Pen to paper
Jun. 20th, 2009 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grimorie
Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...
Philip Pullman (b.1946)
1 High-Brow, -1 Violent, 3 Experimental and 3 Cynical!
Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Experimental and Cynical! These concepts are defined below.
Philip Pullman was already a prominent author of children's books when he published his most praised work to date, the trilogy known as His Dark Materials (1995-2000). In this work, set both in parallel worlds and our own, Pullman made a courageous attempt to write a book for young readers which incorporated a whole vision of the universe, as well as a discussion of ethical issues. He managed to combine this with a burst of thought-provoking and entertaining imagination, bringing to life a Europe where the church is still in control, "souls" that have been externalised as animal presences, intelligent, sentient polar bears and much more. The series have been described as a sort of "anti-Narnia", as Pullman's attempt to write an updated variant of the kind of books C S Lewis, whom Pullman has criticized for having racist, misogynic and preaching tendencies, wanted to write. His Dark Materials has also spawned some controversy among Christians, who see the the work as an attack against Christianity, Pullman being one of Britain's most outspoken atheists. Other Christians have, however, claimed to have found spirituality in the books.
Either way, Pullman's combination of renewal and expansion of the genre, his profound messages on the value of life and his refusal to under-estimate his young readers' ability to see life as it is makes Pullman one of the most interesting and important writers of modern fantasy.
You are also a lot like Tove Jansson.
If you want something some action, try Gene Wolfe.
If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, J R R Tolkien.
Philip Pullman was already a prominent author of children's books when he published his most praised work to date, the trilogy known as His Dark Materials (1995-2000). In this work, set both in parallel worlds and our own, Pullman made a courageous attempt to write a book for young readers which incorporated a whole vision of the universe, as well as a discussion of ethical issues. He managed to combine this with a burst of thought-provoking and entertaining imagination, bringing to life a Europe where the church is still in control, "souls" that have been externalised as animal presences, intelligent, sentient polar bears and much more. The series have been described as a sort of "anti-Narnia", as Pullman's attempt to write an updated variant of the kind of books C S Lewis, whom Pullman has criticized for having racist, misogynic and preaching tendencies, wanted to write. His Dark Materials has also spawned some controversy among Christians, who see the the work as an attack against Christianity, Pullman being one of Britain's most outspoken atheists. Other Christians have, however, claimed to have found spirituality in the books.
Either way, Pullman's combination of renewal and expansion of the genre, his profound messages on the value of life and his refusal to under-estimate his young readers' ability to see life as it is makes Pullman one of the most interesting and important writers of modern fantasy.
You are also a lot like Tove Jansson.
If you want something some action, try Gene Wolfe.
If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, J R R Tolkien.
Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy
I... am? Rly? I disliked the last book of the Golden Compass trilogy and its tainted the first two books for me plus all his other works. I have to think on this.
--
Speaking of writing I've been reading a lot of writing meta these past few days, specifically
synecdochic's writing posts. All very informative and interesting although some go over my head. One of the interesting posts is about point of view. I don't actually think about whose point of view I'll use when starting a story I just go ahead and write and through the course of putting pen to paper I'll realize whose viewpoint the story will be in.
I'm not very good with first person POV (I also don't enjoy reading from first POV. I could count on one hand the number of first person stories I liked) while I do like getting inside a character's head first person feels a little too intimate. Being that close to a character serves to only make me uncomfortable.
Its why I'd rather imagine the character inside my head in a sort of John Crichton - Harvey theater of the mind thing. This way I could accommodate other characters in my head, I'll just imagine them in separate rooms, or gathered in one room sitting around a table.
Plotting isn't my strong suit either. The primary reason would be because I'm not a linear writer, more often than not a story that I'm writing starts out with an idea/image of a scene much later into a story. I start writing a story and end up writing a scene that's in the fifth chapter and *then* I'll back to the first chapter. I'll try to figure out how the scene got there, what brought the character/s to that point.
I suppose its not very efficient and outlining would probably help. Well, I do outline but sometimes what I write never sticks to the outline. Also, I seem to really like writing epics or casefic. I pull off the odd short story but most of the time the plotbunnies that infect my mind end up longer than what I originally thought.
Another thing that happened is that most of the time two unrelated stories I'm writing actually end up becoming one story. This happened for After sunsets and the dooryards and Human Landscapes.
I struggled with both stories but HL in particular. I wanted to write a Dani Reese backstory but I kept stalling in a particular scene and I couldn't change point of view since I wanted it to be in Dani's POV. At that time I also wanted to write a casefile fic for Life and again kept hitting a snag until one evening as I was switching from one story to the other I realized I could fold the casefile fic into the backstory.
I could switch from Dani's past into the present especially since the murder was a supposed drug deal gone bad. After that things began to go smoothly (well, as smooth as it could be).
As I continued to write one other thing I realized about myself is that I love perception. I love reading and writing about how people perceive other people. I guess its part of the reason why I like writing from Ted's POV and even that stalled out Therapy fic (which I really want to finish except there has to be plot!).
Writing casefile fic is also another kettle of fish since I should at least be familiar with police procedure and despite watching a lot of procedurals I still feel like I'm a kid playing in a sandbox too big for me.
I'm also looking at the stalled original story I was writing for NaNoWriMo '08. Its a pity, I liked it but because I wasn't sure of my worldbuilding and, again, police procedural. That'd be my third attempt at NaNoWriMo.
The first was a fantasy loosely based on a few Filipino folklore set in a Tolkien sort of world, it was inspired by Galadriel and the Riddlemaster Trilogy. The second story was supposed to be a Space Opera. The story would revolve around Adarna Trace, a plucky and ambitious mechanic who inherited/bought a rundown ship and against all odds opened up a trading with a planet that's been closed off to other traders. This story was inspired by Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo series, Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels and Firefly.
The worldbuilding and plot worked against me and I couldn't really get a handle on Ada's character. She ended up being a series of quirks than a real character. It's sad because I'm really interested in finishing this story.
Then, of course there's the multiverse story that was eating my brain a few months ago. The one I wanted to turn into a webcomic. Unfortunately while my drawing skills improved a bit I'm still impatient and I just want to write down the story now. I think if I do push through with that story it mind end up being an illustrated novel rather than a webcomic.
I'm constantly amazed with mangaka's who're able to churn out fantastic stories while drawing, I wanted to do that too but my impatience is getting the better of me, which is too bad.
--
A new-to-me anime I just started watching is the Legend of Basara. Someone recommended the series to me a while back and I'm glad I found it. The premise seems interesting: set in post-apocalyptic Japan where Japan is ruled over by a tyrannical king. The king divided up Japan among his four sons, the fourth and youngest was sent to the desert where he became known as the ruthless Red King.
The one thing that gives populace hope is the prophecy about the Children of Destiny. A set of fraternal twins were born and on that day, the blind prophet Nagi declared Tatara, the boy, as the child of destiny.
Sasara, Tatara's twin sister has to live in her brother's shadow from that moment on. Fortunately, her Tatara isn't a spoiled brat but he actually seems like a nice kid. But throughout her childhood Sasara wonders what her purpose in life is other than Tatara's twin.
Tragedy strikes when the Red King invades their village and captures Tatara and in front of everyone, beheads Tatara. The villagers lose hope and are all too willing to die in the hands of the Red King's soldiers.
Until Sasara remembers her promise to Tatara: to protect the villagers when he's gone. And in from that moment on Sasara assumes the identity of her brother, Tatara leading the villagers to safety.
I really like what I've seen so far but the animation's a little dated since I assume this was made during the 80s and I'm not too keen with Sasara's seiyuu but the story is awesome. The first episode reminds me of Mulan and I liked that Sasara wasn't frozen in fear but rose up to the occasion and assumed Tatara's identity.
I guess, I'll take this to mean that Sasara is actually the child of destiny and not Tatara. I'll keep watching the anime, they've set up the board and I hope Sasara continues to play a large role in the series and not disappear.
