"It's the journey, not the destination" - part 1

The destination of every fairy tale is the happily ever after: wishes are fulfilled, true love conquers all, villains are  punished, and world order is restored. I deliberately chose to modernize a fairy tale because I'll be going in knowing all the checkpoints along the road. What I will be filling in is the why of the journey.

I'm treading the familiar ground of my previous post about character motivation, but I believe it is vital to understand why characters do what they do in order to make them believable so that in turn the story becomes believable. Character motivation is the first roadblock that I as a writer need to clear. Only then can my characters begin their journey.

Before things are set in motion, let's take a look at the world at rest. Since I am basing The Beggar's Wife on Grimm's King Thrushbeard, I already know I will have at least three characters: a princess, her father, and King Thrushbeard who disguises himself as a beggar.

In this post I want to focus on King Thrushbeard since I find him to be the most problematic character. According to the fairy tale, when he first meets the princess she is nothing but rude and ridicules him by giving him a terrible moniker. With only her beauty to recommend her, one is left wondering why King Thrushbeard would want to marry her at all.

There's something disturbing about a man who concocts an elaborate plot to marry and humble someone just for insulting him. Is his pride so frail that he is motivated by revenge? Does he simply hate women and is compelled to put them in their place? Or did he see past the princess's beauty and arrogance to some hidden goodness deep down inside her?

King Thrushbeard definitely has a devious quality to his personality that I find intriguing. He is a scoundrel, albeit a likeable one. In other words, he has a hint of Odyssean guile.

Character Motivation

I love fairy tales, particularly the Grimm fairy tales in all their visceral glory. One of my favorites is König Drosselbart a.k.a. King Thrushbeard.  The tale is essentially a "taming of the shrew" story. The haughty princess snobbishly spurns her suitors and as punishment is married off to a beggar who subjects her to a series of humiliations meant to break her proud spirit. Once humbled and properly put in her place, the beggar reveals himself to the princess as the spurned King Thrushbeard and all ends well. When all is said and done, the story plays out like typical patriarchal propaganda: men know best and women must be subservient to their wishes. 

Illustration by Arthur Rackham

For the love of you I disguised myself...All this was was done to humble your proud spirit and to punish you for the arrogance with which you ridiculed me.

For The Beggar's Wife I would like to update King Thrushbeard with 21st century sensibilities. Which brings me to character motivation.


In fairy tales we never get to find out why a character is behaving in a particular way - these stories are too busy moralizing to delve any deeper. In novels, however, the reader wants to know the reasons why characters decide to do particular things. 

• Why is the princess so arrogant and mean to her suitors?
• How can a father be so cruel as to marry his daughter not only to a stranger but to a beggar?
• Why would King Thrushbeard fall in love with a snobbish princess only to humiliate her and seek to rid her of the very arrogance that presumably attracted him to her in the first place?

If characters are properly motivated, then their actions and the story itself becomes believable. My goal is to find answers to these questions. Since the novel will be based on a fairy tale, I already know what will happen. The question that remains as it transitions into a novel is why.

Award time!

Since I hadn't checked my blog in so long I didn't realize I had received two lovely awards.

My sincerest and deepest thanks go to both Deirdra-Eden Coppel and A.M. Supinger for giving me the CREATIVE BLOG AWARD and VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD respectively.

As part of accepting the VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD I need to share seven things about myself as well as pass this award to five newly discovered bloggers.

So let's get the personal stuff out of the way.


Seven things about myself:

1. I've hiked along the continental divide.
2. I've had my palm read in Thailand.
3. I watched the Hale-Bopp Comet grace the night sky.
4. In 1999 I didn't party like it was 1999.
5. Books I've read more than once: The Last Unicorn and Stars My Destination.
6. I slept through a Category 5 hurricane.
7. I've been to (or at least passed through) every state of the Eastern Seaboard.

Now I shall pass the VERSATILE BLOG AWARD onto 5 newly discovered bloggers (in no particular order):

1. Stefan's Place
2. Authorial Intent
3. Jennifer's Musings
4. Meredith Mansfield's Blog
5. Open Letters to Writers

At a Crossroads

To quote The Clash: 

This indecision is bugging me.

It's been a very long while since I last posted on my blog. Lately I have been giving a lot of thought to the state of my writing. My greatest difficulty is deciding what to write and sticking to it.

I am standing at a crossroads and I honestly don't know which direction to take.

I have several stories in varying states of progress. The ones that I keep obsessing over are the following:

Fantasy: The Beggar's Wife
Paranormal Fantasy: Spell On You

I know I need to just choose one but which?

I'm tempted to just to write these titles on little pieces of paper, put them in a hat, and focus on which ever one I randomly pull out. I think that's what I will do for Nanowrimo.

 

Identity Crisis

I haven't written in a while.

I'm sort of having an identity crisis since I keep asking myself am I writer or am I a wanna-be writer? Part of what is holding me back is the chasm that exists between effort and reward. In other words, I am coming to terms with the very real likelihood that I am just writing solely for myself. My stories may never be published. Writing is definitely different from most other endeavors since it typically requires an audience. It's hard to write in a vacuum.

So I ask myself am I OK with that?

I still haven't come up with an answer.

Endings. They are my enemy!

I am having a hard time coming up with endings for several works in progress. Because my writing tends to stall I am trying to outline first before plunging headlong into the stories. I feel if I have a clear picture of how I want a story structured I will stand a fighting chance of actually finishing it.

When I think of endings I always think of the last two lines of T.S. Eliot's famous poem THE HOLLOW MEN:

This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

That's how I end up feeling when it comes to my stories - like a whimpering fool. My stories just limp their way towards an ending that always seems elusive and out of reach. In my effort to revitalize my muse I re-read what Orson Scott Card had to say about structuring stories in his two books CHARACTERS & VIEWPOINTS and HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY.

To paraphrase, he recommends one first determine the type of story one is writing based on the MICE quotient (Milieu, Idea, Character, Event). Each type of story creates expectations in the reader of both a particular beginning and an ending. For instance, if one is writing a Character Story then it has begin at the point when the main character is unhappy with their current role in life and seeks out to change it. It's ending therefore has to be the point when that character does one of three things: finds a new role, willingly returns to the old one, or despairs.

That said, I believe my problem is not so much in figuring out an ending but in determining the type of story I am telling. I think most of my stories are a mix of Character and Event stories. I just need to determine which type dominates. Once I do, I think the ending will become clear in my mind.

Unheeded Advice

Apparently, I cannot put good advice into practice. Like a moth to the flame I allow myself to be constantly sidetracked by new ideas and end up with nothing.

These are the tentative titles to my current works in progress:

Third Encounters of the Worst Kind - a speculative flash fiction piece sitting at 615 words, in desperate need of an ending.

The Necromancer's Daughter - intended as a sword and sorcery short story, sitting at 490 words.

I have plenty more on the back burner. I don't even want to list them because I think it will just depress me.