Realism VS. Relatability

Disclaimer: The Spiderman/Batman character examples that are to follow have nothing to do with the original comic book characters ... well, they might, but I wouldn't know because I haven't read them. So the point is, if you're a Spiderman/Batman of comic book origin lover, please don't argue with me, I admit I am uneducated in ways other than the big blockbuster movies. No offence is intended. 


The age-old Spiderman VS. Batman argument comes up a lot in our house. This blog post isn't necessarily an argument - that is to say, I'm not trying to diss Batman. The argument here is Realism VS. Relatability, and my superheroes are the vehicle. 


Before we get into this, my computer tells me that relatability is not a word. The online merriam-webster dictionary tells me otherwise (but who knows how reliable that is). I can't think of any alternative word that means what I'm assuming we all know relatability means, so I'm going to roll with it anyway. I'm a writer! I can make things up! And I say if it wasn't a word, it is now!


On with the show. So what is the difference between realism and relatability? Why does it matter? 


As a writer and a reader, I enjoy both of these things in a novel. I like finding ways to relate to the characters, the situations, the emotions in a story. I also appreciate the effort an author puts in to make their story world and the way their characters act and react realistic. However, in most stories there is a point where, for the sake of the epic tale you are weaving, an element of your realism must be left behind. This is where Suspension of Disbelief, aided by relatability, comes to the rescue. 


Suspension of disbelief basically means, 'I'll accept your skewed reality because I'm enjoying the story'. It's that moment in the story where - what the? - Harry Potter is a wizard. Mole does spring cleaning. Christian wins Satine's heart with a love medley of pop songs while the moon sings and fireworks appear out of nowhere. John McClane miraculously survives, again. This is the moment where the writer must let go of the story's safety harness. It's time to freefall, and the reader/watcher is the parachute. Are they going to stick with the story?


In the examples I've used, I would safely assume that the answer is yes.  But why is that? Why do we love this stuff? Why aren't we yelling at the book/TV screen in confusion? This stuff can't happen! It's preposterous! Magic doesn't exist. Animals don't talk. The moon doesn't sing! And if this were real, he would have died back there. So why do we stick with the story? 


Simply, it's because we enjoy imagining things that couldn't really happen. But to be more specific, we enjoy it because despite the lack of realism, there is still an element of relatability that is realistic to us. Harry Potter thought he was an Average Joe like the rest of us. Mole's OCD reminds you of someone you know. The love Christian has for Satine is real to us. And John McClane ... well, we'd be disappointed if he died when he should have ... so we're rooting for him against the odds! 


What does this have to do with Spiderman and Batman, you ask? Well, these two heroes are what sparked the idea for this post. My brother Justin tells me that the great thing about Batman is that because he doesn't have proper super powers, it's his awesome technology that makes him a superhero. It's cool and realistic and whatnot because it could potentially happen. I agree with him on this, but my problem with Batman is that as a 19-year-old Australian girl who is disappointed about missing out on $100+ pay because she's home sick instead of working her 6-hour shift at a local cafe, I find Gotham city billionaire Bruce Wayne a leetle difficult to relate to. (Although right now, I probably sound a touch like Batman ... where are those lozenges?)


Spiderman, on the other hand? Photography-loving, nerdy teenager who, after getting his powers, spends his evenings scribbling away with textas designing a superhero costume? This works a little better for me.


The big point here is, who do you want your story to relate to? There's obviously a difference between the relatability of Spiderman and Batman (which includes the emotional states of the characters, their interactions with other characters, and the inner journey they take throughout their stories, but I won't go into all that detail). This isn't to say that I don't like Batman. I like the Batman films and there is much to love and appreciate. But as a big believer in the ability and need to emotionally invest in a character, I don't really have any emotional attachment to Batman (like, if he dies at the end of his upcoming film ... well, nice knowing you Batman.)


How much have you considered realism and relatability in your story? Have you found a balance? Are you reaching out to your target audience? 


In my own novel I have a lot of different things to consider. I'm already relying heavily on the reader's suspension of disbelief because by the fourth paragraph of the first page, one of the characters is revealed to be a shapeshifter. A big portion of realism has already flown out the window at this stage. And now it's up to me to keep my reader hooked. Sure, the fact that something totally out of the norm has just happened is enough to keep any reader going for several more pages, but in order to get them to Chapter Two, I need some relatable material. My shapeshifter is about 60 years old, rather gruff, lives in a rundown terrace house and probably hasn't showered for a week. He's not really relatable to my YA audience (roughly aged 15), so I bring in a younger character who, despite her air of confidence, is secretly a little scared of this guy. Now we have relatability. And we also have intrigue. What's she doing at this guy's house? What will happen there? 


My hopes are that these elements combined will lead to my reader turning the page and continuing to unravel the story. If I'm a good enough writer, I just might be right. 


If there are any writers out there reading this (a big squishy hug hello if you've come via NaNoWriMo), I hope this post is of some use to you. Happy writing!

Just gonna unload right here.

My brain is in a kind of sensory overload right now. I have to be at work tomorrow morning so I should totally be asleep but my brain was all YOU MUST WRITE and seeing as I haven't blogged it about a million years, here I am to unload all my current thoughts. Prepare for the word-vomit.

Firstly, I'm still overloaded from the interview I just had with one of the teaching guys at Sydney Film School. Pretty much got accepted. Celebrations will be had as soon as my 'letter of offer' arrives in the mail. Should be by next week. I'm pretty thrilled. Also really not keen to do the rest of the portfolio IFSS wants me to do, because my harddrive has crashed and so it means extra work to try and pull together photos. Haven't entirely ditched this possibility yet so will probably try a little for this next week.

Film school looks like it's going to be REALLY intense. I mean, the the teacher interviewing me today even kinda warned me it was intense. So I'm a little freaked out about that. Granted, everyone said that TAFE was going to be crazy intense and it really wasn't until the very last month. This, however, is probably a different story. Preparing myself for crazy-intenseness.

I have to say I'm a little worried that I won't be able to keep my cafe job if film school gets crazy. Every time I think about that my brain goes 'but you have to save money for your trip!' and then I try not to think about that. It will happen. It must. Also praying that something opens up at the dvd shop, because how cool would it be to study and film school and work in the dvd shop at the same time? I basically live there anyway....

Moving on to unrelated topics, I'm in the mood to right one of those average present-day kind of stories but have ZERO inspiration. Absolutely no scenes or key ideas are coming to mind. I can't even form a decent character or even decided on a name. It's killing me. I touched up a few scenes of the super power novel last week, but haven't done any writing since. Annoying. Got a crazy work week but hopefully some inspiration will come to me on my day off.

Been watching loads of movies lately, as per usual. Need to get back into some proper film reviews/ACTUAL BLOGGING, but for now will just list the stuff I've been watching lately to catch myself up:

Zodiac. David Fincher's true-story-about-a-serial-killer was quite brilliant. My love of Fincher has officially increased as expected. Also my love of Jake Gyllenhaal. Totally adorable.

The Godfather. YES I FINALLY SAW IT. Was a very good film. Keen for part two.

Rendition Road. Crappy film with a totally weak ending as I expected (was in the mood for something that required little thought), though half-decent acting from Ruffalo, Connelly and Phoenix. Also slightly depressing what with the 'bereavement themes' and all.

There Will Be Blood. Reallllyyyyyy strange, strange film. Beautiful cinematography though, so well worth it.

PIRATES! Caught one of the very last sessions in the cinema with Justin. Quite hilarious and very cute. Also a heavy user of this trope, unfortunately.... The amount of times we turned to each other and whispered "how is this G-rated?!"

Anyways, gotta go to bed. Would love to keep writing but my eyelid are drooping. Sleep beckons. Will lastly mention that I bought Film History: An Introduction by Bordwell and Thompson, it's big and fat and wonderful I can't wait to start reading it. Tata for now lovelies, glad to be back.

Get It Right The First Time

That's what my brain has been telling me all week, and it sucks. Every time I sit down to write chapter four of Semblance, my brain stops me because I know I'll do it wrong and I'll have to rewrite it later.

Um.

Hello, brain?

That's the point of a first draft!

So this morning I got up and did some cleaning. And after I write this post I'll go and do some more cleaning, and then I will cart myself and my laptop off to the library for a distraction-free/internet-free environment and write the stupid thing. And it doesn't matter if it sucks. I would have to rewrite and edit it anyway.

What's difficult about chapter four is not just the content (I'm almost parodying the typical "protagonist-has-to-learn-new-skill-in-order-to-proceed-with-the-story" scene). This is point in the story where two of my three heroes get over the hump of being acquaintances and become real friends. They let loose a bit. They show each other their true colours. They do silly things. They argue a little. They have fun, but then things don't work quite the way they wanted. At the end of the chapter they feel much closer to each other, but as one character has super powers and the other doesn't, there's still a kind of distance between them. Urgh. In terms of character development, it's the most difficult chapter until close to the end of the novel. If I can get past chapters four and five it will move quicker from there.

As mentioned in my last post, I tried just skipping it but when I did that I accidentally screwed up my order-of-events because I forgot about the gap in the timeline between the end of four and the start of five. It's messier than it sounds. Better to write this first. On with the show!

Blah.

January's nearly over so I thought I'd better make a post. Have nothing to write about though so this will just be a brief spewing of my thoughts. It's really hot right now. The tennis ended last night and it was amazing and Novak won and I was so happy but now I'm bummed it's over. Next year! Haha.

I need a job. Don't have one yet. Will get one eventually.

Trying to read the third and last Hunger Games book. Sort of left it too long and forgot where the second one ended so I'm a bit confused. It's good though so I'm sure my brain will catch up. I'm stupidly pumped for the movie coming out in March. I hate how loads of weirdos are comparing it to that unspeakable vampire franchise. It's nothing like that. Katniss would only have to look at Bella and she would be dead. Also, Katniss is Jennifer Lawernce, and Bella is Kristen Stewart. Only takes a nanosecond to work out which one of them is more kick-ass. Anyway, aside from the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo teaser, The Hunger Games had the best trailer I watched all last year. It was so well put together. Perfect set up and build up without giving too much of the plot away. I'm so excited! I also found out that Elizabeth Banks is playing Effie Trinket. And when I realised who Elizabeth Banks was I was like WHAT. Weird. Weird choice. But I'll take that....

Justin is having a murder mystery party thing and I'm writing the story. Didn't realise it would be so insanely complex. I have to write fifteen characters. All of which have to be pretty rounded. I think I'm stretching myself in quick character development by doing it though so it's all good. Sort of annoying that I have to put my actual novel on the back-burner for a day or two while I get a good portion of this out of the way, but it is fun.

Speaking of my actual novel, completely and utterly stuck on chapter four. I think I'lll skip it and come back later, even though I hate doing that. I feel like it's going to be a good point of development for Jordan's character so I really don't want to skip ahead, but trying to write it is just not working at all. Not sure why. I know it's a difficult couple of scene but I didn't think it would be this hard! Never fear, I will either jump over it or force through it in order to continue writing asap. The end of the hard slog is in sight!

Laptop battery dying. Brain melting in the heat. Need to find water.

Thus ends my brain-spew.

Murdered Darling Monday #1

Got another segment for ya. I stole this one from the lovely girl who runs *Headdesk*, which I insist you check out if you haven't before. Especially if writing is your thing.

This segment, appropriately titled Murdered Darling Monday, is for scenes that I've written that I liked but had to cut for various reasons. If you're one of my beta-readers for "Semblance", you'll be familiar with a lot of the dialogue in this brief scene, but I thought I'd post it anyway. This was the first draft of the meeting between two of my main characters, Jordan and Hayden. The context is a funeral (changed to a wake in the current draft), and previously Jordan spotted this boy during the service, looking like he might faint from the heat. "Semblance" is the first in what I expect to be a series about some teenagers with super powers. In this scene, Jordan is unbeknownst to the fact that Hayden is a cryokinetic, someone who can create and manipulate ice. 

  ‘Hey, excuse me.’ 

  She looked round. The sweaty boy was standing by the air-conditioner, motioning for her to come closer. She glanced back to see her father nowhere in sight, and so went towards him. The boy smiled as she approached. ‘I saw you earlier - you look really familiar - have we met?’ he asked. 

  His eyes were bright green. Jordan scanned the rest of his face and shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ 

  The boy shrugged. ‘Can’t place you anyway. My name’s Hayden Connor.’

  She took his outstretched hand and shook it. ‘Jordan Elliott.’ 

  At that, his eyes widened. ‘You’re an Elliott? Is your dad’s name Daniel?’ 

  ‘Well, yeah -’

  ‘Oh, my gosh. Your dad is Daniel Elliott. The Daniel Elliott?’ His hands curled into excited fists. ‘I don’t believe this!’ 

  Jordan frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’ She’d never heard anyone talk about her father like that. ‘What’s so special about him?’ 

  ‘Daniel Elliott,’ Hayden repeated. ‘He was on the last elite team in the academy. His strength powers are amazing, I’ve heard.’ 

  ‘Strength powers? I - what?’ 

  Hayden stared at her. His shirt collar rippled under the blast from the air-con. ‘But you must know…’ His eyes darted back and forth, and for a moment he was silent. Then he said, ‘Do you … not have powers?’ 

  She couldn’t make sense of his words, and so she just shook her head. His shoulders sagged a little. 

  ‘Oh. Well,’ he added, with a twitch of smile, ‘Maybe you’re like a late bloomer, y’know? If something ever changes, you can come train with us. My dad says his powers lay dormant until he was almost sixteen. Maybe it’s the same with you. Sometimes you just gotta give them a kick-start.’

  She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but at that moment she heard her father call her name. 

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. She started to trail backwards, and his green eyes followed her as she went. 

  ‘See ya round,’ he said.

  Daniel was waiting by the door, his sunglasses hanging around his neck. ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ he asked. 

  Jordan shrugged. ‘His name’s Hayden. He knew Hezekiah.’ And you, she thought. 

  A look of recognition flitted across Daniel’s face, but for some reason he didn’t elaborate on it. She wondered what he would say if she told him what Hayden had said. Maybe Hayden had had the wrong person. Either that, or her father was hiding a very big secret. 

Why it's a Darling: I was really happy with the description of Hayden and the air conditioner, and was disappointed that it wasn't fitting in the rewrite of the scene. I did, of course, keep some of the lines of dialogue the same in the rewrite, because in terms of character they worked very well for me. I also liked the way Hayden just sees her and starts talking, leading the conversation the whole way, which is very like him. He still does this, but in a slightly different way, in the current draft.

Why it got Murdered: The big problem was that the context created a huge problem for me when I tried to write the scene after this. The setting was too vague, and I knew I had to make it more specific. That's why I reset the scene at a wake, in a house, by the pool in he backyard. It works much better for me.

Anyway! Currently writing chapter four, which is going well, albeit slow. Better keep going with it. The goal for today is to finish it, which means I have about 1800 words still to write! Gonna get cracking. Ta ta. 

Sometimes, things stop working.

I've been having trouble with the opening scene of my novel for several weeks now. I've known for ages that the problem is my main character's behaviour. Every time I attempted to write the scene she would just stand around and not do or say anything productive to move the story forward.

Tonight, I finally figured out the source of this problem. I've recently made a lot of changes to the character, particularly her backstory. I knew that this would result in some major personality changes, which is what I wanted, but all in all she would still be the same 'person', if you will.

That's what I thought, anyway. Turns out I've been trying to write this scene with two conflicting ideas - one being the idea of what the character must be, and the other being what the character actually is. So I ditched all ideas about how the scene was "supposed" to play out and gave my character back her free reign.

This might sound strange, especially to non-writers - how does the author give the character free reign, you ask? Surely you're always in control of the character - after all, they're fictional! They don't have real brains!

Of course they don't. When I talk about my characters like that, I mean I've let go of the boundaries in my head. I've dropped ideas such as "the scene MUST start like this" or "she HAS to do that before this happens". I went back to old drafts, rereading scenes where my character was present. I searched for her voice again - the voice that I had lost during the changes. I reminded myself how she acted, thought, and reacted, and then I went head-first into the new draft. I wrote without thinking about what had to happen, and simply let my character do what she does. And voila! 900 words!

Letting the characters be themselves and do what they want works wonders for the word-count.

Okay.

Laptop? Check. Notebooks? Check. Markers and highlighters? Check. Flashcards? Check. 

Three-Act Plot Guideline? Check. Juicebox? Check. 

Let's finish this plot planning once and for all. 

So, I got a little sidetracked...

...and thanks to Kristy and Jessie my main characters have dress styles. Hee.

Hayden Connors

Sienna Hawthorn

Jordan Elliott

Josh Elliott

Thompson Lewis

Lily Bryce (the antagonist) VS. Marcus Kitch (her shapeshifter disguise)

ARLKSJDKLASNBIAMEXCITEDFORMYWRITING.

Flipping holidays can't come soon enough! Holiday time means writing time (and friend time, but that's not what this post is about...).

Having one of those moments where the story idea in my brain is positively bursting with AWESOME and I just want to write it. As you've probably heard I'm revisiting my superpowers story, and revamping the characters that have been with me since 2008. It still shocks me that they've been around that long. Finally, I think I've figured out what their story is supposed to be. And who doesn't belong in the story. Many a character has been scrapped. Also many have died. But that's a different novel, to be written one day when I'm famous and my readers are begging for the backstory....

Totally pumped for the epicness that will be this book! I'm using NaNoWriMo to bust out 50k for it, which is kind of cheating since I've already started the story, but seeing as NaNoWriMo is made for personal gain, I guess I can use it for the best benefits possible. Right? Heh. We're all NaNo rebels sometime or other (or every time if you're me...).

I was talking to Keira yesterday about the authory things that I wish I could do but don't yet have the skill. Number One is better foreshadowing. I wish I could master foreshadowing for a huge series like Harry Potter. JK Rowling is a genius. Don't believe me? Go read The Prisoner of Azkaban again.

The second thing is pushing my characters one step further in the way of er ... torture. I don't know how else to put it. Basically, when you write a story your character has to get past many bad obstacles, and each time they escalate, pushing the character to their limits. I can never seem to get my characters to the step that breaks them, or nearly breaks them, depending on your character. A perfect example of this is Amy in The Doctor's Wife. While she and Rory are lost inside the TARDIS (I still don't know if I'm supposed to capitalise all the letters or not!), Rory gets shut behind and door and Amy finds him only seconds later, or so she thinks. Turns out for him it's been hours. That's step one. Step two is when she's tricked into thinking Rory has waited his whole lifetime for her, and to her horror she finds an old Rory still sitting behind the door. Now, if I had written this episode, that's as far as I would have taken it. The genius bit comes in step three, the moment that breaks Amy. The moment that pushes her over the edge, and gives us a real insight to her character, and makes us care. Because we knew that the old Rory was just a fake one put there by the badguy, so now that the scene is over we don't care anymore. The writers need to scare us. To make us feel what Amy feels. So when Amy next turns the corner she sees DIE AMY DIE graffitied all over the walls and the dead skeleton of her husband Rory, and she just breaks down. Now don't lie, your stomach twisted when you watched that didn't it? You felt it that time. Now the writers have got you to care. And when the real Rory comes around the corner, perfectly fine, confirming that what Amy saw was just a hallucination, the relief that you feel is the WIN for the writer. Yeah that's right, they've got you to love their characters. And THAT is what I want to master. Not everyone realises how important step three is in pushing your character to the limits. It's the final hurdle. Right when you think everything is going okay, something ten times worse gets in the way and you groan at the TV or shake your book in frustration because you just want the character to get through and be all right! You care now. I want to make my readers care like that.

Anyways, the post just sort of became a rant and ended up twice as long as I thought it would. So I'm going to go now. Off to continue this stupid plastering. Have a lovely Sunday!

P.S Had a ridiculously long conversation with Keira last night about names. We came to the realisation that Karen Gillan is a really, really terrible name (especially when you add that her middle name is Sheila! What is wrong with her parents?) and that Amelia Pond is a beautiful, wonderful, roll-off-the-tongue name. I love writers and how much thought they put in to names. :)

I'm on a mission!

Well hello there! It's been almost a month since I last blogged, but in that time I have come to a decision.

As most of you know, I really, really want to be a writer. One that gets things published. And I have come to the conclusion that this will not happen unless I (at least attempt to) stick to one project. Ever since I finished my one book back in 2008, I've been working on numerous projects. Fat Beagles Are Unattractive, Veridical, and Eloquence are and have been some of my biggest works, but I haven't completed any of them.

Yet.

When I wrote my fantasy novel it was the only book I worked on. I wrote it from start to finish, and then continued with a good nine or ten chapters of the second book, intending for it to be a four-book series. That is, until I discovered that my writing was actually not as good as I thought it was and I would need to work hard to make it better, and the best way to do that was to start a new project.

That's when Veridical was started. It too was a bit of a failure and though I wrote over 40,000 words with my ensemble of six characters I struggled with the chronology of the story and after a couple of years, ended up with a huge pile of inconsistent plot and three or four Mary-Sues. Some of the scenes I wrote in that time are still in my mental list of Best-Scenes-I've-Ever-Written, so once again I'm happy with what I did but not nearly satisfied.

And so we come to the now. I have an amazing novel in my mind. A murder mystery set in a mild-steampunk world based off 19th century England, with a huge dollop of political drama and class/status epic thrown in. It's the story I've been dreaming I could write since I penned my first six pages of fiction at age seven.

I adore my characters.

I love the mood and the genre.

I'm still excited about the plot two years after I began to develop it.

Yet I'm struggling to get this story on paper.

Why?

I get the feeling it's because I have not disciplined myself enough when it comes to my writing. This is because of two things. One is that I do not have a proper schedule, and so I can go days without writing and then hate myself for it later on. This will be fixed. I plan to come up with a proper schedule in the holidays. The other reason my story is not getting written is because when I do write, I distract myself from my main story with other ideas, like super powers and rewriting Fat Beagles and numerous other things that come into my head. When I get a good idea I get the urge to write about it immediately. I've decided that this is not the way to do things anymore. Now, when I get a good idea I will write it down and store it away in my filing cabinet for later, and knuckle down and solely writing Eloquence until the first draft is complete.

Ha, easier said than done.

Wish me luck. I really, really, want to do this. I hope I can manage it sooner than I think.