tips and blogs and books out there and just write. If you focus too heavily and too early on “getting it right,” you run the great risk of losing the heart and soul of writing and turning it into a mere mechanical process.  

11. Do you have any advice for those writers who are about ready to begin their journey into the world of publishing? 

Think about what you’re doing, and don’t opt for one path simply because it appears easier. In my most recent (and controversial!) post I sought to encourage writers not to take anything for granted, and to question the things around them: even something as apparently fundamental as the Christian publishing industry. As believers, we should be marked for the thought we give and the wisdom we apply to everything we set our hand to do.

Day Two {Male Author}

Day two on Lerowen's Fifteen Day Challenge list deals with your favorite male author. I peered at the question and pondered the question and formulated tentative answers to the question without success. I might say C.S. Lewis, but Jenny already said Lewis and I hate to be redundant. I might say James Fenimore Cooper because his The Last of the Mohicans is one of my all-time favorite books, but currently that is the only book of his that I have read, so that might sound silly. I might say Charles Dickens, but one has to be in the right mood to enjoy Dickens. So the result?

I have no favorite male author. My favorite books are my comfort books, and they are all, I believe, written by female authors; most of the other books on my shelves are ones that I very much enjoy, but not ones that I would call "favorites." Or perhaps I have so many favorites that I can't dig through the heap to find one that I could call my really, really favorite. What I read depends on my mood, so I thought I would give my favorite male authors based on that.

for a cheerful, sunny day

Dickens. He isn't the sort of fellow you read on a gloomy winter day when you're in a gloomy winter mood, unless you like that feeling of depression and cheerlessness; but when I am feeling particularly "up," he is at least one of my favorite authors to read. He is quite verbose, which annoys some people, but I love his caustic wit and his sparkling casts of characters. The reader must trek through a great deal of darkness to reach the end, but I like that in most of his works, there's light when you come out of the tunnel.

what I have read

A Christmas Carol
The Pickwick Papers
Martin Chuzzlewit
Little Dorrit

for a rainy autumn day

C.S. Lewis. Despite my desire not to copy Jenny, I can't give a list of favorite authors without including Lewis. Again, I have to be in the right mood for him; I have to be able to handle the otherworldly longing, the mix of sorrow and joy, that threads through many of his works. I can't simply pick up Till We Have Faces any day of the week without feeling the need to cry because of the beauty and reality of the truths that Lewis paints. But it would not be true to say that C.S. Lewis is not still a favorite, because of more so than despite the painful loveliness in his books.

what I have read

The Chronicles of Narnia (7)
The Space Trilogy (3)
Till We Have Faces
The Screwtape Letters
The Great Divorce
Mere Christianity
An Experiment in Criticism

The Genius of Dickens

I apologize for the lack of posts; this past week has been quite busy and I've not been on the computer much.

Dickens is the kind of writer who must either be loved or hated. Readers either see him as brilliant and witty or dull and tedious, and there are elements of his style which support both views; it doesn't help, for instance, that he was paid by the word and that he was in constant need of money. In addition to the length of his novels, they deal with very dismal themes - not the kind of light reading you want for a rainy day. In fact, until I began watching the Masterpiece Theatre adaptations of his works, I did not realize that Dickens' novels were concerned with anything but starving orphans, a misconception which I am sure is shared by many others. Dickens is simply not appreciated by the majority of readers nowadays.

A few weeks ago I finished reading Little Dorrit, one of Dickens' less familiar novels, although it has become more well known since the release of the BBC production starring Claire Foy and Matthew Macfadyen. Although we had long owned an older production of David Copperfield, the Little Dorrit mini-series was my family's introduction to the world of Dickens adaptations, and my introduction to Dickens as something more than a boring and dismal writer. It had intrigue. And romance. And wit. And - and color! I was startled and pleased, and began to take an interest in reading more of his books than I had hitherto.

I had read A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers before, but though I enjoyed both, I did not fully appreciate them. After watching a slew of Dickens adaptations I picked up Martin Chuzzlewit, not being in the mood for one of his more popular and more dismal novels, like Oliver Twist, and learned to appreciate his writing. Then, as I already mentioned, I just recently completed Little Dorrit and found it fantastic.

I am no literary expert, and so I do not intend to go to great lengths to talk about the minutiae of Dickens' style and his expert use of adverbs or some such silliness. But I would like to do my bit to set aside the idea that Dickens oughtn't be a classic or that his stories have no life. While it is true that he tended toward wordiness, it is amazing how much wit and truth he put in those "useless" words - proving that, while less may be more, it does not necessarily follow that more is nothing. (Chew on that conundrum for a bit.)

Many, if not all, of Dickens' novels have a high moral tone and a heavy political criticism, but unlike most modern novels - and, no doubt, many of his own era - he succeeds in keeping the reader engaged even through long chapters on the Circumlocution Office by his tongue-in-cheek narration. Although he is essentially satirizing the British government and there is no action, he makes up for it with humor and shows a little later that some detail on the Circumlocution Office was necessary for the storyline. I do not suggest using this as license to run to great lengths with backstory and description, but I believe a little such spice would not go amiss. Writing gurus today are so adamant about chopping words and never having any sentence that does not move the plot along that, judging from the sizes of paragraphs in modern novels, writers seem afraid of exceeding three or four sentences in each. So the moral of this story is not to be flowery merely for the sake of being flowery (unless you're getting paid by the word, in which case, have at it), but not to be scared using too many words.

Another thing for which Dickens ought always to be regarded as a classic is his skill in crafting characters. I have seen many books around on "crafting characters" and "creating the perfect character" and "eliminating every cliche that ever existed from your main character"; but I really have no idea why such works are needed when we have Dickens novels. In his books he displays a variety of characters such as I have never seen in any other author's work, and characters who exemplify such extremes and yet also come across as unquestionably realistic. His main characters, indeed, are not so much this way as his supporting characters are; in Little Dorrit, the titular character narrated a relatively small proportion of the book. Throughout the novel she is a quiet, retiring young woman who hardly stands out at all, but is made remarkable in her silent virtue by the characters who surround her - her petulant father, her ne'er-do-well brother, her proud sister, and the hard and self-righteous Mrs. Clennam. Arthur Clennam, the narrator of most of the story, is a kindhearted man with a desire to do right, but again, he is not remarkable in the way the minor characters are.

Little Dorrit alone provides a plethora of fantastic minor characters. There is Fanny Dorrit, the main character's proud sister who is given to outbursts of temper followed by outbursts of tears and cries of "I wish I was dead!" There is good-natured Mrs. Plornish, who believes she can speak Italian and always has to "translate" for the Italian Cavaletto (who can communicate in English). There is Maggy, the orphan girl who had a fever when she was ten and has never gotten any older since. There is the whole cast of characters who make up the Circumlocution Office, particularly Barnacle Junior with his eyeglass-woes. And then there is my personal favorite: Mr. Pancks, the grubby rent-collector who is disliked by the population of Bleeding Heart Yard, while his hypocritical employer is beloved by all. Pancks is described as the Tug - always puffing and snorting and going along at a great rate, chugging into 'dock', towing the 'ship' (his employer) around.

Those are just a few of the outrageous characters who populate Dickens' novels. Most writer's minor characters appear to serve a plot point and then slip into oblivion, but with Dickens, everyone is made to stand out no matter how slight his role is. Just about any of his stories will provide a writer with a lesson in minor characters and how they make a story move - and that is the genius of Dickens.