Fairy Tales

So we're talking about fairy tales this week. Back in the day, before the interwebs or television or even printed reading matter, people still told stories for entertainment. But the tales told to children were also meant to impart the rules of civilized society. Parents essentially created ‘fairy stories’ to teach their kids that most golden of golden rules  – Don’t Be A D*ck.

Modern versions of these fairy tales have been sanitized in the hope of ‘sparing children’ the morbid nature of the originals. But the truth is, in their attempts to make these stories ‘acceptable’ for children, a lot of the time, folks have actually made them far more screwed up than the originals.

So, here’s my Top 5 Fairy Tales with their original endings, the lessons they were originally trying to impart, and the newly ‘sanitized’ moral.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears – Goldilocks finds a house in the woods. She breaks in, ruins the furniture, eats the food and then, being a particularly resourceful burglar, decides to have a quick nap. The house belongs to three bears, who come home, discover the thief and get understandably upset. In the modern version, Goldilocks wakes up and flees out the window. In the original? She gets nom-nom’ed by the bears.

New moral: Breaking and entering is totes cool; just make sure you have a decent escape route planned if the owners come home early.

Original moral: Don’t break into people’s houses or you’ll be eaten by frackin’ bears.

The Pied Piper – The town of Hamlin is plagued by rats. A minstrel with mad skillz rolls up to the mayor and says “I can deal with your rat problem in exchange for hard currency, chief.” Mayor says “I am totally down with that.” The piper busts out the pipes, and leads the rat horde to a nearby river where they all drown. The piper rolls back to the mayor and says “Pay up, big man.” Mayor says “Lol n00b, you already killed all the rats, we don’t need to pay you jack.” Piper says “Aight, if that’s the game you wanna play, playa.” The Piper busts out the pipes again, but entrances the village children instead. In the modern version, he seals them inside a cave until the mayor agrees to pony up the agreed sum. The piper then returns the kids. In the original? The piper leads the kids to the river, just like he did with the rats, and lets them all drown. BAM. (except for one little boy, who was lame and couldn’t keep up)

New moral: Don’t pay your contractors until they’ve conducted punitive action.

Original moral: Pay what you owe or the kids get it (and sometimes, being physically challenged ain’t so bad)

Little Red Riding Hood – A girl is on her way to her Granny’s. She stops to ask directions from a wolf. Like you do. In the original version, the wolf sends her on a roundabout journey, runs to Granny’s house, eats Granny, dresses in her nighty, then eats Red when she arrives. BUT!!! A kindly woodsman happens along, chops the beastie open with his trusty axe and pulls out Granny and Red whole and hale from his belly. In the original version? Red stops to asks the wolf directions and the wolf straight up eats her. No Granny. No woodsman. Just one fat happy carnivore and a very dead little girl.

New moral: Be as stupid as you like – there will always be a man with an axe around to save you. Oh, and also, being devoured by wolves is totally non-fatal.

Original moral: Don’t talk to strangers.

The Little Mermaid – A mermaid falls in love with a handsome Prince. In the Disney version, Arial goes through many trials and tentacled tribulations, finally becoming human and marrying the man of her dreams (who she doesn’t even know). In the original? She falls hopelessly in love, watches the Prince marry a human Princess and, offered the choice between murdering the Prince or suicide, she ends herself in despair.

New moral: Changing everything you are and giving up everyone you know to attain the affections of a dude you don’t even know is perfectly okay, especially if he’s rich.

Original moral: Wishing too hard for something you can never have will destroy you.

Sleeping Beauty – A beautiful princess is cursed to sleep forever by an evil witch. In the original, a handsome prince happens along and spies the beautiful girl fast asleep, kisses her lips and wakes her up. They live happily ever after, and it never occurs to Sleeping Beauty to front her man about his habit of molesting sleeping women he finds while out on his Sunday rides. In the original? The handsome prince, not being content with simple smooches, stone cold rapes her. Nine months later, she gives birth (still asleep) and one her babies suckling on her finger breaks the curse. She wakes up to find herself the violated mum of two kids. Presumably a big ‘WTF’ moment in her life.

New moral: Just lie back and snooze, my dear. The Prince will be along to violate/rescue you momentarily.

Original moral: I have NO IDEA what this one was trying to say. Don’t fall asleep around royalty?

So which versions teach better lessons? The original dark a depressing ones? Or the newly sanitized ones?

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

Bloggery and Tweeting here and here.

Points of View

My article is late this week. I have failed you all. So I wrote an excessively long one to atone. Which in itself might be another kind of failure :P

One of the first choices you’ll have to make when writing your opus is the PoV you’re going to tell the story in. There are three basic choices:

1^st Person –The author writes as if they WERE the character.

“I stared at the <insert sexy feature of The Boy here> and tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach”

and

“I successfully ignored the butterflies, drew my laser pistol and proceeded to melt his <insert melting sexy here>”.

Pros

• Simple to establish ‘voice’ of the MC (since, you know, you’re writing in it).
• Exposition is easier (not easy though - important distinction), as you’re talking directly to your reader, so dropping into internal dialogue or explaining Why Everyone Is Walking Around With A Bucket On Their Head comes off as more natural and you won’t lose flow.
• The narrator can lie, or his/her perspective can be compromised which can make the story far more interesting (good example of this is Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, where the narrator doesn’t realize he’s nutty as squirrel poo)
• The flow of the story can be more visceral, since we’re in the head of the person experiencing these events.

 Cons

• You will use the word ‘I’ a lot. Like, a LOT. There’s no way to avoid it, and it gets repetitive after the first 2,000 or so.
• Perspective is limited. This leads to a couple of problems, the biggest of which is that everything the MC doesn’t know will either need to be discovered, or worse, explained to her/him. This often leads to implausible scenarios, where, in reality, the villain would just snatch up a pistol and paint the walls with the MC’s head, but instead spends five minutes explaining The Plan, and how to stop it, because ‘I suppose it makes no difference now that you are in my clutches, mwahahaha.’ Even if the villain doesn’t fall into this expo-routine, at the very least, the MC will have to explain the twist to you, the reader. This is very difficult to do well.
• Your whole book hangs on one character – the MC. If people don’t like your MC, they won’t like your book. This means you need to build a likeable MC. ‘Likeable’ can slip very easily into ‘boring goody-two-shoes’.
• Since the author is writing as ‘I’, Mary/Gary-Sue comparisons are unavoidable.
• Lots of people are doing it. Particularly in YA. Seriously. Pick up a YA novel off the shelf. Chances are good it’s written in 1^st.

 2^nd Person – ‘You’ are the character in the narrative.

‘You sit on the bed and try to wrap your head around this weird-ass book in which you are a seventeen year old nuclear physicist who's a supermodel in her spare time.’

and

‘You walk to the bookshelf and pick something else to read instead.’

Pros

• Good for RPG books. You know, those Choose Your Own Adventure style things, where ‘If you snatch up the pistol and melt the villain’s face, turn to page 321. If you’d rather cuddle the puppies, turn to 123.”
• I can’t think of any other pro’s... It’s different, I guess? Different is good, right?

 Cons

• You might have crafted an awesome alter-ego for me in this narrative, but you need to be a pretty masterful writer to convince me that I’m a 17 year old supermodel with a degree in astrophysics and a black belt in kung fu. Especially since I’m probably reading this thing on the couch while my dog gnaws my ugg boots.
• Multiple PoVs are virtually impossible, so essentially you have all the cons of 1^st, with none of the visceral connect, since you’re reader is probably sitting there thinking “Wait, I’m a what now?”
• If someone can point me to an awesome 2^nd person PoV book that isn’t an RPG, I will pay you handsomely.

3^rd Person – the God’s eye view.

“The Girl snatched up the laser pistol and melted the Boy’s sexy.”

and

“The Boy understandably felt quite upset at this turn of events.”

Pros

• It's easier (again, not easy) to tell tales on a broad-scope in 3^rd. You can be anywhere, and inside anyone. This allows you for far more complex plot arrangements, and you can avoid the set-piece exposition scene flaw of 1^st. The villain doesn't need to explain to the MC he’s rigged the puppies to explode - we saw him do it in the previous scene. Imagine trying to tell a story like A Song of Ice and Fire in 1^st person. We’ll wait here while you put your brain back together.
• The narrative can be more objective, less personal. If I were to tell you the story of my life, I would probably exaggerate the bits where I skydived naked from aeroplanes surrounded by Victoria Secrets models, and downplay the time I spent on the couch getting my ugg boots gnawed by my dog. Jus’ sayin’.
• Your whole book doesn’t hang on one character. You can make your MC a bit of a douche, or a bit of a dunce, because she/he has other characters to bounce off and revulsion to her/his douchebaggery won’t be as immediate and instinctive as in a 1^st person PoV.

 Cons

• 3^rd is less intimate than 1^st. It’s harder and takes longer to establish voice when dealing with multiple characters. The disconnect between your reader and your MC is more pronounced.
• If the plot is complex, your readers might not even know who the MC is at first.
• Dropping into internal thought processes and internal dialogue can be very jarring, and easily break the flow of your narrative.

STORMDANCER is a third person PoV narrative, meaning we swap around inside the heads and perspectives of various characters over the course of the novel. I chose 3^rd because I had a (vague) idea of where the story would head, and knew it would eventually get too big to be confined to one perspective. But that's just me and my story. 

In the end, do what’s write for your story. Understand the pros and cons, and choose wisely - the decision will shape your book on the most fundamental level possible. But as always, the most important thing to remember is to write your ass off.

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

He writes in 1st person PoV here and here.

Strrrrange

So, I’m kind of a strange one.

Because I’ve never done this Being Published thing before, I simply assume the way things have gone for me are the way things have gone for everyone. But, talking to my fellow Apocalypsies around our campfires at night, all cleaning the zombie juice off our shotguns and whatnot, I’ve discovered a lot of my experiences have been a little strange. Editing is no exception.

My book deal was strange, in that my trilogy was bought by SMP “in association with” Tor UK. This meant I essentially had two editors, one US based, one UK based. My US editor is a terrible nerd who plays video games (just like me). My UK editor is this lovely, exceedingly polite British woman with the voice of a phone sex operator. And they both had editorial input on my book. Which is… strange.

A lot of people ask if this was difficult, but it was actually brilliant. Different editors focus on different aspects – characters, visuals, internal thought processes, setting. I got two heads for the price of one, each highlighting what was important to them (male and female perspective really helped). Their notes were presented in one editorial letter which was, again, strange.

Pretty much every writer I know was asked to CUT from their manuscript during editorial rounds. Some folks I know got asked to cut 50,000 words (0.o). I got asked to ADD words. To flesh out the setting with all the little details I’d initially written and then cut for fear of boring people. The cool little scenes which served only to establish character personality or relationships with no ‘splosions in the background (I’m always afraid if there are no ‘splosions). I got to put all that back in, and more besides. Which was awesome. But, talking to the Apocaladies, it’s really strange.

Then, I started copy edits. The US and UK operate on different publication timelines (UK works further in advance, it seems). So my copy edits were done with the UK first (putting all the ‘U’s’ in ‘colour’ and ‘neighbour’, and changing ‘ass’ to ‘arse’, etc). And now I’m awaiting US copy edits, where I’ll have to change all that stuff back. Talking to everyone else, this is kinda strange too.

So, lesson for the day – don’t listen to anything I tell you about the editing process.

NOTHING AT ALL.

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

He's even stranger here and here.

The Revision Cave

Don't ask me what the picture means. I just typed "give me a good picture" into Google and this is seriously the first thing that came up. :P

So I just finished my copy edits on book 1 of the Lotus War, and I'm back doing revisions on book 2, and according to Mr Sidebar, posts this week are supposed to be about revisions. Serendipity? Or did Future Heather Anastasiu travel back in time, visit herself three months ago and say “Jay will be just finishing his copy edits on 26 September and you can TOTALLY blow his tiny mind.”? 

I know what I’d like to believe. 

I tend to go back and revise as I write - I know this is a golden rule of the "DO NOT DO THIS" variety, but the obsessive compulsive in me can't leave a scene alone until it's at least semi-functional. As a result, my first drafts tend to be reasonably polished in terms of plot, and revising is more about achieving clarity and sharpening language.

First step: I go back and try to chop 10% of the word count. I go over every sentence and demand that every word explain why they shouldn't be cut from the team. Setting an arbitrary figure like 10% makes me ruthless, and if the figure is good enough for Stephen King, it's good enough for me.

Second step: Let my wife read it. She is like unholy lovechild of Ming the Merciless and the Evil Queen from Willow. She can spot Suck at fifty paces and has no qualms about lighting it up for the world to see. She's nice about it, but only sometimes. I'd rather not talk about the other times... excuse me, I have something in my eye...

(later) 

Third step: Enter the revision cave and remove the highlighted suck with pliers and a blowtorch.   

The revision cave is where I hopefully get some magic happening, and end up with something good enough to show to my agent. To enter the Revision cave and emerge alive, I require:
 

·       Stimulants. My poison of choice is Red Bull. I don’t drink coffee, never have, I know this makes me totally unhip and extremely unlikely to marry a Starbucks heiress, but it’s something we’re all going to have to live with. Moving on.

·       Absolute silence. We are talking perfect vacuum here. An ice-cold void. One in which the sound of a child practicing her clarinet five houses down sends me into outbursts of profanity so intense that they rip holes in the fabric of space/time.

·       A dog. A cat won't do - I put them in the same basket as coffee. The dog is there to make me feel less like a mad person. See, I spend a lot of revision time reading aloud to help get sentence flow working right. There’s nothing that will help me spot a rogue comma (fear them) stray adverbs (hate them) better than reading aloud. It's a matter of public record that talking to oneself is something a crazy person does. But talking to a dog? Even if it’s the same sentence 20 times? Perfectly sane, I assure you.

·       An awesome place to sit, because I’ll be doing a lot of it. I usually settle for the couch, but one day I hope to be rolling on something like this.

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

You can watch him rant some more here and here.

School sucks

There are no schools in STORMDANCER. Not in the sense that you or I understand, anyway.

Sounds awesome, right? No homework. No teachers. No jerks or Cool Kids.

*puts on ranty-pants*

But the truth is, in historical times, illiteracy was a tool used by governments to control their populace. An illiterate populace couldn’t educate themselves on concepts like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. They couldn’t easily be exposed to new ideas. They were completely reliant upon the literate (usually the people who wanted to keep them down) to interpret law, history and philosophy. This is the way it works in STORMDANCER.

The sad thing is, even today, illiteracy is a weapon being used in the same old war. We're not talking fantasy. This is real life now.

According to UNICEF, nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names and two thirds of them were women.

In the US 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level. Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help. 90% of welfare recipients are high school dropouts.

In America today, right now, this very second, 22% of adults are below Basic level literacy (indicating they possess no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills). 14% are functionally illiterate (meaning they cannot read or write with any degree of proficiency)

14%. In America. Today.

School sucks. I hated every minute of it. No doubt. But compared to the alternative, it's pretty frackin' awesome.

Make with the clicky:

The Reading Tree - http://www.readingtree.org/

The ABC literacy Site - http://www.theliteracysite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=6

National Literacy Trust UK - http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/

Oxfam Australia - http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/resources/rights/

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

You can watch him rant some more here and here.

All Hope Is Gone

So this week, we’re scheduled to write about our favourite scenes in our upcoming books, and I have no idea how to do that without spoiling the bejeezus out of things.

Maybe if you go watch this video of kittens duelling with lightsabers, I’ll have thought of something un-spoilerific by the time you get back.

…

… nope. Still got nuthin’.

So let me try to explain it without really explaining anything. My favourite scene in STORMDANCER is what I call the ‘All Hope Is Gone’ moment. It’s the point in the story where it seems like things are moving smoothly towards resolution and victory and Happy Dances™, and then everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. And hopefully, the reader is left sitting there, blinking at the page, wondering how in hell we can have Happy Dances™ after something so singularly awful has happened.

Best example of what I'm talking about? The Princess Bride. Now, if you haven’t actually seen the Princess Bride (my god, what are you doing here?), you totally should. Go away and watch it, and we’ll hang here with the lightsaber kittens ‘til you get back.

…

Pretty good, wasn't it?

Now in the Princess Bride, the AHIG moment happens thusly:

Wesley has rescued Buttercup from the Fire Swamp, and they’re speeding towards the ship Revenge, ready to sail off into the sunset and make lots of Dread Pirate babies. But instead, they get captured by the dude who played the vampire in Fright Night (original, not the new one with David Tennant in tight leather pants) and a man with six fingers.

“Captured?” you’re thinking. “Pfft, no big deal. People escape capture all the time.  In fantasy settings, it’s practically mandatory  that the hero gets captured and tortured before escaping, effecting bloody revenge on the Big Bad Guy and skipping over the castle wall with the hottie on his/her shoulder.”

Which is all true, of course. But instead of escaping, Wesley gets killed. No flesh wounds. No playing possum. Just stone cold murdered.

And Fred Savage is all WTF’ing at his Grandpa, shouting “Damn you, old man, you’re ruining the story, we should’ve had you committed to that retirement home where they harvest your ailing flesh for organs…” and the viewer is all like “Wow, didn’t see that coming. Maybe Buttercup hooks up with Andre the Giant?”

*shudders*

And then Grandpa drops another straight-shot to the baby-maker on us: the bad guy doesn’t even die at the end of the book. The evil Prince LIVES! And Fred Savage loses his tiny mind and starts screaming blasphemy and rending his garments, and the viewer starts looking sideways at the person who recommended the film and wondering if they’ve been tricked into watching some French arthouse movie about the futility of existence.

All hope seems gone.

And that is my favourite scene in STORMDANCER.

(well, no Fred Savage, but you get the idea)

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

You killed his father. Prepare to die.