Convincing

The funny thing about convincing
Is that you think you know.
You’re so convinced, she’ll be convinced
As if you run the show.

You poke and prod and reason
Beg, bargain, and entreat.
You beat your fists, but she insists
So you’re stuck at a dead heat.

You have to make concessions
Or else you’ll never win.
So you admit, she’s right a bit
Though much to your chagrin.

Suddenly, she’s smirking
Like she’s convinced she won.
To set her straight, would just inflate
And you’d rather it be done.

It’s fine you’ll win the next one
Now relax and have a drink
It’s all worthwhile, to see her smile
That’s convincing don’t you think?

Hands

The crowded room
Swells all around
With people everywhere

Behind their wall
You sit and laugh
Your fingers waiting fast

Hand by hand
They take you out
To vanish on the floor

Each time you’re gone
I watch your chair
And hope that I’ll be next

I make my way
As you return
And reach for where you are

Your fingers close
Around my own
My turn has come at last

For one whole song
We disappear
I get to hold your hand.

If only songs
Were lifetimes long
But sadly they must end

I take you back
To brand new hands
But leave you with a grin

For soon enough
That song will end
I’ll wait for you again

Anxiety

I know it can be tough
When the world closes in
And no one understands
Why the air feels so thin

I know it can be rough
When it’s out of your control
And no one wants to listen
So you burrow in a hole

I know it might not be enough
To make that feeling go away
But I’ll be here to help you
For as long as you need me to stay

Secret Garden

I want to find a secret garden
And take you there at night.
It has to be perfect,
  Perfectly right.
I want there to be moonlight
Streaming through the trees.
A spotlight to dance in;
  Stepping with ease.
A murmur in the breeze
Will be our song
And I want the garden flowers
To sing along
I want it to last all the night long

Uncomfortable

There’s a crick in my neck
A leg jammed in my knee
I can’t feel my toes
And I really need to pee.

There’s hair in my face
And a snore in my ear
My arm fell asleep.
And a sneeze draws near.

My nose needs a scratch
And my leg needs a shake
If I could only stretch my back
And give my poor neck a break

But there’s breath on my chest
And a heart beating soft
A hand holding mine
There’s no way I can cough

If I move she might feel it
And wake from her doze
So uncomfortable’s fine
As long as she never knows.

'Magicians' and Book to Screen Adaptations

            I’m going to break form a bit here and talk about a TV show adapted from a fantasy novel series. Too often I hear from my peers that television adaptations have little to offer in terms of creativity; that although a valiant effort, nothing can really compare to the original book. However, I beg to disagree. Certainly, that may have been the case in the past, but television has become the medium through which the majority of the population consumes entertainment. More people today watch television shows than have read almost any book ever written. As a result, demand for quality has risen drastically, and with CGI, shows are starting to do incredible things that weren’t possible even just a decade ago. What does that mean for books and adaptations? The pendulum of quality is starting to swing back in the other direction.

            Magicians is a currently airing TV adaptation of Lev Grossman’s book series, The Magicians. This show, now in its second season, is in my opinion one of the best-executed page to screen adaptations out there. And the reason is editing, which coincidentally, I am in the throes of right now with my own book!

Spoilers ahead!

            Before we talk about what makes The Magicians adaptation work, let’s discuss the biggest issue behind book to screen adaptations: faithfulness to the original. Film critic Scott Tobias wrote of The Hunger Games movie: “When the goal is simply to be as faithful as possible to the material…the best result is a skillful abridgment, one that hits all the important marks without losing anything egregious.” But if this is your goal, “It’s a failure of adaptations, to say nothing of imagination.” Tobias’ statement stands especially true for film, in which a creator has such a limited timespan to work with. In order to maintain the book’s integrity, there are certain absolutes from the original work that cannot be conceded. These absolutes add up and limit the creative space a director has to utilize his or her medium. But television and film are not books! There are amazing visuals and constructions available to a director that an author cannot compete with. If you only have 90 minutes to adapt a book, and 80 of those minutes are taken up by ‘must include’ plot points, then how can a film utilize its strengths and stake its own claim, or take the time to properly develop relationships? That’s where television today differs and begins to elevate itself. Ten hours allotted to a season provides enough leeway to take those artistic embellishments, and eliminate the issue of faithfulness.

            The writers on Magicians asked a crucial question before fleshing out their story. What didn’t work in the book series? Too often do we idealize the original work – even Shakespeare made some questionable decisions (looking at you Pericles). The Magicians feels like a stand-alone book that got stretched into a three part series. Grossman very clearly had a, ‘what if Harry Potter went to college’ premise with heaps of genre deprecating dry humor on top. But then, surprised at his success, decided to continue the series.

            At the end of book one, Grossman decided to kill off his villain. Makes sense if you’re only writing one book. However, when he did continue the series, as a result, we were left with a second book devoid of a convincing enemy, and we were instead relegated to flashing back half of the novel in order to reestablish a minor character – Julia. Grossman devotes the entire first half of the second book to retrace Julia’s steps during book one, which we didn’t really get to see. He then stumbles his way to an ending, so that everyone can be in the right spot for the third book, which itself has a bizarre, forced sequence in order to bring back another character, whose disappearance was, in my opinion, better left unsolved.

            Don’t get me wrong; I’m a huge fan of the books. But like the showrunners, I recognize that they, and Grossman, are not perfect. So what was the solution; how did they succeed in making such an effective television show? Editing. Rewrites. The creative team sat down and figured out what their strengths were, and then chose how best to restructure the series. Just because book one ends where it does, doesn’t mean that season one of the show should do so. Ultimately, they combined Book One and first half of the Book Two, pushing the ending of the first novel to midway through their second season. Julia, whom Grossman had to go back and re-establish, was brought along from the start, and all of the characters were developed at the same pace. Instead of killing off the well-established villain at the end of season one, they kept him alive and combined his arc with Julia’s to start season two with a bang. As to that character whose disappearance in book one was probably better left unsolved? The series is currently airing, and I don’t know for certain, but my guess is they simply killed her off and expanded a throwaway section of book two about the underworld to better explain her eventual return

            Regardless, Magicians separates itself from many book to screen adaptations by accepting its own strengths and limitations, and identifying the weaknesses of Grossman’s story. So many books, movies, and television shows could be improved simply by taking a step back and asking someone else what they think doesn’t work. Hopefully, more people give Magicians a watch and take note. The upward trend of quality in shows as of late gives me great hope for the future of television, and especially for the fantasy genre in television.

Things I hate in Fantasy: 'The Hero's Journey'

            This week I’m starting the New Year with a new line of posts that I think I’ll really enjoy for its cathartic nature. I’m going to look at aspects of fantasy that just make my blood boil. No stranger to the Fantasy and New-Teen Fantasy sections of Barnes and Noble, I’ve observed my fair share of often trod and/or uninspired tropes. Additionally, aside from the therapeutic release of venting, I’m hoping that these posts will help me identify particular clichés to avoid in my own writing. First up, ‘The Hero’s Journey’.

Possible spoilers ahead.

            'The Hero’s Journey' is a formula dating back to early mythology – The Odyssey is a great example. But it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that a scholar by the name of Joseph Campbell first categorized the technique. Campbell studied myths and oral tradition, and found he could pattern each of them into a set of standardized derivations he called 'The Hero’s Journey'. He broke his definition into three acts: Departure, Initiation, and Return, all three acts comprising seventeen total stages of the story ranging from ‘The Call to Adventure’ to ‘The Freedom to Live’. I won’t go into all seventeen stages here, but the important aspect of his findings was that these stories all consisted of the same elements. In so doing, Campbell unwittingly created a checklist formula for boring, run of the mill fantasy.

            Now I know that I’ve talked about the hero’s journey before, and I don’t want to write off every story that has a hero, a mentor, and one big bad guy, because there are many great fantasy novels that inevitably will fall under some of Campbell’s seventeen stages. Where I draw the line is when modern fantasy writers produce derivative content. One egregious offender is Terry Goodkind in his Sword of Truth series. The series starts with an orphaned young man meeting a woman chased by the evil government. He saves her, and they speak with an old man who turns out to be a wise wizard and mentor. The mentor informs the young man that even though he has been living a “normal” life up to now, he is actually special, and the mentor tasks him with defeating the evil ruler of the government. Hmm… sounds familiar. If I replaced Sword of Truth with Star Wars would anything change?

            The problem with “The Hero’s Journey” is that we’ve seen it a thousand times. When Joseph Campbell set out to define these myths, he admitted that he only looked for similarities in the stories, ignoring any differences that made each story unique. As a result, his definition, by definition, consists entirely of the most generic parts of early myths. Critics attack Campbell for cherry-picking so dramatically, and ignoring all eastern and African oral tradition entirely. So every time a new writer comes along and uses the formula – because it’s easy – we’re left with boring reproductions of “a soup of myths that lose all local flavor.” (Constentino)

            But these books sell. Presumably, that’s why they fill the shelves in bookstores and grocery stores alike.  But what irks me the most is that the more successful these books become, in terms of sales, the more it encourages new writers to create even more derivative material. When I browse the shelves of New Teen Fantasy, I am hard pressed to find something distinct. Every once in a while something sneaks through though, and I encourage readers to support those stories that push against the mold. 

Is Fantasy True Literature?

“I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure.”  -J.R.R. Tolkien

            A question I’ve considered lately, and one I’ve been asked by many people, concerns the literary merit of fantasy books: whether or not the genre is worthy of academic study or even capable of depth beyond simple moral lessons. I wrote in an earlier blog post that the number one question I get asked is why did I choose to write fantasy? The question is fair, and I’m sure writers of other genres are asked the same question, except that when people ask this of me, the query seems tainted with condescension. For years fantasy has ridden the short bus of literature, dismissed as childish or without true literary resonance. So, when people ask why I write fantasy, I tend to react defensively. That is not to say that these people are vindictive in their questioning, merely that they have been biased about the genre, quite understandably, by their upbringing and training.

            Consider how the application of genre has changed through the years. Once upon a time, for something to qualify as true literature (a thing worthy of study), it had to be an artistic experiment, extremely high quality writing, or a significant examination or parable of the human condition. This view became widespread in the early 20th Century in the academic community, led by esteemed academics such as F.R. Leavis, who injected a ‘seriousness’ into literature study that many universities adopted. This ‘seriousness’ affected writers primarily in terms of marketing. Because of strict limitations on what defined different genres, writers fought against classifying their work as mystery, as fantasy, as romance, etc… To do so would essentially remove the book from serious valuation by academics. Famously, Kurt Vonnegut insisted that he did not write science fiction despite the fact that his most famous story involved a soldier being kidnapped by time-travelling aliens.

            More recently, these restrictions on genre have faded.  Before, someone writing murder mysteries, or science fiction, or fantasy couldn’t stretch his or her limits and create something truly unique. Nowadays, for a piece of writing to qualify as fantasy, the only requirement is that it contains a significant facet of the supernatural, unexplained by human technology. If that were the case in years past, then Vonnegut, Kafka, and Margaret Atwood would all have been considered fantasy/sci-fi writers. Hell, even Shakespeare wrote plays like Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

            But still the fantasy stigma lingers in academia (though admittedly in recent years, there has been significant rise in SF&F advocates). Perhaps part of the reason for this can be attributed, at least in part, to the commercial charm of cookie-cutter fantasy in stores. Typically, literary scholars turn their noses at anything approaching commercialism. Their snobbery may (quite reasonably) be exacerbated by the success of books such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, and the resulting avalanche of formulaic stories by fly-by-night authors hoping to cash in.  Couple that with an audience skewed to younger readers, and the genre stigma thrives. Surely something children read can’t be literary? On this subject I am of the mind of Tolkien: “I think this is an error; at best an error of false sentiment, and one that is therefore most often made by those who, for whatever private reason (such as childlessness), tend to think of children as a special kind of creature, almost a different race, rather than as normal, if immature, members of a particular family, and of the human family at large.” (On Fairy Stories 4).

            Science Fiction and Fantasy are literature of ideas, often experimenting with social, political, and technological change. It would be impossible to list all the qualities worthy of study in such stories.  There are as many as there are in any work of literature. These are human stories with harmony, strife, and all the complexities of human relationships, except that they exist in fantastical places. In many cases, I would argue, fantasy allows for heightened symbolism through embellishment, and the extension of an idea through the fantastic. By stretching the realm of grounded reality, an author can reach levels of imagery or severity unachievable without the freedom of the fantastic. The caveat to this, of course, is the difficulty of execution. It is not easy to write quality Fantasy.  But it is easy to differentiate truly literary Fantasy from the banal, cheap Fantasy lining many bookstore shelves today.

Action: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

            To wrap up my series on action, I will examine the chess sequence in J.K. Rowling’s Sorcerer’s Stone. Personally, writing a novel about shrunken people confronting mental and physical challenges, I am always intrigued by scenes of disproportion. Once again, Rowling doesn’t disappoint, even if you aren’t a chess player. And for this sequence I’d like to pay particular notice to Rowling’s verb use.

Spoilers Ahead!

            The chess sequence comes at the finale of the book, the fourth trial of a seven-piece defense of the sorcerer’s stone. Dumbledore tasked several Hogwarts professors to create a magical puzzle to protect the stone and hinder would-be thieves. Each of these trials is unique and requires a different approach and skill set to solve, which Rowling uses to showcase the individual talents of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, respectively. Really, all seven trials combine for one action sequence, but I’m most interested in the chess battle, which puts the spotlight on Ron.

            I always emphasize that action requires setup and scene. In this case, the whole book sets up the final action sequence, because Harry, Ron, and Hermione bring to bear every new skill they’ve learned during their first year at Hogwarts in order to meet ultimate challenge. Among these skills is chess. Early on, Rowling ‘inceptions’ chess into our consciousness in an off-hand, fun moment. Wizard chess just seems like a cool diversion because the pieces move by themselves in dramatic fashion. “Ron also started teaching Harry wizard chess…Ron knew [it] so well he never had trouble getting [the pieces] to do what he wanted.” (199) This section reads almost as a throwaway, coming during a short reprieve in the novel’s tension, during the Christmas break when we readers are focused on the mystery of Nicholas Flamel. You really don’t expect chess skills to come into play, so when the intrepid threesome realizes they must surpass a gigantic chessboard, the reader instantly realizes it’s Ron’s time to shine.

            In designing the language of the chess passage, Rowling does something interesting with her passive and active voice. She switches between the two whenever Ron, Harry, and Hermione talk, and when the magical board pieces execute an action. “At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down at Ron.” (281) Sprang; pawed. Here Ron touches a knight, and it reacts in the active. When a chess piece gets taken, Rowling moves the scene along by using crisp verbs in active voice. Any time a piece gets taken, “The white queen smashed [the knight] to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown.” (282) All the verbs are active, and the reader can’t help but to read through the sequence quickly.

            Conversely, Rowling often has her three heroes speak passively. “’We’re nearly there,’ he muttered suddenly. ‘Let me think – let me think…’” (283) Harry and Hermione stand and wait while Ron puzzles through the best approach. “’Yes…’ said Ron softly, ‘it’s the only way…I’ve got to be taken.’” (283) After different captures on the board, the trio step back to take stock of the situation. Using this technique, Rowling achieves a two-pronged success. She inserts breaks in the action, which is important to keep her reader from getting lost, and she also captures the essence of chess--careful consideration coupled with explosive action. Rowling juxtaposes the two frames of pace in a unique way with successful results.