Dang, couldn't get my main character to commit murder

What a stressful day the past three days have been! There I was -- totally sure and aware that a certain beloved character had been poisoned-- but dang if I could figure out how he ended up in that unfortunate position. I tried to have my main character do it. But to no avail. He balked. Then, mercifully, after brainstorming with Jessica, a writer buddy, I figured that mystery out.

One good thing that popped up, though, was that I discovered a hateful spiteful anger in a character whom I thought was rather sweet. Turned out I hadn't really understood his anger. I'd been trying to make him be rather noble but it never worked. I kept saying I couldn't find his personality. Alas, I couldn't see it cause I was trying not to. But now, wow! I see him. So, it was fun and a bit scary to feel his hurt and how it led to malicious anger. So that was good.

But then I had to figure out the sex scenes. Yes, Carole --Queen of the awkward sex scenes-- had to awkwardly write not one but two awkward sex scenes. And I've been trying to get to them for days. Am gonna force myself to get down to my characters getting down. However awkward and stressing it might be for them and for me! The story needs the scenes! I tried slipping by with some general summary but nah! didn't work.

I ended up spending a great deal of time researching and watching videos about directing and writing sex scenes, passion, and kissing. This is one of the best because it combines both a discussion of art, technique, and passion.



So, today will be spending most of the time in bed with my characters. I hope I enjoy it. -C

The Constant Novel: Agenda versus Vehicle

There is a difference between the agenda and the vehicle. But a white feminist friend of mine just doesn't seem to get it.

My new WIP, The Constant Tower, carries my agenda: poor folks (usually of color) living in a world in which other folks (usually white) take resources that don't belong to them. But the agenda is carried in this story by using a vehicle created by the white folks in power. Using Massa's tools to dismantle Massa's house.

Those who haven't had the opportunity to speak must learn how to tell the truth and tell it slant... to tell our story through the media created by those who are powerful. We have to be slick if we want to be understood and yet be published.

In Wind Follower I created a Christian story which honors the best in paganism. That was published by a secular publisher but it is essentially a Christian story. Constant Tower will be published by an American Christian publisher. In my mind, American Christians don't want to read fantasies about white male oppressors that take stuff from poorer cultures. So I have to put my agenda in the proper craft. In this case, I am using a white male protagonist and the story takes place from the viewpoint and from the cultural setting of the white characters. Because honestly, politics aside, white Christian males who read fantasy are more likely to read about males, especially white males. One has to be aware of that. The story already has two black females and one interracial love affair. That kind of stuff is not generally in Christian fiction. I really can't push my luck too far by having a female black protagonist.

My main characters is a white boy from an oppressive rich culture who learns that his people are preying on poor black cultures. There's a war going on but we see the war through the eyes of the white culture. All the rumors and stories we hear are told through the white characters. (I'm kinda talking about the American media and how American culture views the resources of the world as its right. But I am more concerned with the path this white warrior takes as he realizes he and his culture are wrong.)

My friend -- as I said she is majorly into white feminism-- said I should have a female main character. She wasn't interested in hearing about the boys. When I told her all the above she got angry with me and said I was not listening to her because I was too committed to what I had on the page. Duh!!! (Not true btw. She told me to rework my synopsis and I did. She told me to rework several chapters and I did. So I DO listen to her. Except in this.)

Okay, the fact that I have two sons and I want to talk about the brainwashing being given to American boys of all colors...and I'm also talking about war and resources and the food crisis, I think I'm being pretty liberal and enlightened. She thought not. Simply because I had a male protag. Come on now! I hope I'm not wimping out on this nobel..but I DO think my story set up is valid. Especially since the Christian publisher still hasn't told me if he is really going to accept it with all the "different" stuff I've already put in the novel.

This white feminist and I had a good relationship but she just doesn't think racism compares to sexism and even went so far as to say no feminist is racist...because feminism is a system that tries to help all the oppressed. Yeah, right. I've told her over and over that white feminists are used to setting the agenda on what feminism is and they should stop telling black women what is or is not feminist. (Heck, most white feminists remind me of horrible tyrannical white lady bosses I've had.)

Whites have had their time talking about our culture in their paternalistic superior ways. Why can't a black author talk about their paternalistic superior ways in a novel? The country is so fr*ggin racist and I want to do my share of speaking to racist so-called Christians. There is nothing - not even art-- that we can do about changing folks but I can at least say that a black woman wrote a Christian fantasy about racism that was published by a Christian company. Even if I can't change the hearts of white racist Christians, I can heal our people's hearts and cure us of this racial stockholm syndrome/self-loathing that living in our culture creates.

I told her all this but she doesn't agree with me.
So...I'm thinking that either she A) a feminist who simply wants me to write about women ALL the time or B) a racist who simply doesn't want to be challenged by a black author daring to depict her culture or C) an academic snob who thinks that my plan won't work because I simply am not creatively capable of doing it. You know how they do...thinking we have great ideas but somehow we don't have the skills to do it well. They always think we are not capable.

And frankly, she pissed me off. -C

-C

Decisions, decisions

Aaargh! Update Time!

So here I am in the middle of two WIPS.

Constant Tower for a Christian publisher and Dark Inheritance for a black secular publisher. So am toning down the sex in Constant Tower and making the main character a white male. And am toning up the sex in Dark Inheritance and making the main character a black female. Hey, am I pliable or not? Men read a lot of fantasy. Men like male main characters. Christians who read fantasies are used to fantasies with white characters and male characters. (And sex isn't in the picture generally.) Black books written by black women usually have female male characters. (And sex is everywhere.) So as I said "I'm amenable." I do what is necessary to do to be published. So, it's not as if I'm gonna die if I have to do certain things.

Got some decisions to make though. In Inheritance do I want to go ahead with the succubi idea? I mean, honestly! How far do I want to go with that? I do want to deal with sexual evil, though. And I want my hero to truly be tempted with perversion...but honestly...do I want to enter the mind of a serial rapist? Do I want to make my hero a creep for a long while in the book? As it is, it's a sweet little story, living gently all by its lonesome. So what to do?

Second decision: In Constant Tower I'm always talking about the "annals." Dang! I'm 200 pages in the book and now I'm kinda regretting all those stupid annals I mentioned. A part of me says that maybe I should put quotations from theses so-called annals at the beginning of each chapter or at least at the beginning of the book. But heck, A) I hate prologues. And B) I think I got that idea from Seaborn. Which is one way deep and complicated book. Constant Tower isn't poetically complicated but its world and rules are complicated. Several folks who read Wind Follower said the glossary helped them immensely. So in a world where the science is based on music, do I need a glossary? Or should I do the chapter headings thingey?

So that's where yours truly is. Other than that all is well.

Will have a review of Seaborn for compulsivereader.com and blogcritics.com sometime next week. -C

Update on WIPs

I am really realizing that both my new works-in-progress deal with wars.

BACKSTORY: The gospel of Jesus Christ is that we were once at enmity with God but now we have been placed by Christ, through our faith and acceptance of his bloody sacrifice of himself, into the kingdom of God's dear son. We have a captain who has destroyed and plundered death, the demonic dominion of this world, and sickness. He has taken captivity captive and given gifts to men....especially the gift of authority and power over the kingdom of Satan. Through the eucharist, the blood of Jesus, the word of God and faith we can conquer as Jesus did.

Inheritance takes place in real-world upstate New York. Or rather the actual world. (God and the angels alone live in the real world. And those in Christ are trying to live in the spiritual world but we are so carnal minded we sometimes can't see what God's word -- truth-- says about certain situations.) So now am really trying to make this demonic/deliverance story more real-life than it's been portrayed in novels and television. A succubus story that is normal yet can scare the pants off you cause it's sooooo close to home. I tend to like horror stories that seem more real and seem as if they really could happen to a regular person. A) because those horror stories are truer, and B) because those horror stories are always happening in the world...except that people don't think of them as demonic stories. Heck, a serial killer murdering women and who is only capable of sexual fulfillment if he has sex with dead bodies, baby girls, or whatever kind of sexual perversion out there....that's demonic. Except the world -- and many Christians-- just don't believe it. So the creative work of inheritance is to show the demonic in a way that is exciting for horror readers but which rings totally true.

The Constant Tower, on the other hand, I think is gonna be kinda allegorical. And this kinda scares me. I hate allegorical Christian stories. Sometimes they are so point-by-point match-game that the story is stiff. By which I mean the stories are so filled with symbolism and sermon illustrations that there's no breathing room. The two basic allegories in Constant Tower are: 1) The world is out of sync and people of that world think that the out-of-sync-ness is normal. and 2) there is a Great Spiritual war going on in that world but peoples in the world are unaware of it. So, how to do it?

Will see. Gotta focus. Gotta make the stories Christian without being cookie-cutter, true without being preacherly, paranormal without being flaky. Wish me luck.

-C