Author Appleton

Writing. Fantasy. Sci-fi. Mystery

Archives for March 2015

Trip report and Next steps for our family!

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As many of you are already aware this month I and my family took a short vacation to North Carolina and South Carolina. It was a great trip… As we often do, my wife and I packed it with activity.

We drove down to North Carolina and this time the drive took several hours longer than it used to because now we have three little ones riding in the back. Our youngest, Judah, was none too happy stuck in his car seat for long stretches. But overall the kids still had a good time, too. My wife had gift wrapped little items they could open at intervals along the way, which was another example of her foresight. She is blessed with a knack for keeping them entertained.

I did the driving, keeping my focus on the road and the possible problems driving our ’98 Ford Windstar can present. The brakes need work.

While going to the Great Homeschool Convention in Greenville SC was a big part of our trip (and we had wonderful visits with friends along the way) our primary focus was in making a final selection on which part of the Carolinas we want to resettle to. It is fully our intention to move out of Connecticut by November of this year and buy (for the first time in our married life) our own house. We are very excited about this! It will be hard moving away from family but we know that is where God wants us and we are looking forward to all the connections we will make with people in our new location.

Growth requires an openness to change.

Three areas were of great interest to us: Charlotte NC, Greenville SC, and Raleigh NC. We have eliminated Charlotte NC. At first we were settled on Raleigh NC… but God hasn’t given us that feel that we should discount Greenville SC. We like that area, too, and cost of living is even lower than NC. Definitely some more thinking to do before the final choice.

One aspect of getting our own house that is particularly exciting for me is that I will, for the first time ever, have a room dedicated to my writing, office, and library. A creative space to continue writing books and laying the foundation for the many others to come. Space is a real challenge for me at this time. Right now my office is my bed and often a corner of the living room couch.

My booth at the Great Homeschool Convention in Greenville SC.
My booth at the Great Homeschool Convention in Greenville SC.

We made a few new friends on our trip, which is always one of my favorite aspects of traveling, and I reconnected with an old friend I had not seen in years.

The booth I rented at the conference was a success. I sold in excess of 140 books and connected with many future readers.

Question: What changes have you made to facilitate growth in your life?

 

The bad and good of Portraying Violence in Fiction

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When writing my fantasy novels it is frequent to encounter (you guessed it) violence. Targeting my books to the middle grade and young adult readers this is of great concern to me. I don’t want to wash over the violence but I don’t want to glorify it in the eyes of the reader either.

Consider that violence is sometimes necessary to convey the cost of wrongs done. I think of how the Bible narrative is full of violence. Violence wrought by the good, the evil, and by God himself. Blood spilled, sacrifices of life and limb made. But this violence is not glorified, instead its purpose is shown. Whether the will of God to wipe a degenerate nation from the face of the earth, or allowing the Babylonians to conquer and enslave the Jews.

Too often contemporary fiction glorifies the violence by turning it into entertainment. Entertainment, whether in the form of a book or a movie, can and should display violence as a means to an end. A lesson must always be understood, subtly taught, so that the reader comprehends the relational and eternal consequences of such actions. Unless this is done the reader, and especially young minds, can follow the violence itself as an entertainment and subconsciously accept it as an end of its own.

In properly thought out books the reader will learn to respect certain actions and despise others. They should be able to picture themselves as the knight riding into battle and ramming his lance into the heart of a wicked tyrant. But on the same note they should also picture themselves looking with pity upon that tyrant’s corpse and wishing that another resolution might have been possible. We don’t need to glorify violence, but we don’t need to despise it either. It is admirable to slay the invader, save the fair maiden, and pray to God for mercy on those who have fallen.

It is admirable to wield the sword in battle… yet the greatest admiration should be given to the knight who knows when to show mercy to his enemy. The knight whose heart dreads violence and yet will not shy from vanquishing his foes when need be.

Question: How do you view violence in fiction?

What to do when a minor character shifts the spotlight

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Some writers outline their novels and somehow they strictly stick to those outlines. However, when I outline I stick to it only roughly. The story ends up taking the lead… instead of the other way around. That is what happened recently when I was working to wrap up the final arc in The Phantom’s Blade.

Following events in Key of Living Fire, The Phantom’s Blade is predominantly Ilfedo’s story. The city of Dresdyn is heavy on his mind and he sets forth on an expedition to lead the people out of that underground world and bring them to his homeland. But as we know from the previous novel the captain of the city guard has been possessed by some kind of ghost being (or as Ilfedo calls it, a demon). The story should pivot around Ilfedo and the captain as Ilfedo seeks to stop his enslaving the people of Dresdyn.

But as I wrote this portion of the story a minor character introduced herself. Neither hero nor villain she grabbed the reins and steered the story in a different direction than I had intended. Some writers would have taken the reins back in order to stick to the outline. From experience though, I have learned that a minor character can enrich the story world. I let the minor character shift the spotlight and the result was a better story… Which I look forward to sharing with you when the book comes out this Fall. 🙂

My humble recommendation is that the writing allow the minor personalities shine, thus allowing the story to evolve in unexpected ways. The results have always surprised me in a good way.

Question: What do you think of this “Seat of the Pants” approach to writing?

How to not let subplots run amok in fantasy fiction

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When writing a fantasy story much focus is given to world building and character development. This focus can greatly enrich the story world… though there is also a pitfall in it for those of us who write the story.

Characters come to life, landscapes take form, cultures are developed, costumes and customs are established. As you create a fantasy book or series you do not want to miss an opportunity to enhance the reader’s experience. This is a work of art. You want it to shine. All of this leads to an endless supply of subplots within the main story. It may be as simple as a secondary character who needs more personality in order to interact more realistically with the main characters in the story.

The wise writer files away an array of subplots. Histories of lands and biographical data on secondary and background characters, for example. But sometimes we get carried away by the ideas the subplots deliver and we let the story follow rabbit trails as we flesh out minor characters. Certainly there is validity in doing this when drafting fantasy novels, but it is imperative that we remember to focus the story on the main characters.

I was reminded of this recently while watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies for the first time. Peter Jackson allowed the story to follow so many minor characters that, even though the movie had great moments, it lost its punch. Characters wept over fallen comrades, and I could not weep with them because I did not feel an affinity for their loss. I did not “know” their comrades well enough to miss them. If the movie had stuck to following a couple characters a more coherent story would have resulted and greater emotional attachment could have been achieved. Instead it followed a slew of characters and tried to make all of them equally important.

A subplot is fantastic for enriching a fantasy tale. If we are following our main character and they encounter a minor character, it benefits the story if that minor character is given a history. But where we must be careful is in not immersing ourselves in that minor character. The story must pull back to the main character so that the conflicts continue to be resolved in a coherent manner. A great example of this is in Harry Potter because J.K. Rowling always kept the story on Harry and varied from him only rarely to enhance certain plot elements.

Stay true to the main character. File away the majority of your subplots. Who knows? Maybe someday you will dig into those files and write an altogether separate novel to cover the subplot.

Question: What examples of good or bad use of subplots in fiction stand out to you?

Character Arc: Lessons Learned or Change Achieved? (Guest Post by Gillian Bronte Adams)

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“To me, characters lie at the heart of any story. Characters drive what happens when and where, and the way they grow and change over the course of a story is what makes a book either memorable or easily forgotten in the already-read pile.

But it seems to me that in Christian fiction, we too often think of a character’s arc as the path they take to learn a lesson by the end of the book, rather than the change and growth achieved along the journey. We put the cart before the horse, and often fall into the trap of preaching a Sunday School lesson rather than telling a whopping good tale.

The problem with this is that it doesn’t feel real.

I don’t know about you, but in my life, I’ve made my share of mistakes, been through tough times, and learned from them. But those lessons were rarely tied up in a neat little bow. More often, they were like Eustace’s change in Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader, who “began to be a different boy” after he was un-dragonized.

We tend to muddle our way through life, changing, growing, and hopefully being shaped more into Christ’s image each step of the way.

Change rarely happens overnight in the big lessons learned. It is far better seen in the little moments, in the gradual slipping from one decision to the next.

I would venture to say that the purpose of Bilbo’s journey in The Hobbit was not to show how he could come home a different hobbit than the one who had set out. That was just a byproduct of the quest. Don’t get me wrong—change in a novel is important. It is a sign of growth and life, and if the character who walks offstage at the end of the novel is the same as the one who stepped onstage at the beginning, you probably have a problem.

But I believe the true heart of a story is less about teaching your character (and thus the audience) that A is wrong and they should become B instead, and more about showing your character wandering from A to B, changing and being affected by their decisions along the way.

Otherwise, you risk winding up with a story that feels like a collection of scenes and pithy statements contrived to teach your character, and by extension the reader, a lesson. Like old fairy tales where every story had a moral. “Be polite to strangers … or bad things could happen to you.”

In the end, character growth comes down to the old “show your story, don’t tell it” adage. Often when characters “learn a lesson,” what you’re really seeing is the author intruding into the novel to impose a sermon on the story. I’m not saying it can’t be done, or that there isn’t a time or place for it, but that’s when readers are more likely to complain that Christian fiction is preachy rather than impactful.

On the other hand, character change that naturally follows the course of events and is seen through actions rather than told through what has been “learned,” results in a much more vibrant story. A story that feels true rather than contrived. A story that may stick with the reader long after the last page has been turned.

What are some elements of character growth that you think encourage a story to be impactful without being preachy?

GILLIAN BRONTE ADAMS is a sword-wielding, horse-riding, coffee-loving speculative fiction author from the great state of Texas. During the day, she manages the equestrian program at a youth camp. But at night, she kicks off her boots and spurs, pulls out her trusty laptop, and transforms into a novelist. She is the author of Orphan’s Song, book one of the Songkeeper Chronicles, and Out of Darkness Rising. Visit Gillian online at her blog or Facebook page.