Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

I don't have a problem figuring out who's the protagonist and who's the antagonist. That's clearly defined right from the word "Go" (well, actually, the antagonist, and their precise goals, remains shadowy through much of the first book), but in this particular case cited above, the positions are very unclear. In the first scene the protagonist presents a paper at a scientific symposium and finds himself denigrated by this other minor character who happens to have a lot of power and influence in the field the protagonist is working in.

In the second scene the minor character suddenly shows up at the protagonists college and labs and very excitedly announces he's talked with the university president and the protagonists teachers and advisors and they've all decided he's ready to receive/be granted his PhD (this is after the university has been given a sizable amount of money to "pave the way" for the protagonists research and give him a base of operations by the government). The protagonist does deserve his PhD, BTW, but this is a bit early for him to actually get it and it's somewhat "out of the blue".

Now, I've known for some time that there are ulterior motives behind the grant, mainly the desire for more government money by the university. In addition everyone in his field is picking away at the protagonists research, grabbing bits and pieces of it for themselves,but I didn;t realize until the other night what a nice setup the old, wise, formerly antagonistic and now friendly professor would make for a special antagonist for the protagonist. He's nearly a perfect mole (another mole is discovered late in the first book, but he's a fellow student of the protagonists) for the protagonists enemies (who try to kill him late in the book).

It would be very, very interesting, I think, to turn this former adversary, now friend, of the protagonist into somebody much more powerful and important within the organization of the enemy than he currently appears. He might even be at the forfront of the group that caused the problem the protagonist is working to fix.

I meant NENA as No Evil Need Apply. Given the context, "but being Evil is no more a crime than being Irish is. When a fantasy book has NENA signs in its windows..." I figured you'd figure that my acronym derived from something and switch the E to an I in your googling. It's from No Irish Need Apply, a practice in America for quite a while wherein merely being Irish was crime enough to bar people from getting jobs. That only changed after the Kennedies-- it's rather tasteless to spout anti-Irish hate after their assassinations-- but only in that it was no longer vocalized. Forty years later and it's all but forgotten: America pretends really hard that it was never racist in the first place, and the Irish are too proud to dwell on it.

History aside, what I meant by NENA is that fantasy (or any fiction), as a whole, has a tendency to paint morality in broad strokes. You're either a good guy or a bad guy, with the exception of the token good guy with a black hat*. It's genetic morality-- anyone with a mustachio is arrested on sight and nobody sees anything wrong with it. Fantasy often crusades against these evil nations, usually full of a token race of evil so nobody has any doubts or regrets ("oh, they're just orcs"). And, in bad fantasy, nobody ever tries to get into the head of the villain. "They're evil, they're not like you or me."

Now, this isn't just fantasy. It's pretty common in romantic comedy and other genres. You know the "boy meets girl but she's seeing someone else" genre? How often is the other guy a nice guy? Never. And to drive the point home, you always see him kicking puppies and tying little old ladies to the tracks and swirling his mustachio. Good vs Evil, wherein Evil is some tangible quantifiable essence and justifies whatever happens in the end.

And yeah, I agree with UJ. It's terms of protags and antags here. You're telling a story, not preaching fire and brimstone. Someone is trying to do something, someone else is standing in the way. Whether it's a story of someone rising up against an empire or the story of an empire trying to enforce hegemony against a rebellion, or both stories at once with a romantic twist, you need not apply "good" and "bad" to tell it.

* Rarely is anyone who self-describes as evil actually so. To do so, to be aware of the possibility of being evil, requires a pretty solid understanding of morality.

That was quite a mouthful Chris. Good stuff, I only disagree with one point- in many cases the antagonist not only knows he's evil, but enjoys the fact.
A case of one who doesn't know: Annie Wilkes in Misery by Stephen King. And she's a point for your team, mad as a hatter and clueless about it.
The Mastermind in Roses Are Red by James Patterson: bad guy, knows it, loves it.
Harrow and Moongirl in The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz. Moongirl is maniacal and loves to hurt people, Harrow will do anything to remain her lover, no matter how crazy.
You get the point. And, for my dollar, the most memorable antagonists are the ones who know it.

MiltonPope said:

Writers' conference and workshops are often mentioned as the way to get your work seen by someone who matters. Would you (y'all -- Uncle Jim and others) agree? Workshops are expensive.

I'm at least several months from having anything to show, but the sooner I make my plans, the better.

--Milton

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I landed an agent with a simple query letter. She found me a publisher.

Query widely and carefully. It should be enough.

I came across this one recently:

At a prestigious writing conference filled with attendees, the speaker stood at the podium and asked, "Who wants to be a professional writer?"

Everyone in the audience raised a hand.

"Then why aren't you at home writing?"

Chris, I'm not sure I understood what you were saying in your post. My book is about a Nazi in 1940's Germany who grows to appreciate the evil around him and eventually joins the German Resistance. In this case, the evil is all around my protagonist, like a backprop. The readers know it (from their history) and even if they don't, the story shows it as it progresses. I suppose it is really easy for me to portray evil in this scenario. Of course there are many nasty Nazi individuals in there as well, and I've tried not to portray them as caricatures. Are you sounding warning bells that I should be aware of?

There are quite a few mustachios in the book, btw, mostly for comic effect.

POV Question for Jim:

I have been reading up on POV. It's quite a confusing maze. My current WIP is a short story about two hobos. It is written mostly in third person from the POV of one of the characters, BUT, it opens with the following (omniscient viewpoint) paragraph:

One night in November two homeless men slept under cardboard in the shallow doorway of an abandoned store. This part of Tenth Street, in the shadow of JFK Stadium, is a desolate area populated by garbage cans and dumpsters, and seldom frequented by the Hoboken city police or street cleaning crews.

Is it okay to start omniscient and then switch POV? It feels okay to me, but am I breaking some unbreakable writers' ordinance?

Also, I need to switch back to omniscient POV near the end of the story.

Whoa, deja vu!

That's more-or-less an establishing shot.

I'd replace "populated by" with "filled with", and I'd replace "frequented" with "visited."

Is one of those men sleeping under cardboard a viewpoint character?


(There are no unbreakable writers' ordinances, other than, perhaps "thou shalt be entertaining.")

Thanks

James D. Macdonald said:

That's more-or-less an establishing shot.

I'd replace "populated by" with "filled with", and I'd replace "frequented" with "visited."

DONE

Is one of those men sleeping under cardboard a viewpoint character?

YES: The taller of the two. Why?

(There are no unbreakable writers' ordinances, other than, perhaps "thou shalt be entertaining.")

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Thanks Jim.

I'm not entirely sure you aren't in that character's POV. I mean, he's aware of his location, isn't he?

How is a "shallow doorway" different from a "doorway"?

"Dumpster" is a trademark, and should be capitalized.

(Was changing tense deliberate?)

Thanks again

James D. Macdonald said:

I'm not entirely sure you aren't in that character's POV. I mean, he's aware of his location, isn't he?

He would be if he was awake, but he is asleep.

How is a "shallow doorway" different from a "doorway"?

Causes cold feet, since they protrude onto the sidewalk. No other reason. They are not comfortable.

"Dumpster" is a trademark, and should be capitalized.

Good point. Is there a generic term for these?

(Was changing tense deliberate?)

Yes. I mean to say that this is still the case now. If I use the past tense it suggests that the area has been cleaned up since.

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(The story ends with a murder, when omniscient POV will be required again.)

Thanks for the heads-up, Steve. Must have been a computer glitch a computer glitch. I never do the same thing twice.

Something weird happened there. Steve sent me a rep point, pointing out that I had posted the same thing twice. I corrected the error, but when I returned to my user CP, Steve's rep point had vanished. Is it possible to remove/delete a rep point after it has been sent? Very odd.

That is weird! I guess if you delete a post somebody repped you for the point goes along with it. Now I know how to get rid of negative points!

Do you have any negative rep points? I don't believe it.

euclid said:

Do you have any negative rep points? I don't believe it.

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Not in a while. But Uncle Jim can tell you, I was quite a hot-head when I first came here. Classic "I know exactly what I'm doing, none of you understand me" personality. Luckily for me the good people here at Absolute Write put up with me, gave me a chance to realize there was much to be gained by listening to the other members here. There is a fountain of knowledge in these threads, not just this one, but all over this site. I still occassionally need to be reminded, cuz my superior smart-alec attitude pops out here and there, but I can honestly say I have grown a lot, and learned a lot from this website. And not just with writing. For one thing, learning to take criticism has helped me with my patience in everyday life. Call it a cop-out if you want, but when I got sober I didn't know how to be a human anymore. I spent most of the last few years I was drinking intoxicated 24 hours a day. I passed out drunk and woke up that way. I should get my wife to write a post explaining just how much of a difference and improvement of quality of life I've undergone in the last two years. Of course it's not all due to this site, but alot of it is. Writing is very personal, and I'm defensive by nature anyway. So the things I've learned have been so important. I hope some newbies might read this post and see that the community here is so much more than just a place to discuss writing. If you let it, it can help in other areas of life.

Okay, I'll get off the soapbox now. I just want to say I'm grateful for everyone here- Thanks!

In regards to evil characters, the nature of evil, villains, and my WIP (pushing ahead on 7th & final draft - Deadline is 4/25/09 for completion), in my case the character in question isn;t aware that he's evil. He thinks he and his group tried to do a good thing. He genuinely likes the protagonist and what he's doing for the field both of them are involved with.

Unfortunately, he's not alone, and professional jealousy alone will soon drive him fully into the arms of the protagonists mortal enemies where he will learn to hate, or at least despise, the protagonist and everthing he does.

I'm obviously still developing the character in my mind, it may require some rewrites, especially on a chapter that's always bothered me (it's a little to "pat" a situation and development), and I'm trying to figure out how to involve this character with another character who turns out to be a mole and traitor to the protagonist late in the book (I think it's as simple as a the protagonist stumbling across the two in meeting or for the mole to introduce the other character to the protagonist during a "visit" to the lab(s)).

Either is an easy insert, provides a basis for the later scene(s) involving the mole, and serves as a foreshadow of things to come.

Well, it depends on how morality works in your universe. In the real world, unless and until someone manages to isolate the evil genome or capture and distill a vial of pure evil, the whole "good/evil" thing is really just a matter of say-so. I really want to avoid Godwin's Law here, but... most of history's villains have a lot of people following them. Those followers either believe they're in the right or, at worst, don't believe they're in the wrong. If someone is doing something they believe to be wrong, why? Are they following their own moral compass, which just happens to point opposite society's? Are they doing some act of evil which they believe to be for the greater good? If they're doing something that both they and society agree to be morally reprehensible, why? A call for help or something else?

People generally either have no conscience (sociopathy) or do have a conscience, however misguided. People are lazy and are going to follow the path of least ethical resistance-- nobody's going to intentionally do something that makes their stomach turn-- unless they have a very strong motivation to go upstream.

So, at least to me, someone's either psychologically simple and believes in what they're doing, or they're psychologically complex and they know what they should do but they're doing something else. Simple evil just isn't believable.

Can you say narrow-minded? I knew that you could.

Just a thought regarding the earlier question of whether a racist character needs a comeuppance to show that racism is bad.
If the harm of his racism is shown, say, how it silences or hurts another character, wouldn't that indicate that the author is not validating the racist character's views? It doesn't need to be played up particularly, it could just be an exchange in the midst of the conversation, or someone's quick reaction to his words.
-Barbara

Hmmm.

It seems to me your last post presupposes some sort of axiom about societal conventions and the common good, Chris ("swimming upstream"). Not everyone accepts these concepts. I believe that is why we have police forces, prisons and (in some places) capital punishment.

A drug baron, for example, may be quite happy to put all (or some) of society's conventions to one side in the pursuit of mammon. I imagine his personal goals are dominated by the compulsion to make money at (almost) any cost.

In my book, the followers of you-know-who turned a blind eye rather than question the morality of their situation.

What about Godwin's second law: "Given enough time, every discussion will eventually gravitate to a mention of Fritzl."

I suppose that individual acted in the absence of conscience (?).

Thanks for pointing out Godwin's Law, btw.

Uncle Jim,

I'm writing in 3rd person from one character's POV. As such, my main character can only observe people around her and deduce how she thinks they're reacting to events.

For example, I've been avoiding the use of constructs like "her mother was angry" because my character can't know but only assume this is the emotion felt by her mother. So instead, I'm using "her mother appeared angry" or "her mother was obviously angry".

Is there another solution which would not involve abusing such words as "obvious", "appeared", "seemed" throughout the book?

Perle_Rare said:

For example, I've been avoiding the use of constructs like "her mother was angry" because my character can't know but only assume this is the emotion felt by her mother. So instead, I'm using "her mother appeared angry" or "her mother was obviously angry". Is there another solution which would not involve abusing such words as "obvious", "appeared", "seemed" throughout the book?

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Under those circumstances, a real person would know her mother was angry. You knew when your mother was angry, right? So, "Her mother was angry."

If "The stranger seemed puzzled," that would be right, when the POV isn't sure. But if she knows something, go ahead and say it.

Perle_Rare said:

Uncle Jim,

I'm writing in 3rd person from one character's POV. As such, my main character can only observe people around her and deduce how she thinks they're reacting to events.

For example, I've been avoiding the use of constructs like "her mother was angry" because my character can't know but only assume this is the emotion felt by her mother. So instead, I'm using "her mother appeared angry" or "her mother was obviously angry".

Is there another solution which would not involve abusing such words as "obvious", "appeared", "seemed" throughout the book?

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One way around that might be to "show" the anger. Ex: She heard the yelling, saw the bulging red eyes and tight jaw line. Those hands that hit any solid surface they were over that got louder and louder they more they hit.
And let the reader come to the conclusion she's angry.