As any good Keeper knows, it's important to have an idea of how to start your game before the mystery thickens and the terror happens. To get there can be hard work, so what is a beleaguered Keeper to do?
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This is gonna be a brief tabletop musing of mine, mostly because I am busy today and don't have much time to talk. However, I think it bears discussion, because it's a crucial consideration for any Keeper, and ultimately, any GM. The question: How the hell do you portray monsters and gods realistically?
Okay, so you knew this was coming.
Lately this Slenderfan has come out of the woods, camera in hand and a pack full of journals with delirious scrawlings on my back, to discover something fairly disturbing. Something I'm sure everyone by now knows is obvious and which honestly makes me feel as though I'm missing a few pages somewhere. When did the Slenderman stop being frightening? It's a strange feeling, seeing this change that's gradually happened since 2012, when I first put on this fandom's mask and allowed all its dark mystery to take me hostage. He scared me then. He scared everyone then. He had a strangeness to him, an otherworldliness that couldn't really be matched by anything except something out of a Lovecraft novel. It wasn't so much his appearance - he is, after all, just a faceless, tall man in a black suit - but more or less what exactly he did to you. Following, haunting, terrorizing, slowly driving out all sanity within you, until finally your clock ran out and he came for you, taking you away someplace unknown, to do something unimaginable, for a reason that was unfathomable. And of course, as the horror cliche goes, "they were never heard from again". This was, and still is, the impression I have of the Slim Gentleman, and to be frankly honest, it still spooks me and drives a good part of my interest in psychological and Lovecraftian horror. So then imagine my surprise when, devoted Slenderacolyte that I was, I crept from the shadows of the forest, saw what had become of such a fascinating being, and lifted my mask to yell, "What in the fuck happened here?!" Or, tl;dr - Slenderman has ceased to be scary for the majority of the public. Why? Is it because of that game that came out a few years ago, and was so recently updated to include a story befitting an episode of Marble Hornets (as well as two new levels which are quite frankly as awesome as they are horrific)? Was it the memetic status this emaciated boogeyman so quickly gained afterwards? Was it the fact that nothing new had been done with the Mythos, and that his growing fanbase continued to demand more and more material that never came to be, or worse, was not up to their high expectations? Or was it simply that everyone simultaneously became bored, and moved on to greener woods, resulting in things like the awesome TheWestRecords, the currently ailing WhisperedFaith (which really isn't as good as it once was), and the Fear Mythos community? Well... maybe none of those. No, I blame a different source for the Operator's downfall, a much more insidious poison that has destroyed the once fertile, dark, and intriguing forest of epileptic trees that is the Slenderman Mythos. I blame shitty writing. Now before any of you get up in arms, yes I have heard of the recent Tumblr Slenderverse Fiasco involving a group of certain creators (which I won't name here) having a "bad series night" in a private tinychat, where they streamed series they felt were awful. I'm aware of the damage their careless bantering about it has caused, and while I do believe they've been pretty damn callous (and some have even bullied others) and irresponsible about sharing the details of the event towards certain people in particular and should apologize for that, I also believe they absolutely have a right to roast series they don't like. Good taste is subjective, creators are people, and people can mock anything they feel like - it's absolutely their right because they live in a country where free speech is a thing. And unfortunately, that mocking can get downright nasty, and should not be shared with the public (which it was, and shame on said creators for that). My opinion on the event itself is ambivalent, but I personally feel, as a creator myself, that if you put out a piece of creative material, you do not get to have a say in what people say about that work. If people mock it, then they mock it, and you need to accept that as it comes. If people think it's killing their fandom, then they do, and you need to learn to roll with that. And if your heroes and idols mock it, well, maybe it should serve as a reminder that they too are people, and people are inherently flawed. Just because someone's a celebrity does not mean they're necessarily a nice person, or even that they like you all that much. Was some of what they did a shitty thing to do? Yes, absolutely, and I 100% sympathize with the people that actually were emotionally and mentally hurt by those callous actions, but come on, people - that does not excuse your behavior here. You getting your feelings hurt and feeling like you've been betrayed by someone you never even really knew that well is pretty damn sad, and if that did describe you, then you really need to grow up, move past that shit, and get your priorities straight, because trust me - the world is not nice, your idols don't owe you a damn thing, and it's quite frankly childish and selfish to think that they do. That said, this whole thing does bring up another very serious problem, aside from some creators getting high off their successes and many fans childishly assuming these creators admire them as much as they admire the creators, then feeling betrayed and hurt when said creators do not live up to their expectations or beliefs. That issue is, as I've pointed out before, that there is too much bad writing in the Slenderverse right now, too much excess clogging the system, and that's why the 'verse is in a downswing right now. There is just too much glut in the system, too much detritus of the same concept reapplied and rehashed over and over. There is no denying that plenty of people still want, and still want to produce, Slenderman media, but half of them are simply not doing it right, copying the same stuff everyone else does. You can argue that the games did it or creator cruelty did it or Marble Hornets ending did it or insert bullshit excuse here, but the fact remains: we need to end this plague if we want our old Slendy back. We need to focus on what really makes him frightening and fascinating, and that means applying some logic here. "But Sugary!" you cry, tugging feebly at the fringes of my tawny, Timasky-inspired jacket I always wear on chilly fall afternoons like this one, "I want to write a slenderblog/creepypasta, or film a slendervlog/short film! I want to see more Slenderman! I want to write him and I promise I'll do it really good and really cool and everyone will love it!" First of all, why are you grovelling on my jacket, because that's pretty weird and I'm not Herr GroBmann's maker. Second, you think you can do it, write him. You don't need to ask permission to do that, he's pretty much open-source anyway (even if that open-sourceness is disputed) since he's sunken into the pop culture miasma. But if you're going to write him, take a few tips from this Slenderauthor, and try to remember them:
You all knew that as big a fan of Lovecraftian Horror as I am, that this was coming.
First up, a quick warning. This blog entry discusses a very... notorious and controversial and heavy topic in Sci-fi and horror literature, as you can probably see from the title. There will be some unfortunate language used in quotes as a result in this entry. Be aware that the opinions expressed in this piece are not intended to belittle or in any way cause offense to anyone, of any race, color, or creed. I am aware my own privilege may play into what I am about to say here today, and I am aware of how serious this issue is. But as a female horror author with mental illness, I would be stupid not to comment on this very, very serious issue that, to my knowledge, I wasn't aware that people didn't know about and were still very troubled by. So, here goes nothing. This is your final chance to leave if you think this entry might be problematic for you, or if you just don't want to get involved. So guys, H. P. Lovecraft was a Jazz Era (20's-30's) Horror and Sci-fi author who wrote a great number of stories and poems. In many of his stories, the pervasive themes of human insignificance in the universe and the fear of the unknown and other are prominant. They speak to a paranoid place in our minds, the part that wonders if something... evil and other isn't watching us as we speak, something dangerous and disastrous and beyond our mortal ken. What do we really know about the universe, even with all our scientific advances? What can we really hope to achieve when humankind itself is so primitive, backwards, and pointless compared to the rest of what's lurking out there? How much knowledge do we really have on the earth's history, or hell, even our own family history? No, better to remain blissfully ignorant, for ignorance is bliss. Anyhow, Lovecraft's legacy left a huge impact on science fiction and horror as a whole, and introduced the Cthulhu Mythos (which Lovecraft himself actually referred to as "Yog-Sothothory" due to Yog-Sothoth being a more important figure in his work than Cthulhu himself) to the world. Vast, abyssal cosmos of monstrous creatures, blind idiot gods at the center of time and space dancing to the beat of blasphemous drums and flutes, Pharaohs that embodied a crawling chaos and black goats of the woods that spawned thousands of monsters... This and more Lovecraft brought to the imagination of hundreds, and eventually, millions. There are RPGs, video games, movies, and all sorts of other cool as fuck things based on his works. He's part of the reason giant monsters are so damn awesome. And not only that, but his (admittedly purple prosy) literary works have inspired today's horror authors, names like Neil Gaiman and Brian Lumley, and, of course, yours truly. Lovecraft was also a racist dumbfuck. Like, really a racist dumbfuck. Like, more so than most people in the 20's, a racist dumbfuck. He basically believed Hitler was "too optimistic" in his genocidal plans, he felt that people of color, immigrants, and non-city-dwellers were moronic and subhuman, and he was anti-Semitic as fuck. The man literally wrote a poem called "On the Origin of Niggers" and his cat was named "Niggerman". I swear to Azathoth I am not making this up, because I couldn't if I tried. There is simply no two ways of getting around it - Lovecraft had some very, very nasty, venomous views, and these nasty and venomous views are intricately woven into his work. If you're a Lovecraftian like I am, and that paragraph up there made you twinge, or made you angry, or made you burn inside... Good. Absolutely, positively good. Because it should make you angry, it should upset you, and it should horrify you to know that the very author you idolize was a bigot. That means that you, on the inside, know those same bigoted beliefs are 100% wrong, and it means you are a much better person for it. It's also completely okay to feel that way. It's okay. Really. I promise. It's also okay, then, to do what Nnedi Okorafor, a sci-fi and fantasy author of color, did and express concern about a notoriously and overtly racist person like Lovecraft being used on an award for fantasy works. She was apparently not aware, until a close friend of hers showed her a particularly... virulent poem written by Lovecraft, that Howard was very much not fond of non-whites. This, understandably, gave her a lot of reservations about her recent awarding of the "Howard" (as it's come to be known) for her novel. And to be honest? I 110% do not blame her for that - hell, I'd be a bit offended too, even if my own privilege shields me from the kind of vicious racism people of color face. Is it any wonder she and others feel it's time to change the World Fantasy Award design from something other than a guy who believed that people of color were "Filled with vice"? But then again, here's the question - should this award's design be changed at all? Obviously, yes, the design itself is ugly as fuck - I mean, have you seen what this award looks like? It looks like Lovecraft and a Deep One mated and had an unholy abortion. Yes, it's that ugly-looking, as Goomi pointed out in his hilarious Cthulhu Mythos webcomic Unspeakable Vault of Doom. But of course, that's not what I'm talking about - I mean, should we keep the award's design or not, however ugly its implications may be, based on what it says about the past? Let me explain this another way - yes, Lovecraft was racist, extremely so, and anti-Semitic. He also was damn imaginative and damn creative, as even one look at any of his works shows. The fact that his bigotry played a huge part in his work, especially his early work (by the 30's, even he realized how ass-backwards a lot of his views were, mostly because he had since gone out into the world and realized they were wrong), is undeniable - come on, the man made one of his primary big bads, Nyarlathotep (my favorite of his creations), have avatars in the form of dark-skinned men, and basically dehumanized the cultures of Africa as backwards worshippers of things that should not be. That's pretty damn blatant. But does it change the fact that this same work is considered to be part of classic horror literature, or that this same work inspires many, many people to write? Does it change the fact that, in many people's opinion, the man's work was some of the best horror authorship and creativity of all time? In the end, I am ambivalent to the changing of the award, although I do hope they make it something less hideous-looking if they go for changing it. I am, however, with Miss Okorafor on one thing - how to deal with the beliefs of who the award was modeled after, and how to deal with the fact that our idols often are flawed and fallen in ways we can't help but be disgusted by. On that, I'll just close this by quoting her own words, because I feel she says it better than I can: "This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honor and need to learn from hate or hated us. Do I want “The Howard” (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft’s full name is “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it’s about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want it to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds of speculative fiction felt, then let’s deal with that... as opposed to never mention it or explain it away. If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist." I couldn't agree more, Nnedi. I couldn't agree more. So you're writing a Fear Mythos or Slenderman vlog/blog. Good for you! By doing so, you're joining a collective pantheon of amateur writers, directors, and horror fans that extends all the way back to the first entry of Marble Hornets, the first Slenderman series and the series that indirectly paved the way for all Slendervlogs and Fearvlogs to come! Since 2008, people have been writing Slenderman tales, and eventually Fear Mythos tales (which spun off from Slendy's influence before becoming its own thing), so welcome to the club!
Now, you have your monster, and your plot, set for you already - otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. But the problem is, you just can't think of a catchy title for your series! How are you ever going to become the next RAPTURE Logs or EverymanHYBRID without a decent name? Everyone knows that the first thing a Slenderfan or Fearfan sees and judges you on is the title of your story and how creative it is! And so, you've come to me today, begging on your hands and knees for hints on how to make a good vlog or blog title. Well, little Museling, you're in luck, because I have a handful of hints on how to make your story stand out from the rest. You see, I'm not only a Fearblogger and Slenderauthor, but I've also created my own series - you might know it as a little series called WalkingWithGiants87, or you might not. So as you can see, I am more than well-equipped to take on any questions you might have about how to make your story's title stand out. Just try any of these simple methods below to get started, and you'll be coming up with names for things in no time!
Note: This article contains some sexual content and some description of the human sexual anatomy that could be considered crude or inappropriate for some audiences. If you are of a young age or are a complete prude, I would recommend that you find another article to read. You have been warned!
As most everyone here should hopefully know by now, I was a fanfic author. I have been proudly writing fanfiction for about nine years now, soon to be ten, and I have always defended this medium from people who would claim that all of it is pure crap (that's nowhere near the truth - only about 95% of it is crap, and the remaining 5% is worth dying for). I got into the Batman fandom back in 2008, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long. I've met some great people through this fandom and enjoyed some good stories (and loathed some not-so-good ones) because of it. That said, I am also a Joker fangirl and am very aware of this fact. I have my moments, none of which will be discussed here, other than the fact that if I could feasibly do it and get out alive and unscathed, I would totally go have tea and a discussion with the Joker, just because he's so damn fascinating. I definitely am no angel when writing Batman fanfic, just go ask anyone who's read a few of my darker Joker-centric stories. I don't claim my work is any better than any other Joker fan's is, but I like to think that it's definitely in the top twenty. I also have nothing against young fanfic authors - everyone has to start somewhere, and I have my own set of "dirty undies" stories that I'm not proud of. Seeing newer authors continue to write fanfic and helping them get better through critique is my reward for being good at writing fanfic and for being around the fanfiction community for years. Sure, I don't get to write as much anymore, but there's always someone better at writing willing to have fun writing for my favorite Caped Crusader and his colorful rogues gallery, and at the end of the day that's the best part of writing and reading fanfiction for me. Now, we all know my feelings on young authors writing romance fics, because romance can quickly turn into porn in the wrong hands. I have long claimed that young authors should not write romance fics until they themselves have had some experience with love, dating, and relationships firsthand, because it's painfully obvious when they do not. I can't tell you how painfully boring and unsexy an IKEA Erotica fic is - nothing titillating, no passion, no emotion, it's just bland as all get-out and really just leaves the reader disappointed. You see, fellas in the audience, a female reader likes to insert herself into the role of the female protagonist in a romance story. We gals tend to get off on imagining the act and fantasizing about it, where as you guys can get excited over just looking at a sexy someone of your chosen sexual preference. So when an author writes a passionless romance fic, it's about as fun for us as it is for you to start making out with someone, with the potential for bedroom funtimes later, and then said someone saying, "You know that was fun, but I think I'm gonna go over there for a while", then never coming back. If that didn't grab you, then does the phrase "blue balls" ring a bell? Yeah, it's disappointing in THAT way as well as disappointing because the story has no meat to it. Another common problem I see in romance fics is that young authors often confuse "romance" with "sex", failing to realize that romance is not just sex, and vise versa, probably from the same inexperience. Sex can be very unromantic and very unsexy, and sexual fantasies can easily become horrific if you take them literally. For example, think about what a bondage fantasy is at its core, and then take away all of the sex, mutual agreement, and love from it. It's just gone from kinky, consensual fun to a disturbing kidnapping scenario (possibly with rape undertones), and that's not just unsexy, it's terrifying. There is a thousand and one ways that titillation can become terror, and that's not really something that a person learns until they mature into sexual beings themselves and begin to understand that, for example, a rape fantasy is not the same thing as actual rape, and that one cannot and does not segue into the other in the same way in reality that it would in a porno. The unintentional effect is that iffy or incorrect information about sex, relationships, and sexual fantasies get passed down from young author to young author (these fics are VERY popular for obvious reasons), and because nobody is willing to discuss this (let alone the often teenaged authors themselves), that incorrect information becomes so overdone as to become a trope. On the other side of the spectrum, you have authors that put way too much detail into things. Let's face it, people - the external reproductive organs are not pretty. The only possible exception here is the female breasts, which are fun for both sexes (come on, ladies, you know it's fun to drive your other half crazy by wearing cleavage-exposing t-shirts) and safe for all ages in very different ways, but breasts aren't exclusively sexual anyway so they don't really count. But even if you're of the right orientation to be turned on by breasts, that probably doesn't mean that you want every single detail of the hairs around the areola and the veins of said bosom pointed out to you. You also probably don't want to be reminded that your manhood looks like a veiny alien maggot or that your ladyhood looks like a sarlaac pit minus the teeth and with a lot more fur because, while that is pretty true, it's also really, really gross. Well, people who read pornographic stories feel the same way, and for very good reason - just because it feels good when you smoosh them together does not mean that said organs are sexy in and of themselves, and it definitely does not mean that they need to be described in severe detail. In fact, if you put too much detail into a sex story, then you end up wrapping it right around from sexy to very, very unsexy, very fast. Just like actual sex, writing a good porn story requires skill, experience, and a sensitive handling of the subject, and that's yet another thing that young authors just don't always understand. These several reasons are also why it pains me in particular when I see younger Bat-fans, new to the fandom and perhaps of the age where libido takes over, write romance fics with the rogues gallery. Oftentimes, these fics, like other romance fics, are poorly written, describe things in FAR too much or FAR too little detail, or otherwise fail to engage the reader, all of which are hallmarks of an author that is either inexperienced or just is not cut out for writing in general. It's not that these fics are any worse than romance fics in other fandoms, it's that when you write a sex story about a Batman rogue, you have to also take into account who that rogue is, what they look like, etc. Now, this isn't so bad when you're doing something like Catwoman/Batman (which I happen to ship) - it's not hard to sex up Catsy, because she basically IS walking sex appeal. It's also not hard to play up the authority, power, and closedness of Batman, because he definitely has all three. Look, I just made up a Catwoman/Batman romance fanfic - Batman has just spent three weeks trying to escape some rogue that captured and proceeded to torture him, which has made him closed off to even Catwoman, whom he still won't admit he has feelings for, so Selena has to make Brucie feel all better. It's not a terribly good Batman/Catwoman story, it's cliched, and it's probably not all that true to the characters, but it's a story that could work as a feasible romance fic as well as a Hurt/Comfort fic. That storyline, however, could easily be destroyed if the author chose to focus on the sex instead of the characters' relationship, and put too much detail into describing the erotic portions rather than building on the characters themselves. And that is what I see in most bad Batman romance fanfics - not enough focus on the relationship between characters. I understand if you're writing a PWP (Porn Without Plot) or Lemon fanfic with Bruce and Selena, and I'll give it a pass if you put that in your description because I wanna know what I'm getting into. But if you don't put anything, I'm going to assume that the fic is about the relationship between Batman and Catwoman and exploring that relationship in more detail, since that is what the tag "Romance" means when you choose it to describe your fanfic. Romance is NOT just about the sex, and if you're making it about just the sex, then you're writing it wrong, especially when you have two characters that have a long, long history with each other and have that sexual tension between them already, literally begging NOT for a story about sex, but for a story that explores the emotions those two characters feel for each other, the dedication to their alter egos, the idea that Bruce could very well truly want to get to know Selena and may even actually love her, but can't risk losing his identity to her or giving up on his mission to keep Gotham a bit safer. There's SO much emotion with Bat/Cat alone that anything less than exploring that emotion is a copout, at least to me. And I doubt I'm the only Bat/Cat shipper or Batman fan that feels this way. Even the DCU, both pre- and post-reboot, has explored this several times in one way or another; at one point they even gave another earth's Selena and Bruce a daughter named Helena who eventually becomes a vigilante named Huntress. If that's not enough for you, does the line "And most of the costumes stayed on" ring any bells? I could fill a whole post with just examples of why the relationship between Batman and Catwoman should be treated with respect both in-canon and out-of-canon, but that's not what this post is about, so I'll leave it at that. The same issue applies to relationships like Joker/Harley, which is abusive and needs to be written at least partially as such, but I've discussed that relationship already as well and therefore won't rant about it here. Besides there being actual in-canon relationships that need to be treated seriously when written, there is also an issue with how some authors write the other rogues in romance fics. I have no problem with writing rogues, even rogues that have no empathy and therefore wouldn't engage in a relationship, in fanfic. Hell, I don't even care if it's a Crack!pairing like Riddler/Ivy or (God forbid) Croc/Scarecrow (Seriously, I saw a Croc/Scarecrow slashfic once. I didn't read it, but I have to imagine that it was... um... well, it was interesting to say the least). I like many Bat-fans have my own set of pairings for Batman fic (Bat/Cat = OTP, one-sided Joker/Bat = OTSlash!P, and Joker/Cat = OTCrack!P. OTP means "One True Pairing"), and I will be extremely disappointed if those relationships are not written correctly or are written a little TOO well. To add onto all that, some of the rogues are extremely hideous, extremely dangerous, or both. Let's take the Joker for example - the guy is NOT handsome by any stretch of the imagination, then again that also depends on how he's drawn or how the reader imagnies him to look, sound, and act. My ideal Joker, for example, looks a lot like how Brian Bolland drew him in Batman: The Killing Joke, sounds somewhere between Mark Hamill's BtAS Joker and his Batman: Arkham Asylum Joker, has both a witty slapstick/pun sense of humor as well as a disturbed black comedy style of humor, and acts an awful lot like a mix of Ledger and Nicholson Joker in how he plans things and carries them out. He's calculating, cruel, dangerous, disturbed, and just goddamn hilarious for people like me who LOVE gallows humor. I also often write him as being somewhat sardonic, almost as if he believes he's the Only Sane Man in a world full of lunatics that just doesn't get the joke, but that's just my thing. And he is an ugly motherfucker, externally and internally. You could not look at the guy, even if you didn't know who he was, and tell me he is good-looking - there's just nothing sexy about Looking Like Cesare and a clown all at once. Yet, despite all this, the Joker has his fangirls and shippers, and I blame that on his charmingness and his silver tongue. The Joker could probably literally talk your pants off just as easily as he could convince you to kill yourself over a phonecall to order some pizza. Just like a real life serial killer in hiding, that charisma and almost-likeability draws people in - he's just that good at twisting words and manipulating people. I do understand the appeal in watching him try and fail/succeed at getting people to do what he wants, particularly in a relationship sense, but the problem with the Joker in these fics happens when people forget that he is a psychopathic killer that does not feel emotions for anyone other than himself. He does NOT share equally in a relationship, he does NOT care what you want or need, and he does NOT treat others with respect. One needs only to look at how he treats Harley in the comics to get an idea of what the Joker's idea of a relationship is, and that idea NEEDS to be at the forefront when authors write sex or romance fics with the Joker in them. You can theorize all you want about his sexual prowess, you can write fluff fics where he is out of character, you can soften him a bit and have there be this one psychopath of a woman (or man depending how you like your Joker) that just gets to him and makes him obsessively chase said person because he just doesn't understand what the words "loving relationship" mean, but you can't have him be some lovey-dovey soft-serve ice cream cone, because that is not what the character is. That is what Harley is, at least in part and at least around her Mista J, but that's a discussion I've already covered. And you definitely would not want to go into more detail about his anatomy, because nobody wants to see that for the same reason that nobody wants to see your (wo)manhood out in the open. It's not necessary and a lot of people would find it downright gross. Would the Joker flash someone for teh LULZ? Maybe, because the Joker will do anything as long as it's funny enough. But that doesn't mean I or any other readers necessarily wanna see it. One of the biggest problems I see happens to be with people who slash-ship Joker/Bat. I myself ship a very one-sided version of this since it's canon. The Joker definitely does hit on Batman; whether he truly means it, is just doing it to psych Batman out, or does it because he is obsessed with the man is completely up to you to decide. But I as a reader often avoid Joker/Bat slashfics because they go into WAY too much detail, again because many authors confuse romance with sex. I have nothing against slashfic in any way and I have nothing against people who slash-ship (that'd be awful hypocritical of me since I'm a huge fan of the Foe Yay between Bats and J, wouldn't it?). I also have no problem with sex fics where the Joker is dominant as long as he's in character and the story makes sense. What I don't want is to walk into a fic expecting Foe Yay style flirting from Joker towards Bats, or expecting the Joker to end up trying to actually get to Batman sexually, and then end up with graphically detailed sex. That to me is not sexy, that is too much information and not even canon to begin with. For one, as I've said before, rape is not the Joker's style; for another, Batman would NEVER let his archnemesis get that far. For yet another, even if you believe it's sincere, the Joker's flirting is designed to be creepy, not sexy from Batman's point of view even if he were gay - think of your girlfriend or boyfriend calling you "darling", and then think of a big, burly guy standing with you in the prison shower calling you "darling". Its's not quite the same, is it? And while my desire not to see actual sex occurring between Batman and the Joker is more a personal preference, I think we can all agree that nobody really finds it terribly sexy to read about the intimate details of either party's little troopers beyond how large they are. Sometimes this detail gets so out of hand that you begin to wonder if you're being trolled, and sometimes it's really better to assume that you are indeed the victim of a prank. There was this one humor fic I read once where Batman discovers that someone is writing terribly graphic sex fanfics about the Joker basically banging everybody in Gotham City with an alter ego and sending them to various rogues and Batman himself (It turns out to be a prank that the Joker himself is pulling on everyone). That fic has a scene in it where Oracle and Robin are trying to get to the bottom of where the fics are coming from, and both are disturbed to find a Joker/Bat fic involving the words "turgid ivory manhood" to describe the former's member. Both Oracle and Robin then react with extreme disgust because TMI. And that scene always plays out in my head every time I come across (I swear that no pun was intended there) a fic where sex and the organs involved is described very graphically, whether it be in the Batman fandom or any other fandom. It's like automatic brain bleach and it helps me every single time, because I just laugh so damn hard when I imagine that discussion. I highly recommend that if you're like me and just don't want to read the graphic details of a fic, you look up this fic and read it, because it will seriously save your brain from thinking too much about the squick. Bottom line is, if you're going to write a romance fic, you need to be careful HOW you write it. Relationships and sex in fanfic is a delicate subject that needs to be handled well, and needs to be handled with care. If written wrong you've turned off your whole audience, and if written too raunchily, you're only going to attract people who want to read porn. Romance fics take skill and practice - and that is why they are not the best fics for the new fanfic author to write. If you're a young author bent on writing romance, I suggest you look at the way professional authors write romance and take cues from them. Blindly writing without understanding how a certain type of fic works is akin to writing a Creepypasta and then ending it with "And then a skeleton popped out LOL The End". It's not scary, and it can in no way be construed as a good Creepypasta. In the same way, you must understand the nature of your genre, or else you are doomed to fail. As a horror and suspense author, I often am asked by younger authors how to use certain descriptive words pertaining to the emotion of fear. Like most people asked a word definition, I usually tell them to consult a dictionary, but recently I've been thinking about the true differences between common words used to describe different levels of the powerful emotion that is fear. Anxiety, panic, terror, horror, dread, scared, alarm, trepidation, even the word "fear" itself - all these words describe levels and layers to fear, and all these words are used in different ways.
But what makes horror different from dread, and vise versa? To answer this slightly thorny question, I decided I would write a blog entry to discuss the differences between the many words for fear. So, I'm going to go in order of building fear intensity to describe each word. We will start off with the mildest, concern, and end with full-blown panic.
Guys, I am an occasional peruser of Creepypasta, short horror, and Slenderman stories. I love horror stories, I love reading them, writing them, and seeing other people's reactions to them. As I've said before on this blog, I prefer psychologically horrific stories to stories that rely on gore and violence, or on too many monsters. The former is why I watch slasher films to root for the bad guy, and the latter is part of why, while I do admire the Fear Mythos and even find some of the beasties therein really damn cool (The Intrusion squicks me in so, so many ways and Wooden Girl is an awesome concept for a fear of being controlled, and of course Slendy and the Rake are in there too), I don't feel as much of a connection with it as I do with the Slenderverse. You can mail me your hatred now or later, preferably in the form of a Creeper, since nothing really says "I hate your guts" like a walking bundle of TNT.
But I digress. As a horror author, I very often see young horror authors make... mistakes, and those mistakes lead to poorly written, unscary stories. I can't tell you how many times I've had my suspension of disbelief broken in a Slenderman story by something silly like describing his facial features as "faceless face" or something like that. I once read a relatively decent Slenderstory where they had him sitting at someone's kitchen table. Not standing. Sitting. With his legs kind of awkwardly stiff in front of him and his hands dragging on the floor. I literally laughed for three minutes as I imagined dear old Mr. Thin looking up at his latest target and saying, in that derptastic voice a certain LittleKuriboh gives him, "HIIIII GUUUUYYYS, ARE WE HAVING PANCAKES FOR BREAKFAST?" And if you wouldn't laugh at the idea of Slenderman asking you about breakfast foods, then you, dear reader, have no understanding of what "Narm" means. Point is, the wrong choices in writing horror can ruin your scary moment fast, perhaps faster than in any other genre. Just like writing a sex scene incorrectly can kill the fantasy fuel instantly for your reader, so too can incorrectly written suspense and horror kill any sort of tension and fear your reader has built up. For example, done correctly, the Slenderman scares the living fuck out of me, because I have actually experienced the kind of worry and paranoia he inspires in his victims and the idea of something subtly, patiently screwing with my head freaks me out so damn much. But if not written correctly, I'm more liable to snark at him and want to give the guy a hug, even if he's ripping your protagonist to bloody little shreds. Done correctly, the idea of a tiny spider slowly inching towards me on a thread would terrify me, but normally I am not scared of spiders, at all (gasp! A girl not scared of spiders? What is this blasphemy?!). Good horror builds and builds, offering no hope of release from tension until the author wants to let you go. As a horror reader, you are ideally at the mercy of the horror author - you're their captive audience, their willing victim, and they as a result get to screw with your head for the duration of the story... that is, if the story is good and they do a decent job of putting you in the right frame of mind. This brings me to the point of this blog entry. While pasta-binging, I stumbled across the Creepypasta Wiki's how-to guide on writing Creepypastas, and thought it was a good read. Good enough that I feel it should carry over for all horror writing, and even for writing in general. If you'd like to read the whole thing in their words, that's right here. But as for this site, here's my paraphrasing of their guide and some added explanation. These are rules you really should follow and consider with any writing, but since it focuses on horror writing, that's what I'll stick to. We'll start off like the guide does by pointing out the three basic types of fear you can instill in a reader:
So, now that we know what kinds of fear there are, and what things can be considered scary, how do you get these feelings to show through the storytelling? That's where tension-building comes in. Now, you probably have a lot of questions about how to do this, such as:
And now, the really big question... how the hell do I start/end this thing, anyway? Let's break that into starting a story, and ending a story.
That's all! Now go forth, write horror, scare the reader... and try not to look out the window... >:3 I am sick of Tech Writing class.
Granted, a lot of my irritation is near-graduation fatigue (yes, I'll finally be graduating with my A.A.A.S. soon! ^0^), but really. REALLY. FUCKING REALLY, you just don't even know. You really don't even know about this particular Tech Writing class. Now, to be clear with you guys, I have zero issue with Technical Writing itself. Tech Writing is an important tool for anyone going into any field. You just need to know how to write professional-sounding, decent letters, resumes, emails, reports, documents, and all sorts of other sundry things that need to go into a business or scholarly setting. For me, going into one of the sciences, I need to know how to write up a good scientific report on findings from experiments, tests, and quality control things. I'm gonna be going into a field where accuracy and detail is everything, because me being anal about some pill being tested could mean the difference between retail and recall, or between a proper dose and going over the LD-50. For others, it could mean the difference between a profit and a loss, whether a product sells or doesn't, or how well the end user understands the instructions they've been given. All that EULA bullshit you've probably skipped over? Yup, someone was paid to write that. Tech Writing is basically everything creative writing isn't, and that's a hell of a lot of important stuff. In the world, you need your creative stuff, and then you need the real stuff, the stuff that actually makes the real world tick. Both things are very, very important in world literature, and far be it from me to decry the importance of writing a resume just because at the moment my mind is more focused on writing a scary story or a poem about willow trees. That all said, Tech Writing classes? They're bullshit. You heard me. Tech Writing classes, as required college classes necessary to get a degree, are bullshit. They don't need to exist. They don't need to be a thing. The skills one learns in a Tech Writing class are skills you should have learned in another English class or throughout your college education. Do you know how I learned to write a Resume? Through my Intro to Chem Tech class, from a professor I enjoyed having. Do you know how I learned to write a decent scientific report? From my AP Bio teacher, and my tough-as-nails Orgo Chem professor. Do you know how I learned how to write a report properly to begin with? Four years of AP English in high school. I know how to do half this shit already, I don't need to learn it again. I respect the fact that some people haven't learned this stuff, and that's fine - but when a good chunk of people in a class have their laptops out and aren't even taking notes because they know the material already, shouldn't there be a way to test out of the damn class and not have to take it, because yes, you do in fact know it already? I shouldn't have to pay for a class I don't really need just to prove to others I don't need it. I shouldn't have to waste my time, gas, and money on stuff that could be implemented into other classes as part of the curriculum without any trouble whatsoever. And I'm sorry about this, but I am about to brag, a lot (Is it technically bragging if it's all true stuff?). I swear on my life I'm not trying to be an Insufferable Genius, but it's important you know exactly where some of my irritation is coming from here. Chances are, if you're also good at English, then you probably share a lot of my same frustration with English classes as well. I actually took two AP English tests in High School my senior year - English Language and Comp (grammar and word use and stuff), and English Lit and Comp (which is more like story analysis) - and I passed both of them with 5's, which is the highest you can get on an AP test (at least in my home state. I was one of just two people to take both tests, and one of maybe five or six people who got 5's on the Lit and Comp exam. Not only that, but I have always been good at English - I regularly get A's and B's on anything I write and put together even if I'm barely trying - I once wrote some shitty little timed writing thing over lunch because I forgot to do it the night before, and I got high marks on it from my flamboyant and picky AP English teacher, even after I admitted that I half-assed it. Even when I think I do a shitty job on a story, most people seem to think the exact opposite, which honestly confuses me some of the time. I taught myself to read when I was four, and was reading at a college level by the second grade. I am fed ducking serious on that last part, I was reading Harry Potter in the second grade with extreme ease and had to bring my own reading material to class, because the material in school was way too simple for me. And yes, really, I taught myself how to read when I was in preschool - my mom once walked in on me doing what she thought was me pretending to read a picture book aloud, and was shocked to realize I actually was reading the words out loud. I even remember her pointing to words in the picture book and asking what the word was, and then me saying what the word was. I dunno what clicked in my mind to make that shit happen (maybe I was relating the pictures to what the words said and forming connections that way?), but to this day I am still excellent at seeing new words, relating them to images in my mind, and using that as a way to add to my vocabulary. To the point that I rarely find a word I don't know the meaning of or can't extrapolate the meaning from on my own, and most of the words I'm unfamilar with or just learned are rare and exotic words like defenestrate (to throw something out of a window), floccinaucinihilipilification (the categorization of something trivial or unimportant), and psithurism (the sound of leaves rustling in the wind). Those are just some of my favorite weird words by the way; guess which one is the name of an actual story in a certain fandom of mine and you get bonus points. ^_~ But anyway, back to what you really care about, the angry rant about Tech Writing classes. Let me tell you a few things about my Tech Writing professor, and a little about what spurred this blog entry. My Tech Writing professor is literally a dowdy old English professor (as many of them are) who has never married, has been in the boring, boring world of business her whole life, and actually once seriously, I shit you not, corrected someone at a movie theater box office for misusing an apostrophe on a movie poster, something the theater had no control over anyway (seriously lady, it's not like they print the posters). She likes to ramble on and on about her business stories, which various members of the class have complained about and which really don't add to the learning at all; in fact, I think she does it under the misguided assumption that she's helping us make connections, when really all she's doing is making us wish that the class was over with for the day already. People have complained to her about the relevancy of her silly little business stories before and she just refuses to listen, because she's set in her ways. Her voice is this awful drone that's so easy to tune out. I swear she doesn't have a life outside of the college. She has the most arbitrary lateness rules I have ever seen and she grades based on her opinion of a piece, not based on whether the writing actually fucking holds up, which newsflash, you mooing moron, is what you're SUPPOSED to fucking grade on in an English class. She once blatantly looked me in the face, gave me a 0 on a document because it was late, and it was only one day late and I had asked nicely for an extension prior to that which she said she would give to me. She teaches out of the book and reads along with it like she thinks we can't do it for ourselves - hey wait a minute, isn't book-reading something the student is supposed to do, you know, on their own, at home on their own time? Not in class with the teacher lecturing right out of the book and teaching us nothing as a result? Just... she is not a good professor, and every little thing she does irks the shit out of me. Everything. I've blatantly skipped class twice (we have a 2-skip limit before attendance starts to get affected) just because I can't deal with her bullshit sometimes, and normally I am ace-straight on my attendance and never miss a class unless I get really, really sick. Her class is a chore to me, and it's pretty blatantly a chore to everyone else too, because half the class is on their laptops during the course of the lecture, doing everything but taking notes on her incessant rambling. So what triggered me to write this shit out and get it off my chest? Well I have a speech I have to make in that class soon (which seriously, holy fruitless endeavors, Batman) about a website I've analyzed. I've already done a full report on it, the first part of the assignment, and now for whatever arbitrary reason I also have to make a speech on it. Not too tough, I'm taking Public Speaking right now and I've done just fine on it. But the way she wants me to do it... she won't let me use notecards, she wants a damn outline, which just encourages people to stare at the damn page. She wants me to have visual cues (if I want), like what the fuck would I even do with a visual cue? I don't need that shit, it's just extraneous words on the page, and I already know I need to smile, pause, and make eye contact. Oh, and she wants the fucking outline and draft? To be in 14-point fucking font. This. Is. 14. Point. Font. That is how big she wants the words on the page. To compare, the text in this paragraph right now is about 10-point font. What the shit would I even need 14-point font for? I'm not 80. I'm not blind. Yes, I wear glasses, because I am nearsighted, not farsighted; that doesn't mean I need 14-point fucking font, lady. In fact I can see my normal 10- to 12-point Calibri font on my little note cards just fucking fine, why on earth would I ever want to use 14-point font and double-spacing on an outline? Do you have any fucking idea how damn expanded that would make my outline? I would have to have five pages just to get my details across properly! 14-point font is WAY too big, why would you ever type anything that size for any reason? When I read that shit in the assignment breifing, I just. Exploded. I couldn't believe that shit. In fact, I got so pissed I went to complain on Skype about it, to a Skype group I'm in, when nobody else was online just so I could get that shit off my chest. Here's the actual word for word, verbatim rant I posted, which is a lot angrier than the above stuff and a lot less well thought out. But it basically hits on everything I just said, and why Tech Writing classes are a problem. [8:54:03 AM] DarkShadows: Okay tech writing professor. I have put up with your BS all damn semester, but this is fucking it. 14. point. font. for a speech. [8:54:12 AM] DarkShadows: I'm not 80. I can read 12 point font. [8:54:37 AM] DarkShadows: 14 point font. *for a speech outline*. Do you *know* how fucking long that will make my speech outline? You know I type long. [8:54:42 AM] DarkShadows: you're an english professor. [8:54:46 AM] DarkShadows: you know this shit about me. [8:54:56 AM] DarkShadows: why 14 point font? I can see 12 point just fine. [8:55:21 AM | Edited 8:55:26 AM] DarkShadows: Even my actual public speaking professor would be appalled. [8:55:58 AM] DarkShadows: You already wouldn't fucking take my one assignment for the, oh woop-dee-doo, GRAND HEINOUS SIN OF BEING ONE DAY LATE. [8:56:31 AM] DarkShadows: So that's 10 fucking points down the drain. Maybe you'd get the point if you'd notice the fact that your students *do not give a shit about your class*, and are doing it to get a damn degree. [8:56:58 AM] DarkShadows: *I know how to do half the shit you taught me already*. I learned more about how to write a decent scientific report through my *chemistry professor* than through you. [8:57:04 AM] DarkShadows: You are a terrible fucking professor. Get fired. [8:57:52 AM] DarkShadows: You talk all the fucking time. You never teach us anything. You sit there in your little swivel chair and go through every point of the fucking book verbatim; wait, aren't WE supposed to be reading that shit? because I fucking guarantee that *nobody is*, and they're all still getting A's. [8:58:06 AM] DarkShadows: Because you are a terrible fucking professor and you do a shit job of actually teaching us anything. [8:58:11 AM] DarkShadows: You're more like a guide than a teacher. [8:58:56 AM] DarkShadows: Half of us bring our laptops to class everyday and surf online while you're blathering about business stories and stuff we already fucking know how to do from other classes, and you do not. even. fucking. notice. [8:59:21 AM] DarkShadows: The Observer could appear behind your damn swivel chair, and you wouldn't even know until he fucked with your computer, fucked with the book, and fucked with half of the students. [9:00:21 AM] DarkShadows: There is literaly nothing. to be learned. from your class. That most of us haven't learned already. Okay, half of us are business majors, but the other half of us are a hodgepodge of students from various areas of academia, and that half *have done labs where we write shit up in the most formal way possible*. [9:00:55 AM] DarkShadows: I got fucking fives on both my AP english exams in high school. I *skipped out of English in college because I am already beyond a college reading level and have been since I was seven years old.* [9:01:57 AM] DarkShadows: I was taught how to write a decent scientific report in AP Bio. I have continued to do so in college and I have never gotten less than a B on a paper of mine. Even you give me B's and A's on my paper and you are a *picky fucking English professor*. [9:02:30 AM] DarkShadows: So don't talk down to me, don't talk down to half the class who needed decent college-level english to get this far, this is a 200 level class. [9:02:34 AM] DarkShadows: God. Damn. [9:02:47 AM] DarkShadows: I would NOT recommend you as a professor to fucking anyone, ever, because *you are awful at it.* [9:03:21 AM] DarkShadows: Find another job, maybe go be someone's editor. it's clear you don't wanna be here, and you have no life otherwise. And I think I've made it pretty clear that *I* don't wanna be here, because I actually *have* a life. [9:03:59 AM] DarkShadows: Fuck you, fuck your word limits, fuck your PAGE limits, and fuck your arbitrary lateness rules when I *sent you a goddamn email explaining I forgot and needed a fucking extension, because MY LIFE IS FUCKING BUSY.* [9:04:47 AM] DarkShadows: Maybe YOU have all the time in the world and no life, but I? I actually have a fucking life. I have two jobs. I have family obligations. I have *school* obligations that come before your stupid petty little BS tech writing class. In the future this class? Will mean *nothing to me* because I have already done this shit. [9:05:16 AM] DarkShadows: I'm a good enough writer to actually pass this class while *barely* doing the minimum amount of work. Why the hell can't I *test out of this shit*? [9:05:44 AM] DarkShadows: And by "pass the class", I mean I can type some BS thing in one night, turn it in, and still get a B or better on it. [9:06:23 AM] DarkShadows: English is my strongpoint, I'm a fucking author. And I fucking know how to work words in such a way that it sounds however the hell you want. Give me. Some damn. Credit. [9:06:44 AM] DarkShadows: I learned maybe one thing: how to be less wordy. That's it. It was NOT worth the money I paid for this class. [9:07:02 AM] DarkShadows: This class is not worth it, I don't care if it's necessary. A BETTER PROFESSOR IS NEEDED. [9:07:58 AM] DarkShadows: Or an ONLINE version of the class so I don't have to waste time, gas, and money going to school twice a week just to hear your stupid ass ramble on about past business ventures. I didn't pay for story hour, I *paid to be fucking taught something*. [9:08:11 AM] DarkShadows: This class is bull. [9:08:13 AM] DarkShadows: fuck. [9:08:15 AM] DarkShadows: damn. [9:08:16 AM] DarkShadows: shit. [9:08:18 AM] DarkShadows: urgh. [9:08:21 AM] DarkShadows: rant over. Yeah, I was NOT happy. Also, my real Skype username isn't "DarkShadows", it's just what I chose for the visible username, so no - you do not now have my Skype username, sorry, have a nice day ya creeper. Now excuse me, I have to go get lunch because I'm hungry and I need something to get me through that excuse of a worthwhile class. Seems to me, folks, there's a little confusion, particularly amongst new authors, between what you call a story of a certain length. When does a short story become a novella, and when does it become a short short story? What is a drabble, anyway? Like I did last time with the symantics of various synonyms for Fear, I figured I'd give a list defining these various terms for literature length, at least for the prose in the world. You know, just in case anyone's curious. The terms are listed from longest to shortest, and defined by the criteria generally used for their length. As examples, I'll give my own examples of stories I've written from each style where applicable. This might be updated in the future, as I don't have certain examples for some styles.
So, you're happily writing along when it occurs to you that there's something... off about your protagonist. Maybe you noticed, maybe your beta reader noticed, but either way, there is something very wrong with your character. She's flat, insipid, uninspired, and lazily written. She bends the canon to her will, often in ways that make no sense. If this is a fanfiction you're writing, she's changing the characters' actions to reflect everything back onto her own painfully 'unique' way of working. That's when it hits you, the kind of sick horror that every author worth their salt feels when they realize the impact of what they have done to their work and their world. No, it can't be! But yes, it is - you've written a Mary-Sue.
The term "Mary-Sue" (and her spear counterpart, the Gary Stu) comes from the world of fanfiction, specifically from the world of Star Trek fanfiction. This derogatory term describes a usually female character that always gets what she wants (without working for it), causes characters to behave in ways that make no sense for that character, and is unrealistically "unique" for the world you're writing in or stands out too much. Oftentimes, the Mary-Sue bends canon rules to fit their actions, making every character adore them - and sometimes they are an Author Avatar. The expectation is that since the author loves her and the characters love her, the audience too should love her. Very often, they are heroines, but there can be villainous Sues (which oftentimes go out of their way to do the most over-the-top vile things to prove they are more evil than the canon baddies) and even Anti-Sues (a Sue that literally is hated by everyone, fails at everything, and might even be hated by everyone, but is still considered 'loveable'). And these types of characters are so commonplace that most fanfic readers and authors have built-in, highly sensitive filters to detect Mary-Sues. Now of course, those are just the most common traits of a Sue, and there are many other ways one can be written by mistake, but either way, if you've done something as an author with a character that makes your OC (original character) seem unrealistic for a given world and the character is getting backlash for it, then you might just have a Sue on your hands. So now that we understand what a Sue is, and why a Sue can be a menace to a piece of writing, you might be wondering how on earth to... dispose of such a character. Fear not, author, for you are the god of your written work and OCs, and you have the power to destroy a Mary-Sue before she destroys your story. There are a number of ways to prevent a Sue from happening, and even a guide and list of common traits to try and avoid in a character, put out by TVTropes. But for the purposes of this blog, I'll be focusing on ways to kill a Sue before she happens, or how to fix a potential Sue before she becomes too big of a problem. These are reminders to yourself as a writer on how not to create a Sue, so it doesn't happen. So grab your cloaks and daggers, and prepare to do the writing world a favor - it's time to go Sue Hunting.
Note: This post is a cross-posting from We The Afflicted, a forum I used to run concerning a fictional universe involving humans that have been altered into eldritch monsters. It sometimes crosses over with the Fear Mythos and the Slenderman Mythos, and as such deals with similar themes. The following came from a thread concerning gripes people had about blogs, and this was one of mine. Because it's a cross-posting, nothing has been changed or edited except those details which are there to help it make more sense. Be aware that this guide was written with the Slenderverse and Slenderblogs in mind specifically, but it can be applied to any Fear and its servants.
--- One of my biggest gripes about blogs, particularly Slenderblogs, is those people who make Proxies and Fear Servants do stuff that either they have no business doing, or that their master could do for themselves. Sorry, no, you don't need a Proxy for watching someone or killing someone when Slendy can do both of those himself. Now let me make this very clear: I do NOT hate Proxies or Fear Servants. What I *do* hate is people adding shit for no other reason than it to be one more level of abstraction, or because it's a common trope and they are under the misconception that they have to use it. I hate mindless drone characters that don't have personalities, and most often people write Proxies like that when they aren't being used in a story focused on them. If you're using those characters, think about why you are using them, and give them at least some sort of minor back story or personality. And keep these things in mind:List of reasons a Servant/Proxy should be used in a story:
*sigh* Okay, I know I wrote a dragon story when I was in high school. I know. And yes, it wasn't that good, and it was based on a novel that wasn't that good, and Sugary promptly realized she is not the next J. R. R. Tolkein, end of discussion. And normally, I love dragons. I have collected everything dragon as a hobby since I was in fifth grade. I have well over 100 pieces in my collection. I even have a dragon tattoo on my left shoulderblade, whose general design came from two of the pieces in my collection. I am well and fully a dragon-lover, and I plan to continue expanding my collection in the years to come.
But then I read this article on Springhole.net, a wonderful writing and roleplay resource that I often use or even just read for fun. And that's when I realized, "You know what? Holy crap, the author is right. There are too many dragons in fiction, and they are used too often to disguise a piss-poor plot." The following text is taken from that article, and is being used according to the terms of use for Springhole.net. It is not the full article. If you want to read that, then please visit the above link. The text presented here is for discussion purposes only. "I like dragons. Big dragons, little dragons, dragons with scales, dragons with feathers... I like 'em. Yet invariably, I end up hating almost every dragon story I come across. Why is that? Because writers see dragons as gimmicks, that's why. It's like we live in a world where OMGDRAGONS are a substitute for a good story. [...] It's almost as if some of these authors are saying, 'Hey, ignore the fact that I can't write to save my life and look at this DRAGON! OOOOOOH!!!!!!!! DRAGON!!!!!!!' " And sorry, say what you will, but the author of this piece has a very, very good point. One of the biggest criticisms of The Inheritance Cycle, the series about that kid named Eragon who has a dragon named Saphira he can ride on, is that it's little more than mixture of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, but with dragons. I'd argue that the whole "dragon-rider with a telepathic connection to his dragon" is ripping off Dragonriders of Pern as well, but to be honest I really didn't care that much for that series and found its basic plot just as odd. Seriously, the entire base plot of the Pern universe is, "Alien dragons and their riders fight deadly cosmic mold". I'm dead serious. Dead. Fucking. Serious. You want an example of a good way to use dragons in fiction, one that actually doesn't detract from the plot that much? Try the dragons in Harry Potter. No, they're not able to converse with humans and it's implied that they're really not that bright. But at least the dragons in that universe are consistant, they could be removed without affecting the plot too much, and they aren't there just to be cool. As I have said before, the moment you do something in a story just because it's cool (instead of because it has a reason to be there), the moment the story falls flat. Accordingly, the only times that dragons ever become relevant in Harry Potter is during the Wizard's Cup in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (they were there as part of the competition) and during the escape on that albino dragon from Gringott's in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. That's it. Those are the only two times J. K. Rowling uses dragons in her most well-known opus, and even then she never had to use them. She could have removed dragons from the equation entirely and written those scenes differently if she wanted, and the story overall would not have changed. Another example of how a dragon character is used for a good reason is with Smaug in The Hobbit. Smaug is this greedy, bloodthirsty monster that actively killed a bunch of dwarves to get their treasure. Smaug later goes and kill a bunch of villagers, as a result of Bilbo, this cute little hobbit with only a dagger (a sword to him) and a ring of invisibility for protection, sneaking into Smaug's horde. Now, I'm heavily paraphrasing the plot since I haven't read The Hobbit in years, but Tolkein could have used another monster besides a dragon for Smaug. The reason he didn't is because using a dragon made the most sense for his story (a fantasy story for children), and that's why we have a dragon named Smaug instead of, I dunno, a Chimera named Smaug or whatever. The big difference between both The Hobbit and Harry Potter versus The Inheritance Cycle and Dragonriders of Pern is that neither of the former stories are exclusively about dragons and neither need dragons as integral parts of the story; they just happen to have characters in them that are dragons or plots that involve dragons in some way. The latter stories, however, would not function nearly as well or be as memorable if they didn't have dragons. If you cut the dragons out of The Inheritance Cycle, you're left with a basic, played-over fantasy story about a ragtag group of adventurers that Tolkein already did much better, and if you cut the dragons out of Dragonriders of Pern, you're left with a basic, played-over sci-fi story about humans surviving on an alien planet that numerous Sci-Fi authors have already done much better numerous times. So what does this mean, ultimately, for your dragon story, aspiring writer? Basically, it means that you are thinking about why you want the characters in it to be dragons. Why is that character a dragon? Could they work as any other species, or are you using the fact that they're a dragon as an excuse to add something cool? Does the dragon serve a purpose, or does the whole plot hinge around the dragon... or is the dragon just there because dragons? The story's plot and the characters themselves are always far more important than what the characters look like or what species said characters happen to be. Or, as Springhole.net's article puts it: "Don't write a story about a dragon. Write a story that happens to have a dragon in it. This doesn't mean reduce your dragon characters to fire-breathing MacGuffins, but instead try to write a basic plot that would stand up even if there were no dragons involved. [...] The plots of Doctor Who don't rely on the fact that the Doctor is an alien with superhuman powers to entertain you. [...] Likewise, the plots of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic would still be entertaining even if the characters weren't ponies (and a dragon). The fact that the series [...] relies on good characterization and storytelling to entertain is the reason the show has such a wide audience. But Eragon, Dragonheart, etc... take the dragons out, and all you've got are some very cliched fantasy stories. And that's why most stories about dragons suck." I couldn't agree more, Springhole.net. I couldn't agree more. Note: This was pasted from a correspondence with someone over at the Fear Mythos Forums. The focus here is on Fears, but goes for any other Eldritch character as well.
------ Eldritch characters can be rather tricky to write, because writing them requires thinking outside of how a human might percieve things. Fiction where you're writing from a non-human's perspective is actually called "Xenofiction", from the Latin word "Xenos" meaning "foreign" and the word "fiction" meaning... fiction. XD Xenofiction can comprise anything from writing from the perspective of a dog, an elf, a dragon, or yes, even Eldritch entities. To help clarify all this, I will use Slenderman, since I use him a lot in my writing and he kind of "speaks" to me the most of any of the Fears. I won't say I "understand" him best, because I'm constantly learning and developing new attributes to him as befitting a Fear of the Unknown, he's consistently undefined and as such always changing for me. But I do have some constants to which he tends to stick, and his themes resonate with what I tend to write most, if that makes sense. The most important thing to remember is that eldritch beings, despite being very clearly not human or animal, still have personalities to a point. Sometimes they are not the same as a human personality might percieve them. For example, Slenderman stalks and sometimes kills humans. His motives for doing this might be as simple as "he's evil" or "for funsies", yes, but it could also reflect a desire to amuse himself, curiosity of humans and how they work, or even an urge to hunt and humans being the current prey du jour. Some adaptations have him eat humans somehow. Some don't. But that's a bit of a different issue and your portrayal would depend on your headcanon for Slenderman. Personally, I generally write Slenderman one of two ways: Either he is an extremely curious creature, ever running observations and experimental 'tests' on humankind, or he's this being that honestly sees his actions as 'play' and doesn't consider the impact it has on humans, good or bad - their opinions are quite irrelevant and in fact unintelligible to him, much as his would be to us. In both cases he tends to be quite an introverted, introspective, aloof, and intelligent soul, equally capable of being ruthless and cold as he is of being gentle and merciful, should he choose it. However his standards of what "ruthless" and "gentle" are differ wildly from what most humans think they are, which makes him come across as this cold, evil, dark, and dangerous predator. Oftentimes, to the confusion of his human targets, he comes across as completely unreadable, making him quite unknowable and frightening to humans in general. It's always best to decide a motive for a character. That motive may or may not reflect the moral positions of "good" or "evil". For example, Slenderman might be chasing your character because that character knows something they shouldn't. He might also be after your character to warn them of something, to acquire something they have (perhaps knowledge of something), to kill them because he dislikes your character or otherwise, because he assumes stalking is a sign of friendship/'liking someone', because he's interested in their reactions, or because he thinks they'd make a good Proxy. All of these could be construed as "good" or "evil" if you really want, but they don't have to be. Many eldritch beings actually exhibit what we call "Blue and Orange Morality", that is, their morality does not reside on the human "good vs. evil" spectrum, even if humans percieve it as that. This can be tough to define, but I find the best approach is to simply portray the being in question as True Neutral - that is, they have no allegiance to anyone other than themselves and don't really bother with morality as we conceive of it. I often write Slenderman in this way, and in fact it's how I view all of the Fears. You can translate this to Fears being like a "force of nature" or something that doesn't have an alignment. The emotion of fear itself is a good example - it can be a good or bad thing, depending on circumstance. Regardless of the case, try to decide on a motive for your character first, and morality second - and then build the character's actions around the motive. And if you do use "good and evil" as a thing for eldritch morality, consider that since not all humans are fully good or evil by definition, neither are all eldritch beings. Another thing to remember is that characters act and react to things. Slenderman might decide to kill the protagonist, but make a Proxy out of their friend. You of course don't have to reveal why this is in the prose, so long as "why" is set in your head somewhere. Maybe Slendy made a Proxy out of the friend because they are more physically or mentally adept, or because they are more receptive to his commands somehow. Maybe the protagonist is killed as a sort of "culling of the herd" of humanity, or is a necessary evil to achieve some goal or keep some event set in stone. Maybe they were killed because they simply made the wrong choice, or because it was a mercy killing. The possibilities are really pretty infinite, if you think outside of the box a bit. Another scenario: let's say a protagonist has discovered something that causes a snag in some plan of Slendy's. Now Slenderman, as a character that acts and reacts, must reconsider his course of action, and change how he reaches his goal based upon that. Characters act on their surroundings and on other characters, and react to events in their surroundings as well as the actions of other characters. Remember that, and try to keep your eldritch characters dynamic so as to keep plot moving forward. Eldritch beings often experience the world in ways humans do not. Slenderman lacks all the facial sensory organs we humans have - he can't and doesn't necessarily smell, see, hear, or feel things the way we can. This is where your imagination gets to come into play. Perhaps his tentacles are very sensitive to vibrations or heat signatures given off by living beings, and that's how he hunts. Perhaps he echolocates and "sees" that way. Maybe he sees in ultraviolet (which damages normal human eyes over time, which would mean he has to see with a different method other than an eye). If he needs to eat, how does he do so? Via a concealable, alien 'mouth' of sorts? Does he use his tentacles like roots to suck nutrients from victims, or does he extend them and use them like plants use leaves, to photosynthesize? Does he feed upon human fear instead? Does he "see" sounds or "feel" color (synesthesia)? All this stuff can determine how Slenderman acts and reacts to an environment, another character, and events in the story. This is all dependent upon how you feel something without any eyes, nose, mouth, or ears to speak of might percieve the world and hunt prey, and it's based upon the character's actions and reactions in other portrayals of him. It's the same for any other Fear - how has Plague Doctor been written in the past? If he's a mass of sentient bacteria, how do you think such a creature might percieve the world? Does Wooden Girl use her strings to pick up vibrations and catch people that way, maybe using them like a spider web to snag people? Is Cold Boy made of sentient ice, or does he cause ice to occur where he appears? Look at how others have portrayed these characters, and think about why they may have been portrayed that way. Character studies are always a great way to practice this - and that's actually exactly what "I, Slenderman" was, a way to get into his suit and tie and figure out what went on in that alien head of his. It was also a way to break myself of some of the fear I initially felt getting into that Mythos. Practice a bit with your characters and characters you like to get a feel for them. Who knows? Maybe you'll find a few Fears that "speak" to you and play well with you the way Slendy does with me. And of course, this being a highly open-source Mythos, all of this can change even between your own stories. You never have to write a Fear the same way twice! For example, in Twelve Days Slenderman is a mostly helpful, if highly frightening, living representation of anxiety and worry, whereas in areas of Project Him's stories, he's much more of a bogeyman-like figure, a monster in the closet, something that seeks to cause and spread as much fear as possible. And in Observation, he returns more to his original roots as an organ-snatching, forest-dwelling monster that kills for the sake of watching humans who know about him suffer and die. Three very different interpretations, yet all the same character. This blog entry is adapted from a Skype conversation with someone who asked for help in creating and designing a monster character, and specifically wanted to be a Fear that takes the motif of "bunnies" and makes it horrifying and serious. Here were my thoughts on the matter. As always with excerpts, nothing has been changed except for minor editing to make it easier to read.
----------- Creating a new monster character... I guess you could take one of four approaches to it:
You should think all your options over first, however, before deciding on an idea for it. Then, once your theme is decided, think about how the monster behaves, acts, etc., what it does. Decide what your monster's basic motive is. For example, Slenderman (Slenderman Mythos) stalks and torments people psychologically, Pyramid Head (Silent Hill, specifically Silent Hill 2) punishes, Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) kills irresponsible teens. So, what's your monster do that makes it special? What's its Modus Operandi? Once you have a theme and motive/personality for your monster, now you need to write a story with them that explores those themes and lets that monster's motive shine through. Going off my previous examples, the Slenderverse deals with mystery and obfuscation, Silent Hill 2 deals with guilt, and Friday the 13th deals with the consequences of being irresponsible with a child's life (especially if you're distracted by underage sex). So what's your story deal with? Tie it to your monster. The monster, remember, is the reflection of the story's message, theme, or big idea. A lot of times, I find that horror deals with the fear of the unknown, or the fear of repercussions for one's actions, or simply the fear of something awful happening. Those seem to be very, very common themes. I could write a whole thesis paper and a half on themes in horror games, movies, novels, and other media. For example, everyone knows Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein for a fun contest at a party with some author friends, but did you know Frankenstein is also essentially an allegory for the dangers of science going too far and the limits of human knowledge? H.P. Lovecraft dealt with very similar themes in much of his work, calling these limits "Things man was not meant to know" - literally, discoveries about the vast universe that for our own good, should stay hidden. Lovecraft also liked using the concept of human fragility, specifically human mental capacity, equating too much knowledge of dangerous stuff with madness in the most literal way possible. Edgar Allen Poe, meanwhile, also dealt with the fragility of the human psyche, but spoke more from emotional matters and intellectual ones, including the ever-present fear of death. There's a lot of overlap and it just makes horror such a fascinating genre. Don't be afraid to overlap or reinvent themes! |
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Welcome to Musings 2.0, my personal blog here on WordFlow! Here, you can find out what I'm doing now and where I'm going next, as well as get my thoughts on the Cthulhu Mythos, assorted sundry writing topics, and various scientific topics. Archives
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