That Dratted Book

This one's gonna be painful in the cringiest of all cringeworthy cringes. Strap in people, and wear your helmet, it'll be a flinch-worthy ride.

Bring bubble wrap. It'll help.

(This is your last stop before Embarassville. If your plans do not include a trip to Meredith's Great Shame, now would be a perfect time to disembark. Do Not Make Me Push You Off, 'Cuz I Will.)

Sigh.

This was supposed to go with me to my grave. Literally, in both senses of the word. I actually have a clause in my will that it's to be burned, and the ashes poured in with me to make sure it gets done.

Seriously, WHY?? Whyfor you make me do this?!? We'd all have been much happier if we could all pretend it never happened!

Sigh. FINE.

Star Wars had just come out. It was amazing. It was epic. It was a life changer.

It had ONLY ONE female character!!

Was she badass? Doesn't get any better, people, and I will fight you on that one. (Um. Well, there's room on the podium for you too, Uhura, and thank you Nichelle Nichols for being badass yourself, and getting me interested in science, and I am still thrilled all these years later that I did not embarrass myself when I met you, you are missed.)

But, after seeing Star Wars at the tender age of six, I knew the feminine side of the Force was strong, but strangely missing from the film.

Enter li'l ol' me, with a hankering to write the Next Greatest Epic Screenplay That Was Also a Movie and Franchise-Originating and All That, Plus the Action Figure.

I named this monstrosity... Princess Starlet.

(Spaceballs didn't come out till '87. By then, I'd learned the joys and gleeful evilness of being a campy filker and parody-maker, bless you Saint Weird Al! But alas, not yet. I grew into my sarcasm. Moving on...)

What was it about? Princess of a planet sees the slaughter of her people and parents (not by Death Star!), barely escapes said planet with her royal rogue friends (who were definitely not in charge of disabling the planetary gunning system to prevent just such a thing from happening), and must go collect the weapons thingies conveniently strewn about their solar system's planets (because of course that makes them so much safer than having them in, say, her bedroom), and by right of blood (D-N-A! D-N-A! Testing not invented yet, rah rah RAH!) and something sword in stone or whatever but with the coolest visual effects (Fifth Element not invented yet!), plucky band of renegades returns to save the planet from evil takeover plot dude with sword (heavy She-Ra vibes right here), plus an asteroid chase scene thrown in (because, hey, total ripoff, that was AWESOME without the space worm that can't live in such a thin atmosphere, but what's a few biological oopsies between us and the prop department and the special effects crew?)

Egad.

Honestly, I just wanted more badass women characters in my life. Wonder Woman was stale at the time, and I knew her real origin story, so I couldn't get into her no matter how I tried. And I did, I really did. Had the Underoos to prove it. All the other female super heroes were thought of after the males, cough afterthought blargh. And sometimes after the dogs and sidekicks, double blargh.

I was tired of the seeing-eye rescued women, pointing out the freaking obvious to the manly men characters. Conan, anyone?

It was bad. I relied solely on dialogue, because of course this was going to be the next Star Wars but so much awesomer. In my head, it was already a script, when I didn't even research what scripts really look like. I live close enough to Broadway to be able to get my mitts on some, and I was heavily involved in theater just a year or two later when I was cast in high school plays. I read the Scholastic movie-to-book primers, that was enough, right?

To this day, I avoid lots of dialogue in my stories. (shakes fist at the book)

Oh, I still have it. It's in a box about four feet away from me. Why? Because that's the “scan box,” and I have a vague idea of reading it and laughing and crying and going to the hospital to have them adjust my spine from the spasming I'll do from all the cringing. All. The. Cringing.

It's in a plastic bag. Because I tried to destroy it before, and all I got was moldy pages, so somehow (glares at husband) all the things that looked like journals got bagged and frozen and thawed and frozen repeatedly to stop the process. Including the one I told A Certain Person MANY times to just leave. Nope, it came along for the ride, quietly giggling to itself. Thanks, Hon....

Grumble grouse snarl. But, I did learn.

Like I mentioned, I no longer rely on dialogue to carry the story. I may go too far the other way, but I guess that's just the way it goes. I'm much more likely now to tell a story from first person. I avoid third person omnicient, because most of the time even I don't know where the story is going. I've had my characters take their story into their own hands, and I'm just along for the ride, scribbling frantically while they get to do all the fun bits. Bouncing between first and second person is fun, but mostly telling the story from one person's perspective as they experience their life is best for me.

One thing I especially attempt is to change their pattern of speaking over time as they grow. For instance, you can see a bit of that character development in “Home of the Brave.” She started off with a rather strong southern accent, and it began to fade a bit as the story was told. When the other chapters get written, you'll see her words change and grow with her as she grows. I love that technique, because the reader usually doesn't catch it.

Sometimes I don't have the next story, or the next chapter. Or where I get hung up is the sex scene. Do I like sex? Yep! A bit insatiable, I am. Does that show up in my stories? Not the ones I publish. Adventure, deep introspection, character development? Abounds plentifully. But I've only ever had one partner (Me? Demisexual? What gave it away?), so I only add sex scenes when they are integral to the plot. I talk to a lot of people in a lot of professions, but I've been very hesitant to ask about other people's sex lives. None of my bidness, really. And how do you ask a friend, “Hey, can I curl up in your lap with a pad and pencil to take notes in order to write this sex scene that's been bugging me for over a decade?” (Yes, I have good friends, and I've put it out there a few times. Luckily they were nice when they turned me down, and remain good friends, but no one's taken me up on my offer either.)

Writing Princess Starlet as a tween, sex scenes were entirely off the table. Well, I've gotten a lot better. I'll write the scene, or maybe even elide over it but in a clever way to show this is G rated or PG-13. The really bizarre, grotty, kinky things I've thought of, I've written to get them out of my head, but they're in a file locked on my computer. Unless I'm specifically invited to write erotica for the kink or fetish communities, they can stay riiiiight there.

Another thing that's directly from Princess Starlet – character naming. If you've read my work, you'll notice I don't even name my main character many times. That's quite deliberate. “Princess Starlet” was such an abysmal name, that I made the decision to never be that cavalier with naming my characters again. Even my pets – I'll spend weeks coming up with the perfect name to fit their personalities, then call them “bird” or “dog” or “kitten” for the rest of their lives. In stories, it signals the invitation to wear my main character as their own. I'll also barely mention gender, unless it's important to the plot. I've had people mistake my female characters for male, and vice versa, and that's one of the best compliments. If you're sympathizing that much with my character, then I've done my job well.

This becomes obvious in “The Ninth Shaft,” where the main character (who does have a name and title and is very vain about it, thankyouverymuch), starts remembering that people have names, they're not just things to navigate around in the corridors.

Over time, I've shifted from straight-up derring-do stories and onto stories with a lot of depth of self-reflection. Well, honestly, I'm much older, with a lot more experiences under my belt – plus that all-important perspective. I'm fascinated by myth and fantasy and fairy tale, because if you look at the story, it tells you amazing information about the culture that produced it – or even better, how it moved from culture to culture and evolved over time. As a friend said, when a culture is forced to move, what does it choose to take with it?

I loved Shrek, but I was ticked off all the same, because I'd had the same idea many many years before – but I'd never gotten it written down, so it sucks to be me. When I had a health scare six years ago, I realized many of the stories I'd developed and kept locked in my head really needed to be told. There were some really good ones in there! And there are some that demand to be let free to fly. I took the time to get them written, and now I'm not afraid to work out a story or partial story or chapter without the rest. Before, I wanted it entirely worked out in my head before I sat down to write. Now, it'll come, or it won't, but I can get down what I have. When the rest comes, I have a framework to add to.

There was one good thing about the first book: it got me through “Creative Writing” torture. We had an awful English Lit teacher – the freaking worst. The kind that thinks she's enlightened, so everyone else must be as well, but only on her terms. (The fact that she tried to fail my bestie for missing a day's worth of class because she was in the freaking hospital with an almost-fatal asthma attack wasn't good enough for her, ooooh noooo...) She forced us to “write in a journal” for the first ten minutes of each class. What she really wanted, was to collect dirt on our various class mates, so she could use it as blackmail. Or to seduce some of the boys.

The whole class was on to her, so it became amusing seeing the various ways the teach got thwarted. One of the guys just kept writing “this is stupid” over and over till the time was up. One detailed getting together with a boyfriend that didn't exist, conveniently from another school.

Me? Worked on the book. Dialogue, right from where I left off in the journal.

I was graded a C+. I was a straight A student, and this was crushing.

Because apparently I was doing it wrong? How do you do creative writing wrong? Mister “this is stupid” got an A+!

So I made the dialogue devolve into this stupid bickering argument about which of the twin planets to go to, between Princess Starlet and her betrothed, whose name I cannot honestly remember.

I still got bad grades, but I was able to give her nada on her predatory practices. I think she graded me down because I didn't give her any dirt on my bestie, and she was angry. I know many of us reported her behavior to the principal, and she was severely reprimanded and told to shape up. Luckily her attitude didn't kill my love of writing, but I wonder if it did for others.

Well, in the classic words of Monty Python, “I got better.”

And, well, I learned to use self-critical humor and hyperbole to write about the embarrassing stuff.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stuff the name of that awful book / screenplay / merch maker down the black hole of memory, and take a metaphorical muscle relaxant for the cringe spasms. My eye can stop twitching any time now....