Writing your worst nightmare

One of the most difficult parts of writing is to split or gut, to lay out emotions out there in the open for everyone to see. In an effort to do so, I thought up one of my worst nightmares and wrote it down. If this were to happen, I am pretty sure my mind would break completely.

I have even kept my name and my fiancee's name in there, since it is a retelling of my personal nightmare, and not fiction per se.
Context: imagine reading this as a preface to a novel.

On January 14th, 2014, the author of this novel received my letter of acceptance for the publishing of his work.

Overtaken by emotion, His tears of joy flowing to the point he could barely see the sidewalk his feet landed upon, he ran towards the school his fiancee taught at.

His fiancee had already left work, so he saw her walk towards - 

Then a car cut her life short.

He did not hear the drunk drivers' ramblings as he raced past his murderous car, towards his fallen lover. He was stopped by the sight of her fractured skull. Pascale McDuff-Rousseau was no more. I imagine the following hours were a haze, a wailing of screams and cries of hopelessness where no one could reach to him.

There is one thing we know he heard, though.

When the doctor came out to confirm his fiancee's death to Alexandre, I believe his exact words were: “I am sorry, we could not save the mother or the child.”

On that very moment, Alexandre's mind fractured. The news that he was to have a son, a heir to hold with pride, now a lifeless husk marked as medical waste, was beyond his means to cope.

The following work is a testament to a mind now gone. In honour of this bygone man, we published his entire work without alteration. Not even his typos, though they be few and far between, have been touched.

We owed it to this man to show him our respect the only way we truly could. Heal well, Alexandre, heal well.

The world is holding on for you, waiting for the day that you will return. 

May there be such a day.

Jonathan Davies,
Editor for New York Times Press

It is very difficult, perhaps impossible to write engaging stories without spilling out your emotions. I know I tend to write in a very Cartesian manner, to keep my shell intact. This is an attempt to liberate myself from this shell.

Don’t stay true to your characters.

This articles concerns gamers just as it does authors.

I have heard countless times in my gaming life that one had to stay true to his character. A character is made with a certain mentality, and that should be respected. I have heard the same of readers of fiction, including many aspiring authors. Respecting the initial idea behind the character, and keeping him true to that vision through the whole story, is a crucial principle in the eyes of many.

This is pure hogwash. Good characters flow like water and bend like the willow. They should never be stuck in stasis, unchanging. If nothing in the story can affect them enough to make them evolve, then either the story is not worth being told, or the character is not worth portraying.

The most profound, but also the most subtle, failure of this static vision for characters occurs when people forget that the purpose of the characters is to awe, shock and enamor us. They exist not to be themselves, but to entertain people. Both as a gamer and as a player, when you realize a character, as written, breaks the flow of the story and becomes a hindrance, you have to make him change or evolve in such a way that will enhance the story instead.

In a game, if you or a player have made an all-powerful tyrant that prevents other players from truly participating, you can either make him too bored to bother and mess with the others, or create a number of flaws in him that give the other characters a fighting chance. If a character is beaten down and lost everything, give him something strong he can grab onto and fight back. It is especially important in games, since players who are stuck with nothing to do and nothing to work towards will grow bored fast. It is also most difficult there, because some players will fight you every step of the way to keep a problematic status quo that is advantageous to their characters.

Authors are not as limited as storytellers are concerning this. You control everything that happens in the story, and you don’t have to make sure every player has fun the whole time. However, as an author, you still have to be careful not letting too many “This character wouldn’t do that, even though the story wouldn’t work without it” moments ruin your work.  If you need your character to behave a certain way, try to find why he would do that, or how he might do something equivalent.

The other reason why characters must not be static is simply entertainment value. Many characters, especially primary and secondary characters, have to evolve, one way or another, to maintain the reader's interest. Many heroes will evolve by growing up, gathering their courage, learning to love, etc. Most good villains either develop a more and more dramatic bend, or you get to see their evolution, using flashbacks and old newspapers, in a way that justifies what they have become.

Tertiary characters tend to be much more stable throughout a story, mostly because they would derive too much attention away from the main characters if they changed too deeply or too often. Still, if you read Harry Potter, you will note that Neville and Ginny, who are clearly backbenchers throughout the series, evolve a lot, and that makes them much more endearing than Lupin, who remains pretty much the same from his introduction on. A large 7-novel series does grant an author the room to treat those subjects, while a beginner's 125 pages novella will not.

Professor Rogue, likewise, is not a static entity of established beliefs that cannot change. He is playing the middle against both sides throughout the series, for very personal reasons and aspirations. He seems to sway between those two poles. Also, he is far from the frightened child or the nerdy teenager he once was. That all participates to making the reader's hatred, love and passion for him that much stronger.

Let us face the facts here: people who do not change are boring. They are Autumn people, never progressing, never trying anything new, always the same. Nobody cares about their stories. Who would want to read about them? Who would enjoy playing them? I know I wouldn't.

Examples abound of characters keeping our interest through their evolution. If you want examples of stories solely focused on character evolution, I would suggest two very nice stories that revolve around that are "Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki, or "Les Aimants" by Yves Pelletier. I believe it is not possible to watch those movies and not get the point I'm trying to make.

On thoughts woven against the fabric of the world: the birth of gods.

A Treatise on the Soul part 4.

The forms of ill intent that grew most prevalent over time were jealousy, xenophobia and, the ultimate downfall of the Apes, sloth. Apes wanted to dominate. They wanted everything else to be as they see it, and made sure to impose that way upon the world. Moreover, they wanted dominance to be their birthright, something so innate in them that the mere thought of having to work at it would be thought blasphemous.

Their modifications to the world they inhabited were so profound, with their roads and cities and farms that it was as though the world itself was taking as intent the domination of the Apes.

Then came an Ape known as Meraku, a warlord of the Apes born in the southern steppes where once a jungle lay, domain to the snakes and their primate servants. Meraku was a sight to behold, standing 10 feet at the shoulder and with a maw that could tear a horse's neck in a single bite. His black eyes glowed in the darkness and his roaring speeches could be heard for miles, or so the stories say. But beyond his powerful features and impressive standing, he was the most passionate Ape there ever had been, with Purpose so ingrained into his very fabric that his very steps clapped like thunder!

Meraku was the greatest force that the Apes ever offered to the world. He conquered all the lands from sea to sea, from the peaks of the Havermain to the subterrean refuges of the Allamanti! Meraku was the greatest Emperor the world has known, and the most capable. He led his People to greatness!

And yet, true force lies within, and Meraku's greatest asset was his mate Amuru. Amuru was a weaver of fortune, as were called those who forced Purpose into sigils and the shaping of the land. Meraku's very fur she traced into a symbol with chalk and coal, and this symbol no only bound within him the purpose of greatness for which he became known, but with locks of his hair she wrote the series of intents that formed, within the very being of her Emperor and mate, the first Woven Thought, which later peoples came to call spiritual hosts and then gods.

Every word of Meraku came to be spoken in tandem with his spirit, blooming with a force unbeknownst in that day or any that followed. This spirit, a sentient being woven from the many threads upon Meraku's fur, was as powerful as thought can be. Through the warlord of the steppes, he spoke of greatness! Every moment of the First Emperor, he pushed with strength!

It is said that when Meraku slept under the gaze of the full moon, one could see its ephemeral form lying so close to him as to occupy the non-space between his mate and him, whispering in his ear. Every move he made, every breath he took, Amuru's creation followed and empowered.

Within a decade Meraku was Emperor, and so Amuru wove other thoughts into the fabric of the world. The well at the center of the world's capitol, Haraket, was first given sentience. Its greater Purpose was to bring life and water to the world, and into its very Essence Amuru wove her timeless wisdom, to be parted to all who called for the well and sent it their wishes.

So it was that, whisper after whisper of mendicants wishing for money, power or happiness moved the very fabric of the Woven Thought of the Well of Haraket beyond its original design towards an infinitely complex spiritual host capable of thinking far beyond the wishes of Amuru...

Treatise on the Soul part 3

So it was that Purpose began manifold, reflecting in a myriad of ways the desires of those complex creatures who could will it into objectives varied but simple, such as Dominance, Freedom, Lust, Procreation, Feeding, Drinking, Health and physical fitness.

Farms, villages and cities were built as large canvases to bring forth Purpose into specific directions and objectives. Dominance, and the freedom from the tyranny of other predators, was the main theme guiding the conception of places that were carved larger and larger as the centuries passed.

On the local level, although the design of the farms themselves tamed the land, locals held into greater esteem the more concrete goals of the well, the home and the village gathering house where villagers gathered for support and comfort in a world still dreadful.

As the basic needs for survival were met, other inspirations grew within the minds of the Apes. Amongst them, one was born mostly in the dark corners of society: ill intent. Apes, like the men we know in the modern age, put survival and procreation beyond any other purpose, with Dominance the most marked source of survival in this and, really, any world. But when survival turned matter-of-fact, when thirst could be quenched by holes in the ground that never dried up, when walls staved off wolves and bears, Apes obtained free time.

And Ape, like Man, tends to brood when caught within the grasp of endless time to ponder. He turns to jealousy towards his neighbour. He turns to philosophy, losing his focus the village on the real world. Coming short on threats real, he turns upon threats imagined. He who does not share his taste for a meal, the color of his pelt or the village of his birth has to be hiding something, for nobody would choose so poorly as to differ from oneself.

People today view evil as a unique force of malice pervading and corrupting all it touches. The truth, especially in that time, is far more complex. A hundred billion objectives, most petty and unrelated, built up over decades and centuries of accumulating leisure time. All objectives of ill intent were so unique and unrefined that none could be given a proper name. Thus, no ill intent could be generalized, and only petty squabbles dimmed the prospects of a perfect future eternal for the Apes.

Then stroke the first Downfall of the Apes: conformity. For an Age hamlets grew into villages which grew into burgs which grew into towns which grew into cities. Tribes grew into nations which grew into empires. Families grew into households. Throughout the centuries whence it occurred, the Apes proudly became more powerful, more decisive, more dominant. The pride of the best amongst them swayed large swathes of land under their glory, and naught was seen in progress but unrelenting advancement!

Every time a family was taken into a household, an identity was lost at the profit of a larger entity. Every time a tribe joined a nation, or was beaten down by one, a portion of the Apes' variety and greatness vanished. In time, the Apes lost the unique techniques of thousands of skilled craftsmen, sigil workers and warriors in favor of the strongest technique of the time. In their unity was strength, but also their fallibility, for if one thing could overpower an Ape, than that thing could overpower all Apes.

And so it did.

To be continued in part 4.