To Continue or Not To Continue?

Now, all it takes is a cursory glance at the date of the most recent post to figure out that this blog does not have the most regular of posting schedules. This is mostly because of author apathy; why bother writing a guide if no one reads it? So, I'm requesting something from you, dear readers. If you want to see this blog maintained and updated frequently, tell me in the comments for this post. Heck, if just one person writes something, I'll start keeping up with this blog. All I need is a little validation.

Character Archetypes

The trickster, the hero, the straight man, the comic relief. All these are archetypes, loosely defined personalities that appear all over fiction. Dating back to mythology and the earliest tales, character archetypes are a vertebrae in the backbone of fiction.

Loki was a trickster, a rogue, a silver-tongued miscreant. He schemed, and he stole, and he lied. Loki's likes and dislikes were never told; his backstory is short, his character shallow. Loki was a template, a blank slate so as to make his mythological tales that much more relatable, much like his comrades in lies, Anansi and Hermes. Tales of Loki are told today much less often than they were in the heyday of the Norse (barring Thor comic books, of course), but the character lives on, in new characters, new personalites, same archetype.

Tolkien drew on mythical archetypes to populate the vast world of Middle-Earth with characters. Wormtongue, the lying, scheming advisor, certainly drew some from the machinations of Loki. Gandalf was wise and powerful, a veritable Odin.

Archetypes are a vital part of character creation, but not one you should use as a crutch. One off characters, characters that do not have a large role and exist solely to interact with your main characters, benefit from an easily definable archetype. It makes room for definable character even in a small appearance.

Your main characters, the ones you intend to flesh out and develop, should not be able to be wholly defined by a single archetype. Human beings are complicated and varied, and the more unique and complex your character is, the more interesting (s)he'll be.

In Search of the MacGuffins

The MacGuffin is a phrase coined by director and producer Alfred Hitchcock in a lecture, saying "We have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin.' It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers." The MacGuffin is the driving force of a plot, an object that may be trivial in power, but important to the story.

In the Indiana Jones movie "Raider of the Lost Ark" the Lost Ark is the MacGuffin. Indiana spends most of the movie racing Nazis to the Ark, and tring to stop them from unleashing it. But the Ark itself barely does anything, besides facemelting Nazis. Treasure hunting stories often have some sort of MacGuffin, in the form of an artifact.

MacGuffins are used in literature, too. The Harry Potter series is big on this, as the Sorcerer's Stone is classically MacGuffinal, and the Horcruxes in the seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," are the MacGuffin literary technique at it's best. It's a quest to find seven objects, each important only in the fact that they are meant to be destroyed. Harry Potter is successful partly due to its masterful use of prominent literary techniques.

The MacGuffin even appears in texts as old as "Jason and the Argonauts," where Jason is questing for the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece itself does nothing, but the fact that Jason is searching for it is the start of all of his adventures.

The MacGuffin is a handy 'plot hook', and you can use it to propel your story with ease. Your adventurers are off to close five dimensional rifts, your spy is meant to capture the intelligence papers of an enemy government, your master thief is attempting to steal a huge diamond. It's not only an involving and classic technique, but a quick'n'easy technique as well; grab a few characters, throw in a MacGuffin and a plot hook and you're ready to go. The MacGuffin is a great technique for beginner and veteran writers.

Chekhov's Gun

Chekhov's Gun is a literary device, named after the short story writer Anton Chekhov. Chekhov felt that any object put into the story must be used later on, or else there's no point to it. The phrase "Chekhov's Gun" comes from a line from a letter Chekhov sent, "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it."

Chekhov's gun has come to mean a seemingly trivial detail that will be of the utmost importance later on, or an object that the book lingers on just barely, only to later use it to save the day. When properly used, this device can be seen as cunning or inventive, but it can get to predictable levels. In James Bond, for example, all of the gadgets that quartermaster "Q" gives Bond will later be used, with all their described functions, to get Bond out of a specific mess. Due to this happening in every single movie (with the exception of "Goldeneye"), it's become rather stale.

Certain book and TV series are notorious for this; Harry Potter has quite a lot of Chekhov's Guns. In the second book, Dumbledore introduces Fawkes the Phoenix and spends five minutes recounting the many uses of the Phoenix species - heavy lifting, bravery, healing tears - all of which are used in the final scene. Fawkes is something of a Mary Sue that way. Scabbers, Ron's seemingly docile rat, and Dumbledore's "Putter-Outer" are both Chekhov's Guns.

Chekhov's Gun, I find, is best when used in moderation. It's a useful technique, but use it too much and your readers will start poring over every little detail, thinking that everything mentioned will be important later.

A Death to be Remembered

Just as death is a huge part of human life, death is one of the most important tools in a writer's arsenal. Death can be poignant, epic, sad, happy, climactic, anti-climactic, and everything in between, but most of all, death is strong. A message will resonate if accompanied by a death.

Now, death cannot be casually used. If readers feel that a death is mishandled, they could leave the story with a bad taste in their mouths. A meaningless death of a treasured character will leave your reading audience very unhappy.

For death to have an impact, you have to be connected with the one who died. Introduce a character and kill him off the next page. Who cares about him? But once the audience has gotten to know a character, really started to empathize with him/her, that's when it hurts. The bond with the character leads to grief for his/her death, and if well done, leads to strong storytelling.

Sometimes it's the shock of a sudden death that really hits the reader. An unexpected assassination, a sudden and fatal betrayal, will at first stun the reader, then get them searching through the following pages for answers.

Other times, it's the satisfaction of a death well spent: a sacrifice to hold off the enemies just long enough for allies to escape, or a last stand to decimate the enemy's army. If the character dies doing the right thing, it leaves the reader with a sort of melancholy happiness.

Dying the way the character always wanted to go out can leave the reader feeling satisfied too. A barbarian, convinced that the only way to go to Valhalla is to perish in combat, meets his demise battling to the death. A sailor, lover of his ship and the sea, dies happy along with his trusty vessel, sinking slowly to a watery grave.

Sometimes a poorly handled death can kill a story. I've read stories where the best character, the one that really makes the story work, dies halfway through the novel. The rest of the novel feels hollow and a lot less fun as a result.

A villain can go from unlikable cad to despicable devil by killing a character. Consider it a form of villain forming; nothing says evil like cold blood killing.

Death is a fundamental part of human life, and is also a core device in writing. Use it well and use it smartly, and it could transform your story.

Licensed Novels

When I say licensed novels, I mean books that make use of an already established world. Star Wars books, Superman books, even Looney Tunes books, they're all licensed novels.

Sometimes licensed novels are surprisingly good, and other times they read like a piece of bad fan-fiction. While conventional books are judged by creativity, licensed novels are judged by their use of the setting. If you're reading a Star Wars book and think "Wow, this really feels like it takes place in the Star Wars universe!" it's a successful licensed novel. If you read a Star Wars book and think "Bogus! A hutt would never act like that!" then the writer did not properly capture the setting, and thus has failed. That writer will get no cookie today.

Books often have tools that other mediums don't. Books can get inside a character's head, something movies fail to do (unless you're watching Alfie). Books can also put in exposition, another something that movies cannot do. This is why there are licensed novels, because sometimes, you just need a book to get the job done.

Return of the King (Blogger)

It's been a few months since I've posted here. Let me brush away the dust that's gathered...

I have a tidy to-do list here. Let me read it out:

1. Keep making new posts.

2. Clean up some old posts, or maybe just completely redo them.

3. Travel through Europe.

Number one and two will get done soon. Number three will take a while.