5 Frustrating Things About Writing

I'm having one of those days where I try to write and the right words just don't come.  Maybe I've got too many writing projects going at once? (I'm working on a novel and a short story at the same time, and I've got my weekly blog post on top of that!)  Anyway, because regular topics just aren't working for me today, here's a post about five frustrating things about writing. 

Plot Bunnies

"Plot bunny" is a term used among writers to mean an idea that distracts you from the thing you're currently writing.  For instance, you're writing medieval fantasy when you get what seems like a really good idea for a story set in 20th century America.  It's really tempting to drop the story you're currently working on and start one based on the new idea.  Don't do it.  Write down the idea and forget about it for now.  If you hop from story to story following plot bunnies, you'll never finish anything. (I need to follow this advice better myself.  I have started countless stories based on plot bunnies, and hardly any of them got beyond five pages.)

Forgetting Details In Your Own Story

 

 I thought this one just happened to me, but I've heard from a few other people who say the same thing.  You're writing along, and you have to invent a name for a minor character, or the name of a town, or something like that.  You put it in and promptly forget all about it.  When the minor character comes up again three chapters later, you can't remember his name.  So you have to search painstakingly through the first part of your book to find him.  I can only think of two ways to avoid this problem...have a perfect memory or make lists of all the details you might possibly have to remember later.

Plots That Don't Work

You've left your character pining away in a tower from which there is no escape, and now you have no idea how to get him out.  The only option seems to be supernatural aid (or a giant eagle, if you're Tolkien).  And supernatural aid (and eagles) seem unsatisfying, at least to me. You want the characters to be able to solve their own problems without the writer dragging in outside help. 

 I think whoever wrote Brigadoon had this problem.  They left poor Tommy Albright stranded in the modern day with no way to get back to Brigadoon.  The conclusion, where Tommy goes back to the spot where Brigadoon used to be and finds it still there, feels like cheating on the writers' part.  The only explanation for why Brigadoon is still there is "if you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible".  Cute, maybe, but it still feels like a deus ex machina to me.  (This is not to say that I dislike Brigadoon.  On the contrary, it's one of my favorite old movies.)

 Characters That Don't Do What You Want

You know exactly what you want your character to do, but he won't do it.  Instead of being a bold outlaw, he's a wishy-washy outlaw with scruples.  (This example is from a character that appeared in a novel I wrote a few years ago.  He was the main character, and the story didn't work well with him being wishy-washy and scrupulous.)  Anne in Anne of Avonlea complains about the same thing when she's writing her short story, "Averil's Atonement." I have no idea why this happens.  I've heard people saying it's all in the writer's mind.  Maybe it is, and if so, I wish I could figure out what to do about it!  

Distraction

Distracted writing isn't dangerous like distracted driving...but it's still frustrating!  There are an indefinite number of ways to get distracted while you're trying to write.  People in the room, music, the Internet, to-do lists, and just ordinary daydreaming are only a few of the things that make it so difficult to concentrate on the project at hand.  It's impossible to completely eliminate distraction, but you can definitely avoid it.  For me, the best place to work and avoid distractions is a quiet room (with no music, not even instrumental).  I often write my stories longhand on paper, because the computer distracts me too!

Do you relate to any of these frustrating things?  Or have others to add?  I'd love to hear them!

 

 

10 Show-Stealing Movie Sidekicks

While figuring out characters for my current work-in-progress, I've been thinking a lot about the importance of some underrated characters: sidekicks.  They support the main characters or try to show them where they're going wrong.  They're often funny without even trying.  There's also a disarming humility about a lot of sidekicks; they're focused on everyone but themselves. 

After thinking about this for a while, I decided to do a post on it.  (Yes, I'm a college grad and this is the way I choose to spend my free time.  You may judge me.)  Here are ten of my favorite movie sidekicks and supporting characters!  I picked movies because I could show pictures of the characters.  Maybe at some point I'll do a post on sidekicks from books too.

Bartok, Anastasia

Bartok is on the bad side.  He's helping the villain, Rasputin, find the escaped Princess Anastasia.  But Bartok is continually dismayed by Rasputin's evil plans.  He tells him to "forget the girl and get a life!"  Finally he decides it's gone too far: "You're on your own, sir!  This can only end in tears."  Bartok's voice is hilarious (not surprising, since he's voiced by uber-talented Hank Azaria).  This is a sidekick who deserved his own movie...and got it, with Bartok the Magnificent (which is a really fun movie, by the way)!

The Captain of the Guard, Cinderella

The Captain of the Guard in Disney's live-action Cinderella is so great.  He's the best friend Prince Kit seems to have at the palace (besides his father).  When the Grand Duke schemes to bring more power to the kingdom at the expense of Kit's happiness, the Captain is always there to remind everyone that Kit is a person too.  He's also really funny!  I love when Kit is telling him all about the girl he's fallen head over heels for, and the Captain says, "Do you think she has a sister?"  The Captain also gets to put Lady Tremaine in her place at the end.  "Who are you to stop an officer of the king? Are you an empress? A saint? A deity?"

 Kronk, The Emperor's New Groove

 

  Like Bartok, Kronk is the villain's sidekick; Yzma is using him to help her track down the escaped emperor-turned-llama.  (This sounds really weird if you haven't seen the movie.)  Kronk is not the brightest bulb in the box, but when Yzma gets deeply entrenched in ridiculous schemes to kill the emperor, Kronk turns out to be the one who uses common sense!  He's friendly, hilarious, and a great cook.  (In fact, the point where he turns against Yzma is when she tells him she never liked his spinach puffs!)  He also talks to squirrels.

Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

I would be remiss if I didn't include one of the most iconic movie sidekicks ever: Inigo Montoya.  Although I don't hold with revenge or dueling, I appreciate the terrific love Inigo has for his father that makes him chase the six-fingered man for so many years.  I also love his interactions with the other characters.  He's incredibly forthright and will tell you just what he's thinking.  

To Vizzini: "You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."  

To the Man in Black: "I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you!"  

Cogsworth and Lumiere, Beauty and the Beast

I had to mention both of these because they're so hilarious together!  Cogsworth is a mother-hen type and the straight man to Lumiere's funny man.  (Incidentally, my siblings have informed me that he is the Beauty and the Beast character most like me.)  He wants to make sure nobody's breaking rules or making the Beast mad.  Lumiere, on the other hand, thinks that rules are more like guidelines than actual rules.  He wants to show Belle just how hospitable the castle can be!  Their interactions with each other and the Beast are just golden.  

Cogsworth (to the Beast): "Who?  Oh!  The girl. Yes,  the, ah, girl.  Well, actually, she's in the process of, ah, um, circumstances being what they are, ah... she's not coming."

Lumiere (to the Beast): "Master, I could be wrong, but that might not be the best way to win the girl's affections." 

Cosmo, Singin' In the Rain

Cosmo Brown and Don Lockwood started out as good friends who did second-rate vaudeville together.  Then Don Lockwood became a movie star, and Cosmo...well, he played the piano on the set.  All through Singin' In the Rain, while Don's in the spotlight, Cosmo is cheering him up behind the scenes and helping him figure out his problems.  He comes up with terrific ideas, like dubbing Kathy's voice over Lina's in "The Dancing Cavalier."  And he's not looking for fame or recognition, just helping his friends and making people laugh!

Sir Hiss, Disney's Robin Hood

Sir Hiss, evil Prince John's sidekick, always makes me laugh.  On the one hand, he goes around flattering Prince John and even spying for him.  On the other hand, Prince John makes him incredibly crabby...and Sir Hiss is hilarious when he's crabby!  He can see Prince John for what he is: a whiny, cowardly character who's not fit to lead anything, let alone a whole kingdom.  

Prince John: "One more hiss out of you, Hiss, and you are walking to Nottingham"

  Hiss [aside]: "Snakes don't walk, they slither. Hmph. So there."

Hiss: "How nobly King Richard's crown sits on your royal brow."

Prince John [not paying attention]: "Doesn't it?" [realizing, furious] "King Richard?  I told you never to mention my brother's name!" 

Hiss: "A mere slip of the forked tongue, Sire."

 Truman, October Baby

October Baby is a pretty serious movie for the most part.  After all, it deals with a serious theme: the right to life of unborn babies.  But it has some great comedic moments, and a lot of them involve Truman.  

Truman is one of Hannah and Jason's college classmates.  We first see him trying to make a little extra money by "upgrading" people's tickets as they come to a school play.  Next, we see him catching an iron on fire.  No matter what ridiculous thing Truman is doing, he maintains a dignified and gloomy composure that is hilarious in contrast.  And he's nerdy--the kind of socially awkward nerdy that most of us nerds hope we're not.  I love it!

Canoe, That Darn Cat

Canoe is a boy who hangs out at Patti Randall's house, raiding the fridge and taking Patti to surfer movies that make her feel seasick.  But when he suspects that something fishy is going on at the Randall house, he's determined to help Patti out by getting to the bottom of it...and jealous, because he thinks there's a young man involved.  Canoe's bumbling detective attempts are one of the best things about this movie!  

 

Sam Gamgee, Lord of the Rings

Sam Gamgee is an unusual sidekick because he's also the hero of the story!  Sam starts out as Frodo's bumbling, comedic gardener, always needing his master's help and guidance.  But throughout the story, Sam gets wiser and stronger.  As the Ring becomes harder and harder for Frodo to bear, Sam supports him.  He risks his life over and over for Frodo.  Without Sam, the whole quest would have failed.  He's my favorite LOTR character.

These are only a few of my favorite movie sidekicks.  I'd love to see your favorites in the comments!

 

 

 

 

The Scarlet Pimpernel: An Appreciation Post

It's hard for me to describe how much I love this book.  It's one of the few 300+ page books I've read in one sitting.  The characters and the plot are so enthralling I just can't put it down...even after having read it so many times I've lost count!

I told my sister I wanted to do a blog post on The Scarlet Pimpernel, and she said, "Wait...the book or the movie?"  Apparently there are a lot of blog posts out there talking about how great the movie with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellen is, but very few talking about how great the book is.  So I decided to do a post about the book.  I do like the movie, and maybe sometime I'll do a blog post on that, but the book comes prior.

Where do I start?  I guess I'll start with the characters.

Warning: This post does contain spoilers.  If you haven't read the book, go read it.  Then you can come back and read this. ;)

The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a hero shrouded in mystery.  He has one goal: helping French royalists in danger of death to escape to England during the French Revolution.  He carries out his daring rescues in disguise; no one knows who he really is except his nineteen followers.  He's kind of the antithesis of the Phantom of the Opera.  (I can't stand the Phantom, but I'm not going to discuss that at length here.)  The Phantom is a mysterious figure who does awful things; the Scarlet Pimpernel is a mysterious figure who does great things.  The English and the French royalists love him; the French revolutionaries hate him.

As the story goes on, the reader begins to get hints about the Scarlet Pimpernel's identity.  Finally, Lady Marguerite Blakeney discovers the truth.  The mysterious man is the most unlikely man possible--Marguerite's husband, Sir Percy Blakeney, a man known in English society as a brainless dandy, or to put it bluntly, a fool.  Sir Percy's identity as the Scarlet Pimpernel is so important that he puts on the mask of a fool in his everyday life.  And I think that's one of the coolest things about him.

I don't know if Baroness Orczy was thinking of Shakespeare plays when she wrote the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but Sir Percy always makes me think of the Shakespearean fool.  Shakespeare's Fool is often the only character in the play who understands what's really going on.  The other characters think he's stupid, but he's actually wiser than they are.  Similarly, Sir Percy poses as someone who only cares about clothes and lame jokes.  This is the safest disguise of all, because who would suspect someone who seems so foolish to be the mastermind behind the escape of hundreds of French royalists?

Sir Percy is also a man deeply in love.  He practically worships the ground Marguerite walks on.  But because at the beginning of the story he can't trust her with his secret, he has to appear to her the way he appears to everyone else.  She thinks he's stupid and doesn't love her.   Wearing the mask of the fool even around Marguerite is breaking Sir Percy's heart.  It's so satisfying when Marguerite learns who Sir Percy really is, and still more satisfying when he learns he no longer has to conceal his identity or his love from her. 

Sir Percy is awesome.  He has enough bravery to walk right up to his worst enemy, clap him on the back, and tell him dumb jokes, all the while coming up with a new plan for outwitting him.  He risks his life again and again for the sake of the people depending on him.  And his schemes are at the same time incredibly clever and outrageously audacious.   He's basically the superhero of the resistance to the French Revolution.  I only wish he was real!

Marguerite Blakeney

 I didn't like Marguerite Blakeney at the beginning of the book.  I think that was the writer's intent.   Marguerite is portrayed as a woman who is blasé, sarcastic, and disappointed in life.  She has married Sir Percy Blakeney, a man violently in love with her, only to find his affection grow cold when he learned she was the cause of a French royalist family being sent to the guillotine.  She's too proud to tell Sir Percy that she made a horrible mistake and tried to save the family from death.  Although she's married to the richest man in England and has everything money can buy, Marguerite is miserable.  There's only one thing in her life that she really cares about: her brother Armand.  

So when she learns that Armand is in deadly danger and the only way she can save him is by betraying the Scarlet Pimpernel to the French revolutionaries, she is torn.  Although she has no idea who the Scarlet Pimpernel is, she has always admired him with something akin to hero-worship.  How can she send him to the guillotine?  On the other hand, how can she let Armand die without trying to save him?  Her love for her brother overcomes her sense of right and wrong.  She finds a clue that puts Chauvelin, the Scarlet Pimpernel's arch-nemesis, on his track.  

But then she finds a gold ring with the insignia of the Scarlet Pimpernel in her husband's study.  All kinds of clues come together in her mind and she realizes that her husband, the "brainless" Sir Percy, is actually the Scarlet Pimpernel!  Never before has Marguerite regretted anything so much as she regrets having put Chauvelin on the Scarlet Pimpernel's track.  So she races across country with a friend of her husband's, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, to try to get to Sir Percy and warn him before Chauvelin finds him.  She must save her husband, even if it means losing her own life.  

Although Sir Percy is the hero of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Marguerite is its protagonist.  Sir Percy doesn't change throughout the story.  Marguerite does.  She has to learn truths about love and sacrifice.  She has to completely change her perception of the husband she thought she knew. 

Marguerite learns that love does not excuse betrayal.  The love for her brother Armand that led her to denounce a family of French royalists and betray the Scarlet Pimpernel was warped and selfish.  It has caused terrible harm to others.  Marguerite doesn't see this, though, until she learns that her own husband is in danger because of her love for her brother.  Then she sees that love doesn't make the end justify the means.  Betraying the Scarlet Pimpernel to save her brother was a crime that Marguerite spends the rest of the book trying to mend.  And she does this through offering her very life for Sir Percy's safety.  Marguerite may be a character that starts out with a lot of selfishness, but she ends up as a woman of love and courage. 

Chauvelin

Chauvelin is the perfect arch-nemesis for this story.  Clever, daring, and apparently heartless, he's the man the French revolutionaries have picked to hunt down the Scarlet Pimpernel.  All Chauvelin cares about is the success of the Revolution.  And he has an undying hatred for the man who has so boldly outwitted the Committee of Public Safety again and again.  He comes to England determined to find out who the Scarlet Pimpernel really is so he can follow him to France and capture him.

Chauvelin decides to recruit one woman to help him in his task: Marguerite Blakeney.  He knew her in France when she and her brothers were both supporters of the French Revolution.  He thinks he can get her to help him, with the proper persuasion.  Quickly Chauvelin finds a way to persuade Marguerite: he gets possession of a letter that proves Marguerite's brother Armand is really in league with the Scarlet Pimpernel.  He tells Marguerite that unless she helps him find out who the Scarlet Pimpernel is, her brother is going to die.  Heartless, clever man!  He treats life like a chess game.  He'll give Marguerite a pawn, her brother, if it means he'll be able to take the king, the Scarlet Pimpernel.  

I think Chauvelin is a well-done villain because he keeps the stakes of the story high.  Nothing will deter him from following his goal of capturing, torturing, and killing the man who has evaded him for so long.  He's also a well-done villain because he has a good understanding of human nature.  He uses Marguerite's emotions as tools in his despicable scheme.  But the Scarlet Pimpernel understands human nature better yet, as he eventually tricks Chauvelin through his understanding of Chauvelin's anti-Semitism.  Chauvelin never saw that one coming!

There are many other terrific characters in The Scarlet Pimpernel.  There are characters that almost feel like Dickens characters: Mr. Jellyband, Mr. Hempseed, and Mr. Jellyband's daughter Sally.  There's sweet little Suzanne, friend of Marguerite.  There's Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, the member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel who takes Marguerite to France to try to save her husband.  Baroness Orczy did a great job developing the other characters in a way that doesn't distract the reader from the main story.  

Apart from the characters of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the plot is just so good!  I love the way the reader doesn't learn who the Scarlet Pimpernel is until Marguerite figures it out.  The reader also doesn't learn how the Scarlet Pimpernel is going to defeat Chauvelin until after he's defeated him.  This makes the book wonderfully suspenseful.  The ending, with Sir Percy and Marguerite finally together again, is wonderful too.  I just love this book!

Fan Fiction: Pros and Cons

I've always had mixed feelings about fan fiction.  Is it worth reading?  Is it even a legitimate genre of writing?   So I thought I'd explore a few pros and cons of fan fiction (both for readers and for writers) in this post.

Starting with the cons:

• Because fan fiction is inherently derived from someone else's work, the authors are using ideas that are not their own.  Instead of coming up with characters and plots from scratch, they're using someone else's work as a springboard.  This can cause problems.  There's the obvious plagiarism issue: is the fan fiction author just ripping off somebody else's story?  Writers can get into dubiously moral and even illegal territory with fan fiction, especially if they're trying to get it published.
• There is a lot of low-quality fan fiction out there.  A LOT of it.  Many people who attempt writing fan fiction know nothing about writing but want to invent further adventures for their favorite characters.  So the fan fiction they come up with is poorly written.  I'm sure this gives them writing practice, but it makes it frustrating to read fan fiction because there's so much poorly-done fan fiction to wade through. (To be fair, there are a lot of original books out there that are also very poorly written.  But it seems to be harder to separate the bad from the good in fan fiction than it is in in original fiction.  Maybe that's partially due to the fact that far fewer people have read the fan fiction than the original works, so there aren't many people to ask whether a particular work of fan fiction is good or not.)
• A lot of fan fiction is highly innappropriate.   What is it with people wanting to take good stories and rewrite them with added sexual content?  That seems like a good idea? Really?  It frustrates me to find what seems like an interesting spinoff on Pride and Prejudice, only to find the author has given Mr. Darcy a backstory that's indistinguishable from Mr. Wickham's.

So there are the cons.  (I'm sure there are more...please comment below with any thoughts.)
Now how about a few pros?

•  Famous ancient writers did it.  Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was inspired by a poem by Arthur Brooke called "The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet."  Virgil's Aeneid is based on Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey.  It seems to me that most of the Robin Hood stories are fan fiction as well, since they're based off the old Robin Hood ballads or off each other.  Come to think of it, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is fan fiction.  These are books people are required to read in school!
• Fan fiction satisfies a great longing in its authors.  Have you ever finished a book and been really sad that it was the last one in the series?  I have.  When I was six, I started writing a sequel to C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia because I couldn't stand that there weren't any more Narnia books.  (Actually, it wasn't technically a sequel since it happened between Prince Caspian and The Dawn Treader.  I believe they call that a paraquel.)  
• Fan fiction is also a good way to practice general writing skills.  Some people that might not otherwise have started writing fiction began with fan fiction.  I think that's a good thing!
• Well-done fan fiction can be a lot of fun to read.  I read a sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess called Wishing For Tomorrow.  It continues the story of the girls who are in the school after Sara leaves in a really satisfying way.  

In summary:  It seems to me that fan fiction is a double-edged sword.  It can be done well; if it's based on classics or other old sources where stealing intellectual property is not an issue, gives credit to the original work where credit is due, and has good content and good writing style, I think it's a worthy addition to the world's literature.  If it's done badly...it deserves to be flung into the depths of Mount Doom. :P

What do you think about fan fiction?  I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

(Full disclosure: I am at this time writing fan fiction myself.  I'm writing a novel based on Pride and Prejudice set in Colorado in the 1870's.  Whether this will ever become a worthy addition to the world's literature remains to be seen.)