A Sad Truth

So the other day I was reading an article that demanded that every single book needs to have one LGBT person. Doesn't matter the type or gender, they just need to be a reoccurring character with some good character development. You know, I'm the type that's all for diversity. I believe you should try to represent more for the masses, it's unfair to have an all snowy white American/British/Canadian cast all the freaking time. However, I also don't believe we should absolutely freaking placate to other people just because.

This world doesn't cater to you, so I don't have to either.

Wait...

Doesn't that just defeat the whole purpose of my opening paragraph? Yes and no. While I do believe in diversity, I don't think that you should have 'token characters'. When I was a kid, my mom would watch TV with me and would sigh and say 'token character' whenever a person of color would show up on certain programs. This was the late nineties and early two thousands, so it happened a lot less than when the bulk of my audience was growing up, but that character still stood out like a sore thumb. If the writers of the show really cared about diversity then they would add more characters of ethnicity not just one. You don't have to add diversity because that's the hippest thing, you don't have to cater to other people, just yourself and maybe your moral compass.

In my own WIP I have a mass of heterosexual characters, and the only one on the other side of the court is an asexual character, Yup, not even gay or transgender, they just don't care about sex. Did I add them in because the asexuals have been screaming for proper representation? No. He, yes it's a guy, just doesn't like sex; there's no need for some deep or hidden meaning in it. I also have two Japanese characters, a white woman, a black teenager, and a white guy. Did I choose these characters to be this way just so the minorities in question can have representation?

NO.

Seriously, when you begin to write things just because you don't want to offend people, that's when you know your stuff is going down the crapper. If anything your writing should offend people! It should make them think long and hard as they write angry tweets on your Twitter. It should worm through their brains to the point that the whole meaning of your story is twisted in their eyes and they found an entirely different, albeit ridiculous, message of your book. You're a writer and you shouldn't have to cater to anyone, that's why there's genre and even age and sexuality shelves. If they want something specific then google search it like everyone else. But if they just want a good book that just so happens to have gays, an Indian protagonist, and even a sociopath, then so be it.

I'm gonna go play Uncharted now....

Tsunderes/Bitchy Love Interests

My most viewed blog entry is about female perverts....Okay, let's talk about bitches then. Bitches and tsunderes.

Actually, I highly doubt the majority of my base knows what a tsundere is...So, basically a tsundere is a Japanese term using the word tsun tsun, kinda meaning cold, and dere, kinda meaning sweet. Basically it's one of those bitchy characters that'll argue with you for three fourths of the book, then by the end they're kissing some poor bastard. Now just because I use female derogatory terms don't think a tsundere is just for females, there's plenty of males. In fact the most famous male tsundere has to be Mr. Darcy from that one book you all know of. He's not bitchy per se, but he's very much so a guy that has a cold persona that rubs people wrong more often than not.

Now I'm not sure why people like having these as main love interests, and god forbid both characters act this way, but I decided to help people write them. Mostly because I actually have experience...acting this way in real relationships. Don't look at me like that and just finish reading the blog article!

1. Have a reason your characters even act this way: For whatever reason people think having tsunderes/bitchy people as love interests creates amazing drama. And this is true, it does create drama, but it's too easy to do. A character has to have reasons for why they do things, in a way they're puppets, but they need to believable to your audience. If your character acts like a saint to everyone else, but suddenly is cruel to the poor guy that likes her, then that's out of character. She needs a reason to act that way! Maybe she's rich so she sees everyone below her, and people above her social class or inside it she acts 'stiff' since she wants to be on their good side. That would make a lot more sense than some usually sweet girl suddenly wanting to cut off some poor guy's head for liking her.

2. Don't have them switch from 'cold' to 'sweet' erratically: I hate it when a couple sits there and will have a snuggle moment, but a few scenes later the tsundere/bitch person will freak out around the love interest. It just doesn't work that way, not even with PMS. The only way to remedy this is to have proper character development. Have them go through trials that has the bitchy person rely and value the love interest, and have moments when the love interests realizes that it's hard for the bitchy person to open up about their feelings. Speaking of which...

3. Don't have an overwhelming amount of angst: Do us all a favor and tattoo this to your face, so every single time you look into a reflective surface you remember this rule. It's standard for any type of writing, romance or not. If you need to, tattoo it to your refrigerator and cellphone as well, just get this rule in your brain.

4. Don't have the tsundere/bitchy character suddenly decide to love the love interest: Love at first sight does not exist, sorry to burst your bubble. On the same note love after hours and even years of arguing doesn't exist either. If you want your couple to argue, fine more power to you, but don't have them plan a wedding at the end of the book. If I don't see any kind of affection, not lust, then I'm not going to believe it. Affection stems from something, either an action or some words, and then it branches on to connect to other things in a person's head. It's also a mass of chemicals and a false sense of security, but who am I to get in the way of romance?

5. Don't have bitchy as the main character trait: As a person who is a bit hard on their lovers, I know that it seems to be all consuming, but you have to realize that we're not really this way all the time. It's mostly around love interests or people that are generally seen as annoying, yet they hold some sort of affection for; not necessarily romantic affection. So if your character is around their best friend that they found soothing, they'd probably act completely different. Basically what I'm trying to say is look at the character interaction as well as the character traits.

So that's it. I'm gonna go watch Sgt. Frog....

Even Women Can Be Perverts

Holy mother of insert some deity here...I'm updating my blog. Well that and I'm a female writing about perverted female characters. I know, I know, this is completely unheard of and you're probably questioning my genitalia right now, but I feel like something needs to be said. Isn't it pretty 'sexist' to think that only guys think about sex or make sexual innuendos? I know in my dwindling teenage days alone I've thought about it at least fifty times a day, and I'm only nineteen. But I guess on some level that makes me a whore, slut, whatever derogatory term you want to use. I'm sure many of you are shaking your heads at the dramatics, but from a ton of books I've read I'd think differently. Almost any female in media who happens to be a pervert also spreads her legs constantly. I'm not saying sex is bad, I'm sure it's fucking amazing, but not every dirty thought needs to be played out with that mysterious yet sexy stranger.

Now, I want to make it clear I'm NOT a 'modern' feminist, meaning that I don't think men should die or whatever extreme message they're spewing, but I do believe that women can have the same desires as men. But just like men, I highly doubt a woman would just act them out whenever they think of them, or that their thoughts are always consumed by sex.

My lord, this blog post is all over the place...

Okay, what I'm trying to say is that female pervert characters are normally regulated to the office slut. Even in fantasy a lot of female characters have an attraction/lust towards another character, but they don't make sexual jokes or will blush at the eye candy. If you have that one girl who's willing to make a lovely innuendo to her love interest, she's no doubt doing guys in the tavern bathroom as well. I never really noticed this issue until I was watching a play through of the video game Bayonetta. The titular character, Bayonetta, is a complete pervert. Almost every sentence out of her mouth is some kind of innuendo, just check out the Bayonetta 2 E3 trailer on Youtube, but she's still a classy lady. She ain't interested of spreading her legs for anyone, but she'll tease you with a sway of her hips and a few naughty words. She's also a strong witch, competent gunner, and so clever that if she wanted to she could just take over the entirety of heaven and hell. For her, perversion is simply a character quirk, not this defining part of her that motivates all her actions.

So how can we write perverted female character without coming under fire from the feminazis, 'holier than thou' women, and those guys that want to join a special camp? Well...You really can't. Even in this day and age people will freak out if a female has sex on the brain, so the only thing I suggest is giving her a brain.Make her a super strategist who often helps the king's army, but will often use her position of power to drool over the men in uniform. Or have a strong and capable soldier who often makes sex jokes about how her sword will get in another guy's sheath? Take that how you will. But these girls will never just spread her legs to any idiot who wanders on her path, she does have standards.

Or they can just love sex, that's cool too. Just make her compatent, dammit!

So there you go, probably my most controversial blog post. Seriously, I should do it over something like pedophilia in books or something, this is just pathetic. Anyway, I'm gonna go oggle men in military uniforms.

Yum, military uniforms~!

An Idiot's Review of The Star Stone: Book One of the Darkwinds of Danaria Series

You know, if you've followed this blog for any length of time you know that I love to read. Reading is something that keeps me from murdering my siblings, and outright locking myself away. As such I'm pretty much able to read virtually anything you throw in my face. But you guys should also know that I'm pretty blunt when I talk about what I read. Saying this long and drawn out introduction, I wanted to like this book. I honest to ,whatever god you worship, did. With a name like The Darkwinds of Danaria series, I knew I was going to be in for something interesting. While TA Sullivan clearly has a very active imagination, and is extremely good at naming things, that's pretty much where the fun dies.

So let's start off with our two protagonists. Neerah, a fifteen year old girl, is your average Jane that lives in a tiny village. She can hear the music from the ever mysterious stones she collects, but aside from that she thinks she's normal. However that pretty thought is smashed and burned when a handsome young man kidnaps her and she learns that she's a reincarnated...well to put it simply, dark lord. Whenever Neerah was on the page I usually had two reactions, the dominate one rolling my eyes, and the other was sighing. While I do appreciate she put up a fight on occasions, I felt like it was so short lived that it may as well not even happened. I'm sure she'll get more character development in later books, hopefully, but I just didn't like her character at all. Constantly arguing, constantly whining, making stupid mistakes, it got annoying very quickly.

Our second protagonist is a guy called Joelnar. The interesting thing about him is that he's a half Nix half human creature. And...That's really where the interesting part about him ends. He was very angsty in the book, upset about things that were out of his control, and most of the time was a silent brooding type. Except when he wasn't and was usually snapping at Neerah or trying to deal with her. To be fair I'd be upset with Neerah most of the time too.

Now let's talk about the world. Since this was a high fantasy the world has to be amazingly interesting, right? Well, actually it is sometimes. While I wasn't too fond of calling normal things, like birds, off the wall names like feathered fliers. I did find the world that the Etherals inhabited very interesting, and would have loved it if the entire plot was set in the world. The description for it was wonderful, and the inhabitants a bit unique, almost reminding me of the Farplane in Final Fantasy 10. But once you hit the actual setting, it was just a typical fantasy landscape that reminded me of Western Europe if not Northern America.

The plot is as expected. Normal girl finds out that she's not normal, gets saved by a handsome stranger, they go destroy the plot device of doom. Aside from the fact that everyone wants to kill Neerah for some reason or another, there's no real surprises.

So to sum it all up, I have to say that the story had potential. Some aspects of it was really thrilling and unique like the Etheral world, and the Nixians, but other than that it followed way too many high fantasy tropes making it a pretty boring affair.

If you still want to get the story it can be found here.

Alright, I'm gonna go eat some grits....

You're Not Describing, You're Purple Prosing

I know prosing isn't a word, but just deal with it for a few seconds while you read this article. Now, with that out of the way, let me do my obligatory introduction. 

All writers have a duty to show, not only a good story, but an amazing world to the readers. The world needs to jump off the pages and caress the readers minds with lovely images that they will keep in their souls until Death calls them back to the never ending oblivion that is the end of their lives...

That is not describing what you need to do, that was a bunch of pointless description that had terrible grammar. For whatever reason writers, especially of the SF/F and romance genres, thinks that accurate descriptions need to be long and poetic. Now this is fine if you're like Shannon Hale, and your prose is naturally poetic, but even Shannon Hale has enough reign over her writing in order to keep it to the point. Me and at least an eighth of the human population just doesn't understand poetry or straight up doesn't like it. So instead of reading poetry, we read other mediums of fantasy telling. When people like you shove in all your glittery, fancy, and down right obnoxious descriptions down our throats it makes us upset. We shove poetry to the side for a reason, don't make us read any more of it.

Dislike of poetry aside, there's another valid reason; because my opinion does matter that's what popular culture has taught me. When you have all the flowery descriptions of certain characters, you immediately have seasoned readers hating that character. That poor character probably just popped up on the page, but when you're describing her like this: "Skin as dark as chocolate and eyes as brown as a fawn. Her black curls bounced against her shoulders like playful snakes, just begging to be pet and played with. Her smile was wide and the adorably small teeth were as white as the moon, and had their own particular shine that made Prince Leopold's heart soar..."

Now, having read that, don't you get a distinct impression of her? I don't know about you, but I think that this...thing I created is a Mary-Sue. Heck, I don't know her backstory, her goals, or even her name and I hate her. And if I'm hating a character I literally made up on the fly, then I'm probably gonna hate the character that I've read about for at least three chapters and have had nothing but whimsy descriptions shoved in my eyes.

Of course not all descriptions are whimsy and happy. Some can be outright sad and melancholy, tales of tragic heroes dying in puddles of their own blood, or the death of a great and valiant creature that once ruled the skies. This is more common in death scenes, probably to make me care more about the character, ignoring the fact I've been reading about him since book one, page 45, eight books ago...

Now I could tell you a hundred more reasons why purple prose just doesn't work, but I'll finish with one of the best reasons why you shouldn't...

You ready?

People skip it. The six hours you spent flipping through the thesaurus for the longest word that still meant tiny, all to describe a magic girl, is gonna be skipped. And not because the person hates poetry, thinks the character is a Mary-Sue, or hates kids. It's probably a better bid to say that they just want to get onto the next bit of dialogue or action. Description in long never ending paragraphs is boring! If you've read Journey to the Center of the Earth, then you probably skipped the majority of the first chapter since it described the house. A house that, if memory serves me right, you don't ever see again. 

Basically, at the end of the day, just describe things the way they are. Don't try to overdue it, you're just gonna make people upset, or waste your own time because people will skip it.

Now I need to go finish reading the book I'll be reviewing....

Masquerades

No, not those mysterious balls that you wear a mask to, that'd be too easy to pick at, I'm talking about the masquerade life. That life where dwarves, vampire, and faires can pretend to be humans or humans just don't know they exist. With urban fantasy being super popular, this trope has simply become so obnoxious and in your face it's ridiculous. Every time you read an urban fantasy, it's likely that no one knows that the fae exist. Those that do know are insane or are forced to keep it a secret for...reasons.

So that's what today's article is gonna be about. Writing masquerades and having them make sense, not an excuse for your character to be all special and whatever.

1. Decide who can know about the masquerade.

Too many times I've read an urban fantasy, and some random teen finds out that fae exist. Then there's that old wrinkly guy down the street, that new ager who runs the yoga place, and maybe your nutty Grammy. Now there's no issue with more than one person knowing about the masquerade, but at least make that whole thing interesting! Don't have the people who know about the masquerade be the most obvious people alive. If they're always smoking a joint and saying that we have to be 'one with the earth' I'm always certain that guy knows that fae exist, and that joint is just some fairy herbs that stop his cancer. Have people you'd never expect to know about the fantasy world, maybe the president of a band fan-club, that guy who owns the insecticide company, or even the ice cream man. Having teachers, old folks, and family knowing about the masquerade is just boring and stereotypical. Stop it!

2. Have a good reason for the masquerade.

I roll my eyes when I see the reason for the masquerade is that humans wouldn't understand. Seriously? Humans take better care of their pets than their children, I think that we've come to an age where we'd understand and accept quite a bit. There's always going to be cultural differences, power struggles, and outright hatred between others. So having those reasons as your sole excuse is not only over-used, but so obvious it's stupid. In the RPG game The Changeling: The Lost it's pretty obvious why there's a masquerade. The 'True Fae' are terrible beings that are more than happy to exploit your very soul for their own pleasure. It's for the humans safety that there's a masquerade, not the fantasy creatures.

3. Have the cop not be an idiot.

Every time I read an urban fantasy where the cop is the protagonist, I hold my breath and hope that the cop isn't an idiot. Now when I say idiot I don't mean smart, for some reason they're always witty and sarcastic to a fault, no I mean they deny. They deny the fact that a tiny person stole their wedding ring, that a bird spoke to them, that a dragon ate them then reincarnated them into a plant. A human only has so much disbelief that they can have, there's no way that these cops can just deny everything so obvious. One of my favorite cops in fantasy is Officer Morgan from the urban fantasy book Dolls. He just never denied what happened to him, he accepted it and tried to get deeper to the truth of the matter. Why can't we have more cops like that?

4. When something obvious happens, have people question it.

The whole town is set on fire by a dragon and the dragon slayer kills him in a jet fighter. That's great and all, but if the whole town saw it how are they covering it up? I just facepalm when no one questions the obvious stuff. If they use a glamour spell, fine. But when your character just kicks the werewolf body to the side and walks through the trail of dead bodies, why are the town folk not questioning this? Having there be constant worry about outsiders finding out about the fantasy world, is why the masquerade is so compelling. At every turn your character should question if dead beat Joe , the room mate, knows about his new found fairy wings. Or have the angsty teenage girl worry that her adopted mom knows about her ability to breathe fire. Let people wonder, it's just gonna add plenty of drama and complexity to the plot.

5. If it's a masquerade, don't let everyone know it.

I hate it when that one guy thinks he loves this one girl, but she get's upset that he's always dissaperaing. The reader knows it's his job to hunt vampires, but she doesn't know that. And the poor sap, being who he is, will tell that girl all about vampires and his job. When they break up two days later, for a stupid reason I'm sure, she's gonna tell someone else just to make him sound crazy...Now I know this type of thing doesn't always happen, but in urban fantasy it always feels like everyone in town knows about the masquerade. Maybe because the plot calls for people who know to interact with the character, but make it just one or two people in one city, not half of them.

7. Have a large variety of fantasy creatures.

Vampires, werewolves, Disney faries, and ghosts seem to be the only creatures of the masquerade. What happened to all of the other creatures in fantasy? Dullahans, kitsune, harpies, gorgons? Just because they look strange or are rarely written about doesn't mean they're off limits! The harder it is to hide, the more interesting they are to the story. I also just wanna read a story with a gorgon as the protagonist, that'd be so cool.

And here we are, a huge list on helping you write a masquerade novel. While some of these points may not apply to your novel in particular, I hope it at least helps you identify a good urban fantasy novel from a bad one. Or just entertained you. Whatever.

I'm gonna go read The Finisher now...

Because Not All Royalty are Selfish Pricks

I really love history. It's not only my favorite school subject, but it's also a hobby of mine that I'm more than happy to blather on about for hours.That's why I love looking at history for my writing projects, whether they're historical fantasy or not. History has a wonderful habit of not only teaching us about mistakes idiots in the past have made, but also shocking us about the nice things. And one very nice thing to know about past monarchs is...

Not all of them were selfish pricks.

Oh look, the article title!

In all seriousness, I've read a boat load of books where royalty are either selfish pricks that enslave their people, murder babies, and eat young lambs. Or they so good and loving that they've cured diseases, let the orphans live in the guest bedrooms, and even raise the dead with their tears. Whenever I read these types of monarchs I just roll my eyes and continue onto the next page, hoping that at least the hero is more realistic...Unless the monarch is the hero, to which I can only hope that the plot is half decent.

If you look in history the monarchs of time past have always been interesting. Some really did have good intentions for their people, but were also firm on their rules and did what they wanted to do regardless, just like Queen Elizabeth of England; often called the Virgin Queen.

Then there are rulers who were religious. They were so religious that they would often kill and destroy any who didn't agree with their religion. I could point out at least one monarch from every single country that has ever existed, but let's stick to one that's rather well known. Have you ever heard of  a tiny event called The Spanish Inquisition? Well what if I told you that Queen Isabella of Spain, that lovely queen that said yes to Christopher Columbus, had started it? Bet you didn't expect that.

In another category of rulers are those who want nothing to do with their country. They'll go as far as to leave their country and pillage and conquer. Not because they actually want to pillage and conquer, but more because they just hate their country that much. That reward would go to King Richard the Lion Heart. A guy who was technically French and hated England so much he tried to sell it...And failed.

Next you have rulers who are ridiculous in their debauchery. I'm not saying 'sleep with the chamber maids and get drunk all the time' type of debauchery. No, I mean going out into the streets and raping people in the middle of crowds, sleeping with their mothers, and spending enough money to bankrupt an entire nation.That award would go to Nero.

There you go, a kinda large list of ideas that could help you write a monarch. Now these are just examples and you can add to the list or meld two types together, but hopefully this will give you more variety when tying to create a monarch.

Welp, I'm gonna go make dinner now.