Random Update on my Uneventful Life

So, I realized I haven't blogged in two weeks. I blame this on three things, first and foremost the never-ending supply of calculus work that perpetually hounds me. Secondly, I spent March Break at my aunt's and my cousins tend to keep me away from the internet. And thirdly, I've found myself with very little to talk about.

I considered blogging about the alarming trends in some YA love interests, and I might yet formulate some coherent thoughts on the matter, but for now, everyone should go see what Para has to say. She's much more eloquent about it than I am. ;)

In other news, I drove a standard for the first time while I was down at my aunt's! (A standard car, that is. With a clutch and a stick shift and all that nonsense.) Now I can properly appreciate the convenience of automatic transmission. Seriously. I was only driving around a parking lot (with one poor unsuspecting car parked in the middle) and I thought I had too many things to think about. Clutch in, car on, shift to first, clutch off, gas on, stall out, fml, car not starting, wtf, oh right forgot about the clutch...and so on and so forth.

And oh, the poor puppies in the backseat! Or on the back floor, I should say, after I stalled out for the first time. Heheh.

I am in awe of those people who can drive a standard car an actual traffic-filled road and not die.

And on a more writing related note, my mutant WIP is SO CLOSE to being finished. Monstrous word count to be announced.

I think I'm going to ignore my Calculus and go work on it now.

The Trouble with Multiple Characters

I'm reading this zombie book right now, and it's one of those books that shifts focus amongst several characters. Sort of like split POVs but in third person. (I hesitate to say there are several MCs because there are so many and the focus is evenly distributed.) In any case, I've come to the conclusion that this style is very difficult to pull off well.

And I have to say I've tried it. When I was 13 I wrote a multi-MC book. It didn't really work out for plenty of reasons -- lack of character development, total angst-fests on every other page, plain old bad writing, and, I think, the whole multi-character thing, to name a few.

I had five "main characters" to begin with, but a few chapters in it became clear that I was developing a favourite, and this favourite was dominating the page-space. Eventually one character disappeared almost completely when his plot sputtered out and I got bored.

Obviously, the author of the book I'm reading now is not thirteen, and as such did a much better job of planning out the plot distribution. But the problem of favouritism remains, not from the author, but from the reader. I've started to like some characters better than others. I can relate to Character A better than Character B and Character L's problems are way more interesting than Character M's. As such, I want to read about Character A and L. When Character B and M show up for their respective scenes, I find myself skimming, waiting for the story to get back to something I care about, which isn't all that great.

This brings me to another problem. With so many characters to cover, there's not a whole lot of time for character development. There's a lot of telling rather than showing, and I'm not interested in Characters B and M because the author doesn't have time to make me interested. If Character A didn't happen to be in a situation I can relate to, I probably wouldn't care much about her either. If I hadn't been told that Character B had political views that were the complete opposite of mine (or if there had been time for him to show me he had some redeeming qualities), I might actually be sad when his brain got eaten. In other words, the reader suffers a certain lack of emotional investment in the characters and their lives.

These are all bad things. It makes it too easy for me to put the book down. In fact, at times, when I look at the number of pages there are left, I think I might not even want to finish it. Anf of course, the absolute lastlastLAST thing an author wants a reader to do is put the book down and never pick it up again.

So to sum this all up, the trouble I run into with multi-MC books is as follows:

1) Readers (and sometimes authors) develop favourites.

2) Readers (and sometimes authors) have some characters that are definitely less than favourites, and must suffer through scenes that involve those characters and no others.

3) Chronic amounts of telling are often present in an attempt to quickly develop characters and relationships in the limited amount of page-space.

4) Readers have a lack of emotional investment. In other words, they don't really care what happens to any of the characters - even their favourites - because they never had time to really get to know any of them.

5) Zombies jumping out of shadows, chasing after the protags, and eating their friends' brains gets old quick, and never comes across in a book as well as it would in a movie. (Because movies have soundtracks and can have various stringed instruments screech at deafening pitches when the zombie jumps out, thereby giving the viewer a heart attack. Authors do not have the luxury of sound effects.*)

That last point is obviously specific to the book I'm reading it, and I only added it because I felt like 5 was a nice, round number. But on that note, my lukewarm response to this book is probably based on a number of factors, many of which may stem from the above multi-MC-based problems, but none of which are unavoidable. That is to say, I'm sure some people can pull off these sorts of books without having these problems.

Just not this author. Or me. Or the author of that other book I read when I was ten and got so, so confused by the fact that I was reading about a different character in every chapter.

Ahem. Anyhow, there's my rambly two cents on the matter.

* Stay tuned for next week's blog post, entitled Why Books Should Have Soundtracks. ;)

Lovely contests!

Hello, my lovelies!

I am blogging for the sole purpose of trying to win a shiny free book from Choco, over on In Which a Girl Reads. The contest ends at 11 (EST) tonight!

Me? Leave things to the last minute? Never!

Okay, seriously, I delayed because I was hoping to find a slightly less obnoxious way to post about this. But my blogging muse is on vacation, so this will have to do.

So, um, yes, that's about all I have to say. Go check out Choco's awesomeness!

And if you're bored you can listen to this song, because it makes me want to break into weird, empowered dancing when I hear it. For what reason, I do not know.

Shiny Awards for Shiny People

Well! Sumayyah's got perfect timing! I haven't been able to think of anything to post about for days and days. Now she has given me warm and fuzzy and shiny awards! *huggles Sumayyah*

The first is the Creative Writer Award.

Upon receiving this award, I am told I must list 10 things that brighten my day. So, here we go!

1) Writing. (Figured I ought to start with the obvious.) It gives me such a happy buzz and my characters are always so entertaining and if not for writing, I never would have met...

2) The twifties! Who are all such amazing and wonderful people and shall live in a twiftie castle after they have taken over the world with their awesome books. Mark my words! It shall happen! :)

3) Music. Good music can get me out of any foul mood and motivates my muse.

4) Yummy food. I love yummy food. Gruyere cheese, and salmon wellington, and that creamy salmon thing with gherkins, and tuna melts, and chocolate chip pancakes with peaches and a hotdog/sausage...Om nom nom nom!

5) Nice weather. The kind that isn't too hot and isn't too cold and makes the air smell sweet and fresh and inspires me to actually leave my hermit-hole!

6) M*A*S*H. I don't know why exactly, but this show always leaves me with a happy, fuzzy feeling. I luuuurves it.

7) Humming one note of an entirely random song (i.e. that song the captured pirates sing at the beginning of the third Pirates movie) and having my little sister join in with me.

8) Swinging. Like, on a swing set. I used to swing for hours when I was little, daydreaming about my characters (then total LOTR rip-offs). I still love it. I just can't always find a convenient swing set.

9) Not having anything that I have to do. It's a lovely feeling, to be able to write without a little voice in the back of my head telling me I really should be doing something else.

10) Spending time with my aunt and cousins. They're gonna give me laugh lines by the time I'm 20, I swear. My face is stuck that way the entire time I'm down there.

And there we have it!

The second award is the Sunshine Award which is bright and happy and prettiful:

The rules for the Sunshine Award are as follows:

1) Put the logo within your post or on your sidebar.

2) Share the love and pass the award to 12 other bloggers.

3) Link the nominees inside of your post.

4) Comment on the nominees' blogs to let them know you've just given them props. :)

5) Give a shout-out to the person who nominated, and post a ling to his/her blog as well.

Now, I'm going to do what Sumayyah did and pass both these awards out to the following 12 people -- some of whom have already gotten them, but they're so awesome they deserve doubles. ;)

In no particular order:

1) Caitlin because she writes with such a beautiful voice and comments on so much of my rambling.

2) Amna (whose blog I all of a sudden cannot find to link! o.O) because she makes me giggle so frequently.

3) Choco because she makes shiny literary magazines and posts so much awesomeness on her blog.

4) Vero because she understands what I'm complaining about when I say it's freezing up here, she's going to send lovely chocolatey care packages to our deprived southern neighbours, and because everyone should go look at her shiny new blog layout!

5) B because she just recently started an amazing blog and already has a big ol' following (as she should!)

6) Race because she snared an agent with her awesomeness and has a shiny new website that must be shown off!

7) Margo because she's part of an amazing crit group and she writes awesome books about kelpies!

8) Bee because she made me feel all warm and fuzzy about my attempt at a plot summary and she must be encouraged to start blogging again! *facepalm* She is blogging! With much more regularity than me! XD I somehow managed to misread the date of her last post as May 3, rather than March 3. Oooops.

9) Emilia because she SINGS!

10) Leasie because she recently completed the first draft of her WIP, Mortal Affairs and the snippets I've read are awesome!

11) Krista because I just stumbled across her blog (YAY! She blogs!) when I was Googling around for Amna's and cannot leave such an awesome Opwifter out.

12) Dystophil because I also just found HER blog and she's been sticking with the same (awesome) WIP for YEARS! I is awed.

And now I really must be off to bed because 12:22 has somehow crept up on me and I actually have to get out of bed at a reasonable time tomorrow.

*scuttles off*

The Product of Procrastination (With Summaries and Cover Art)

In the name of being completely unproductive and not getting a word closer to wrapping up my sad excuse of an ending, I've spent most of the last 24 hours scouring Google and fiddling with Photoshop in an attempt to create a book cover for my WIP. After all, procrastination is the key to success in whatever goal you're pursuing for the express purpose of not doing something else. In other words, I wound up with two pretty pictures that I'm momentarily happy with.

And to go along with my pretty pictures I've spewed out a summary, which is really quite overdue. I've been yammering for months about this mysterious WIP, commonly known as The 200K Monstrosity. This summary is a tad misrepresentative, as it leaves out rather large parts of the plot and makes things sound cooler than they actually are (which may not be saying much). Anyhow, any attempt to explain my WIP accurately resulted in an obscenely long synop, so I settled for this. I'm beginning to think I might have the right idea with the synopsis - as in, maybe I should cut the parts I'm not mentioning and tweak things to be more like they appear to be in the summary. But I digress!

Without further ado, I introduce you to my big-boned WIP, FIRE AND ICE (working title).

Fifteen year-old Mina Iglacious has lived a sheltered life. She has never felt the effects of war, even though her country has been warring against its neighbours for the past twelve years. Isolated on the northern tip of the Peninsula, her village has been safe from the bombs, famine, and draft notices that destroy the people living inland.

But all good things must come to an end.

When their enemies ally with an adjacent nation and launch a fleet of warships to attack the country's unprotected northern front, Mina's home becomes a battleground and her own country's military become a threat. After over a decade of savage warfare, the army is desperate for new recruits. They will take anyone - elderly men, women, children. Mina.

Flung into the frontline fighting, Mina's only chance for survival rests in the hands of a young captain with a catching smile and knack for dodging bullets. But he also has a tendency to say things that shouldn't be said - things that could get him shot for treason if the wrong people heard. His officers say it's only talk; he's been in the fighting for a long time, he's lost a lot of people, his head isn't on quite straight anymore.

But eventually it begins to look like more than just talk and Mina has to figure out which side everyone is really on - and which side she's on.

Duh duh dummm! And there it is. A summary that is almost as flawed as the book itself. And my first cover seems to have lost its bluish tinge. But c'est la vie! I'm still quite fond of it. And writing this summary has given my muse an energy boost! I had best run off and write before it gets lazy again!

The ILYCYAAYB Award

After reading Sumayyah's blog post and completely agreeing to the point of wanting to amass a non-angry-but-rather-enlightened-and-empowered mob to march through the streets shouting the message, I started to get a vague little idea.

Valentine's Day, for all its misleading marketing schemes, is not a bad thing. I mean, it causes stores to be flooded with very yummy chocolate, which, theoretically, will all be discounted by Monday. Who can complain about cheap chocolate?

Also, it's a time to tell people how much you love and care about them. These people should not be and are not limited to one's significant other, but also include siblings and BFFs and parents and grandparents and so on and so forth -- all those people who have been with you through thick and thin, who have taken care of you through sickness and in health, who have given you pocket money and let you mooch off them when you had none.

Go give those people a hug and, if you haven't eaten it already, maybe some chocolate. They deserve it. :)

And that brings me to the point of this post. By combining these two parts of Valentine's Day (the yummy chocolate and the idea of telling someone they're appreciated), I have come up with this:

The ILYCYAAYB Award! (Which stands for the I Love You 'Cause You're Awesome and You Blog Award.)

Now, I have no idea if I'm allowed to do this -- make up my own random awards, that is. But I'm darn well going to try!

I hereby declare it shall be awarded to 5 people who I love 'cause they're awesome and they blog. And then, ideally, those 5 people are free to and encouraged to give it to 5 people they each love 'cause they're awesome and they blog, and so on and so forth, forming a big web of luvvles and fuzziness in the blogosphere.

And so, without further ado and in no particular order, I hereby force the ILYCYAAYB award upon the following 6 people (because I just invented a new rule that says you can give it to SIX people on Valentine's Day, 'cause I kinda couldn't narrow it down to five. *shifty eyes*):

Sumayyah! Because, you know, her post gave me this idea and she makes really pretty banners and cover art for other people's awesome blogs and books.

Amna! Because she writes awesomely hilarious books about really smexy Huldus and leaves so much warm fuzziness on my babbling blog posts.

Parametric! Because she is the madly-skilled all-knowing TWFT ninja, and she writes such delightfully dark teasers.

Race! Because she posts awesome videos on Random Day and writes about guys who are not only hawwwt but genuinely sweet and oh-so-lovable.

Emilia! Because she writes awesome books and actually comments on my mindless babbling and she makes really awesome cartoons.

Choco! Because she makes such awesomely shiny e-magazines filled with awesome twiftie writing and she read seven books in a week, some of which were really long.

New Rule: you must explain why you love each person and that explanation should, if at all possible, contain some variation of the word 'awesome'.

And there we have it!

Happy Heart Day, everyone!!

Characters Who Lie

Are such a pain!!!

(This refers to the secondary characters and love interests who lie to the MC, not the MCs with dishonest streaks, since the latter can be a great deal of fun.)

Anyhow, when writing a first person POV, facts presented by other characters typically have to be taken at face value. Unless the MC/reader has already seen/heard something that contradicts what the other character is saying, or unless that character is a notorious liar, the things they say are pretty much accepted as truths.

On the one hand, this can be used to create some shocking plot twists. On the other hand, if you knock the reader's feet out from under them too many times, they're going to get annoyed. Even if you only do it once, if a shocking plot twist had no foreshadowing - a couple of events/bits of dialogue the reader can look back on and think, "Oh, now I get it!" - I think we run the risk of jarring readers out of the story and perhaps into closing the book.

And yet, if the foreshadowing spells out that Character B was lying to Character A, to the point where the reader is banging their head against the wall, shouting, "Why haven't you clued in, Character A!?!?" that's not good either.

Surely the possibility of a happy medium exists, but I find it can be very hard to achieve. We, as the authors, know everything. Sometimes it's hard to gauge what a clue or bit of foreshadowing will tell the reader. Is it enough? Is it too much? And then there's always the problem: would this actually happen?

Would Character B actually slip up and say something to make Character A suspicious? Would they leave the mysterious note lying around where Character A could find it? Would they be creeping around, going about their mysterious business outside Character A's window late at night?

In plenty of cases, yes, they might.

But personally, I've found myself having to say no a lot of the time. This is because, in my WIP, I'm dealing with not one but two very good liars. I've got one ex-Intel agent who was trained in the art of deception, and one military captain who's been lying to people like my ex-Intel agent almost constantly for the past seven years. Furthermore, both their lives are on the line, so they're going to be darn careful about what they say and do.

It's had me really quite stuck for a while, and it doesn't help that my MC isn't the brightest crayon in the box, so she doesn't question things too much. Which might drive my future betas insane - I really can't tell -- but anyway!

There was a point to all that ranting and babbling. Honestly, there was!

I want to know what you think of all this. What sort of hints do you give your readers about the things other characters are hiding? What sort of hints do you want as a reader? How clear/obscure do you like things to be, how long can you tolerate mysteriousness dragging on, and/or how badly annoyed are you when an author rips a plot line out from beneath you and turns it around in the opposite direction?

Let me know! I'm curious. :)