Fun amidst the Funk: What we can learn about “someday” from books

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bugs life, character chat, inspiration

When “someday” rolls around, we will have time to read all the books and volunteer at all the places while it will be easy to cope with jerks in the checkout line and our dogs won’t leave us presents in random places around the house. Our spiritual lives will be neatly sorted and perfect. We’ll work out enough that we can subsist off chocolate while having killer abs and be able to quit the daily grind, so on and so forth.

Some people expect “someday” to be at graduation, when they land the dream job, start a family, move, retire, or any other milestone. But it doesn’t work like that.

If you stand around waiting for “someday,” you’ll miss all the stuff that could happen right now. The truth is, things are never going to be perfect. No matter how good your life gets, there will always be snags and complications and inconveniences, but it’s okay.

Because I am me, I can’t help but think literature offers the best example of this concept. Harry was being hunted by Voldemort for literally his entire time at Hogwarts, but that didn’t stop him from having the time of his life. The Pevensie siblings were thrust into a civil war involving a psychotic witch with a penchant for geomancy, but they had an adventure like no other. Éowyn was literally trying to commit suicide after Aragorn rejected her, but she ended up meeting the love of her life. Eragon was fighting an all-powerful despot and lost everything, but during that time, he also gained a host of dear friends.

The point is, you don’t need to wait for “someday.” There are going to be bumps and potholes along the road, but it’s possible to enjoy life in the here and now. In short, work hard for the future, but remember that you can only live in the present.

Things you DO NOT need to be a “good” character

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am reading, book recommendation call, character chat, fantasy books, taylor swift

It’s probably a bad idea to watch a movie with me. When I watch movies, I tend to criticize the character development and the writers’ standardized methods of relaying a character’s “strength.” I do it with books, too, there’s just usually no one around to hear me griping at my Kindle. There are five things that especially bug me, hence I have decided to whine about them in a blog post accompanied by Taylor Swift GIF’s because everyone likes Taylor Swift.

A temper

Tempers are not awesome. It is one thing to have righteous anger over injustice or cruelty, but quite another to overreact and resort to violence. Writers moved away from this one for a while, but I’ve noticed it coming back—mainly in female characters because men and women should be held to different moral standards (not).

A long list of ex-lovers

Some of my favorite characters of all time are, shall we say, romantically prolific, but the fact remains that being desired and/or sexually active are not the hallmarks of a strong persona! It’s okay to not have a significant other or regular one-night stands, but you wouldn’t know it by the way mainstream media handles it.

Modern literature and film seem to think it makes a character interesting, relying on sex as a plot device rather than using something crazy, like a storyline. There are plenty of shows I could list where if the writers weren’t allowed to incorporate sex involving the main characters, they would run out of material in about two episodes.

A tragic backstory

Tragic backstories are about as common as mud. I have used them quite often myself, but lacking some horror in your past does not make you any less of a character or your input to the story any less valid. Despite this, characters without tragedy in their pasts are usually portrayed as the naive innocent that gets killed first or gruesomely victimized, but that’s just a sign of lazy writing.

A set of fighting skills

I prefer for my own characters to have fighting skills (because fight scenes allow my inner ninja to play), but they aren’t necessary to a solid character—male or female. I wish I could find more portrayals where it’s okay to not be a warrior, but it’s been becoming rarer, especially in fantasy books.

A postmodern mindset

It may sound like a contradiction to some, but it actually is possible for one to believe in traditional gender roles without being sexist. It’s also possible to firmly believe in one’s own religion as the sole truth without hating others and I could go on. However, the characters who are more traditional in their views are generally cast in a negative manner, which is a travesty, because it is an incomplete picture of what real people with similar opinions are actually like.

And that wraps up my rant for the month, but there’s plenty more where that came from. 😉

(As a side note, if you guys can think of any fantasy books that defy these tropes, I’d really like to hear about them.)

Three Action Heroines I actually liked

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character chat, legend of the seeker, mistborn, salt, strong heroines

I’ll be blunt, I usually despise females in warrior roles. Why? I feel like they aren’t characters at all, just cardboard cutouts. They either aren’t allowed to have flaws or their flaws are excused by virtue of femininity. (Whole other blog post in that.) Anyway, here are the first three action heroines that come to my mind when I think of my favorites and they are my favorites with good reason.

Angelina Jolie as Evelyn Salt in “Salt.”

Evelyn Salt (Salt, 2010)

I keep seeing all these people whine about the lack of female action heroes and I want to hit them in the face with this. Salt is an incredible portrayal of a female spy/assassin who is not invincible, makes miscalculations, gets knocked down, but always gets back up. She basically leads a one-woman war against two governments and is pretty much as hardcore as they come. She’s probably my favorite action heroine in film, but not many seem to have heard of her (and judging by their mewling online, that includes Feminazis).

Vin (Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson)

If we’re talking vulnerabilities and relatability, Vin takes the gold without batting an eye. Insecurity and softness mixed with awesome power and a capability for terrible destruction, Brandon Sanderson really set a standard here. It is impossible to be in possession of a heart and not want to protect Vin, even though she’s the character who tears through 300 soldiers and comes out with nary a scratch (seriously, that happened once).

Tabrett Bethell as Cara in “Legend of the Seeker.”

Cara the Mord Sith (The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind/The Legend of the Seeker, 2007-2009)

Cara is pretty much all the things I usually dislike in a character—sassy, sarcastic, dominant, sometimes outright cruel. But the author (and the writers of the television series) spent huge amounts of time humanizing and sympathizing the Mord Sith order as a whole. The reader/viewer is shown how much pain these women are in (physically and emotionally) every second of their lives. We see Cara cry and regret and mourn, then turn right around and level entire an entire battalion while dragging an evil sorceress by the hair.

I really wish there were more action heroines like this. Not one-dimensional tropes like Black Widow in Iron Man 2 or Andromeda in Wrath of the Titans. These three ladies are characters that feel real and I think that’s what all characters should be.

Love me a Bromance

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bromance, character chat, Harry potter, supernatural

Let’s talk about bromance. A bromance is a colloquial word used to describe a strong friendship between two men in a brotherly relationship. (It is referencing a purely fraternal bond, not a romantic one.) Though the term is relatively new, it could be argued that this particular literary device itself dates back to antiquity.

The Greeks had them, the Romans were huge fans. Friendship between men as the driving force behind a story were not uncommon at all.

I love me a bromance. Just something about two guys with a brotherly bond strong enough that they would die for one another touches the heartstrings. Though romantic relationships tend to be considered the ultimate embodiment of love, I think that’s not fair to parental relationships, sibling relationships, and friendships.

As I said, I appreciate a good bromance, but looking at my favorite books, I realized that…well, only one or two series have them. (My favorite movie on the other hand has about five going on, so maybe that makes up for it.)

Ron Weasley and Harry Potter are one of my favorite bromances along with the Winchesters and Castiel of Supernatural. There’s all the complexities and nuances of close interpersonal relationship without the BS that comes with romance. They tease each other, they play pranks on each other, they fight for each other, and they’re willing to die for each other (which the Supernatural boys plainly demonstrate about once a season).

I think writers would do well to add in more bromances. Personally, I’ve kind of had them in my published works (Armandius and Velaskas of Argetallam Saga could maybe qualify. As well as Karile and Saoven in later books). But haven’t really tackled them the way I am in this WIP for summer 2015 (yes, I’m talking about the assassin one again—here’s that Pinterest board for like the umpteenth time).

Anyone else here like a bromance? Have a favorite?

“More girls should go on adventures”

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adventures, character chat, fantasy writing, gender roles, strong girls

A while back a seven year old young lady by the name of Charlotte sent this letter to the LEGO corporation.

It reminded me of a blog post I read by Maggie Stiefvater about how, growing up, she didn’t have crushes on the male action-adventure leads, she wanted to be them. When I read that, I had a “You, too? I thought I was the only one!” moment.

Now, I have never wanted to be a boy. As a little girl, I was required to always wear dresses (not as unfair as it sounds, a long story), even with my jeans. I played with Barbies (G.I. Joe dolls, too), had tea parties, loved fairies (still do), and was a fan of every Disney princess. But none of that stopped me from rolling in the mud, climbing into trees, crawling under barbwire fences, building forts out of juniper trees, wrestling goats, and exploring our woods. I was a tomboy extraordinaire.

Amid my earliest memories are recollections of my father watching the likes of Conan the Barbarian, Gladiator, The Patriot, Braveheart, Sharpe’s Rifles, every John Wayne movie in existence…you get the gist. I grew up on intense action flicks with kick@$$ leads who took on crime bosses, monsters, empires, killer super robots, and whole armies. (Xena was somewhere in there, too, but I barely remember any of her stuff.) For the most part, the guys were the ones who got to have all the “fun” while the girls (with a few scant exceptions) got to sit at home holding down the fort until the party was over or, worse, waited to be rescued.

Like Ms. Stiefvater said it was for her, I related most to the male leads, the ones who did the swashbuckling and running down of outlaws. I didn’t want the knight in shining armor to rescue me, I wanted him to watch my back when I went to slay the dragon. I wanted to do what the heroes did—save the day. Who am I kidding? I still do. I am a girl in her late teens who has daily fantasies of casting down empires, leading armies, and pulling the sword from the stone.

I heartily agree with Miss Charlotte. This world most certainly does need more girls who go on adventures.