A Dark Night in Seoul

The new school year has commenced and I am, as always, thoroughly overwhelmed by its newness. But you don't want to read about such things. Meanwhile, I am awaiting the final approval of my so-called horror novel* A DRY PATCH OF SKIN. Then it shall be released to the masses like some kind of nasty plague!

Until such time, I must fill a blog page with something, right? 

Recently I got into a discussion about Korea. I visited a few times back in the early 90s when everything was pre-post-cold war-esque there. That is, before the North's sabre rattling and other miscellaneous events in the region. I was living in Japan at that time and teaching English as a foreign language to middle school students of Saga City. I was making a trip back home to Kansas City during the August school break. My first visit to Korea was only supposed to be as a transit point.

Here is the desperate tale for your amusement, straight from an ancient journal I kept....

A Dark Night in Seoul

 I was trying to save money on the airfare, so I went through a travel agent in Seoul, Korea, whom other teachers had used before. The price was right, but I never figured in the price of all the extra hassles.  

First, I had to buy separate round-trip tickets from Fukuoka, Japan to Seoul.  

Once in Seoul, I had to wait 3 hours for my Northwest Airlines flight. The brand new Boeing 747-400 (the largest commercial airplane in the world) arrived late, so we had to wait longer, finally boarding an hour late. The crew was going through their preflight checks when all of a sudden all the power went off—engines, lights, air conditioning. We sat in silence for 40 minutes, quite sweltering inside the plane, before they off-loaded us. 

After 45 more minutes, they reboarded us.  We started to back away from the terminal gate when everything went dead again! I was thinking, as I’m sure many other passengers were, “We’re gonna be flying non-stop over the Pacific Ocean for twelve hours, so let’s make sure the power’s not gonna go off somewhere out there!” After ten minutes, they kicked over the engine and we continued, and it was a VERY nervous takeoff!

The airplane never did lose power again, thankfully. The pilot explained that we would be taking the Great Circle route, sending us north across Japan, up over Alaska, and down across western Canada to Detroit, our final destination.  

Because of our 3 hour departure delay, all the earphones for music and the movies were free (usually $4). But, also because of our delay, most people would be missing their connecting flights. I had a three hour wait for my flight to Kansas City, anyway, so I thought I could still catch it. 

After dinner, news program, two movies (“Accidental Tourist”—slow but interesting—and “Beaches”—slept through half of it), an intermission snack, breakfast, and a magnificent sunrise over the crescent horizon 40,000 feet high, we landed in Detroit. I had an hour and a half to catch my flight, but I knew we had to go through immigration and customs. The lines were screwed up and all the foreigners went ahead of us. I tried to get as far ahead in line as possible, and I made good time. They should have let those of us who could still catch our flights go first, but.... 

So I rushed through the terminal, knocking over kids and leaping over old ladies. I slid up to the check-in counter, my boarding pass for Kansas City in my hand. 

"Don’t tell me flight 1149’s left already!” I called out.  

“Five minutes ago, sir,” they replied.  

Why is it that CURRENT flights are always late and ALL connecting flights are always on time!?!?  

So I still had a 3 hour wait—as originally planned—for the next flight to Kansas City. At least they felt sorry for me enough to give me a meal voucher, which I used to get a rather good steak dinner. When I arrived in Kansas City, my cousin was waiting--3 hours!--because in those days there were no cell phones (and once he left home to pick me up at the original time, he would not be there to answer the land-line phone in his house).

Returning to Saga, Japan at the end of my vacation was even more exciting.  

Back in Detroit again to catch the KAL flight to Seoul, there were heavy thunderstorms so all planes were grounded as the thick curtains of rain passed overhead. Then they started to get the plane ready; another 3 hour delay! 

When I checked in at Detroit, I found out that the flight stopped in Tokyo! My dumb travel agent didn’t even know—or care. I thought, that’s great! I could go straight back to Saga from Tokyo (my Fukuoka-Seoul ticket was a full fare ticket so it was exchangeable).  But—big problem—my suitcase had been checked through to Seoul when I got on in Kansas City. They said in Detroit to check when I got to Tokyo. 

When I arrived at Tokyo-Narita Airport, I did check, but I forgot that I was now in Japan, the land of “Let’s be Trendy” and “Don’t Stand Out or Rock the Boat,” so naturally, they weren’t too excited at my plight. ‘Let’s be One of the Group’ they seemed to be saying—no special favors here. 

So they wouldn’t call down to the plane and have them extract my suitcase, even though we had a FOUR HOUR layover.  Yes, I could get off here, and yes, my ticket could be used to go straight to Fukuoka (and Saga) this very night, and yes, the other airline even had plenty of seats available, but...if I wanted my suitcase, I had to go all the way to Seoul to claim it! 

So I went, mad-as-hell, but I went to Seoul.

The big gate in Seoul, South Korea.

With all of the delays, our flight was the last one of the night at Kimpo Airport outside of Seoul, and after we all went through the airport, the security guards with rifles were going to close it. Everybody outside! 

I tried to call the hotel that this same travel agent had supposedly made a reservation for me at (same place where her office was), but they did not have a reservation for me, nor did they have ANY rooms! 

It was rather a bad feeling to get off a twenty-hour flight in a strange city and country where you don’t speak the language, with the airport closing and there's no room at the inn. Taxi men were constantly coming up to me with my bags on a cart asking if I needed a taxi. Well, that certainly seemed suspicious! I kept telling them in English I didn’t need a taxi until I had a destination. But with the airport closing, destination or not, I had little choice.

One guy who was patient enough to stick with me without scaring me, asked which hotel I was going to and I said I didn’t have a hotel anymore. He replied, “We go find hotel—got phone in car—we go hotel.” 

So I said OK. 

He called three hotels from the car, found one with a room—about three blocks away from my “first” hotel. He shouted at the bellboys to grab my bags when we arrived and he ushered me inside and up to the front desk and spoke Korean to the desk clerk, getting me a room with a discount rate (it was just after midnight, so half price—about $25). 

During our drive we talked, and at the hotel he confirmed with me when my flight left the next day. I told him 3 (my confirmed flight was really at 6, but I was hoping to get on an earlier flight), so he insisted on picking me up at the hotel at 12 noon.  

The next day, just as I finished my brunch at 11:30, there he was. He carried my bags down from my room and loaded them in the taxi and off we went. 

In the daylight, he pointed out all the features of Seoul that we passed, including some of the Olympic facilities and the US Military compound. At the airport, he grabbed a cart and piled my bags on it. Naturally, for all his unexpected, extra, but valuable assistance—he single-handedly turned my nightmare night in Seoul into a reasonably good experience—I tipped him well, though tipping is not the custom in Korea.  

I did manage to catch the earlier flight so I went home to Fukuoka and Saga.

True story. And it still counts as a blog post, right? I suppose times are very different now, both in East Asia and in the airline industry. Later, while again teaching in Japan, I took an extended trip across the southern tier of South Korea, from Pusan to Mok'po, and that just might become another blog post! 

아름다운 하루 되세요!


*As for the genre called "horror", I remain a bit confused about exactly how scary a story must be to be in this category. Because it involves someone's transformation into a vampire yet without all of the usual paranormal trappings, beta readers have called it horror or even "literary horror". If anyone reading this is a confirmed Horror reader, please advise. Thanks.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Back to School Blues

First day of classes. Enough said. 

Enough blogging.

Thanks for your patience. I shall return.

But for the day job go I.

Meanwhile, please go to my friend's blog Life in the Realm of Fantasy and read Connie's take on moods. 

I remain nonplussed at the moment.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Does this cover make you itch?

Life is full of choices, some people say. One of them may be whether to read this forthcoming medical thriller/contemporary vampire tale. The tropes are the same, as required in the genre, but each volume, no matter the author, must play with them in different ways. 

In A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, the main character does not believe in vampires. Then he does not believe he will become one. Then he fights against becoming one. The conflict is generated by our hero's desperation to stay normal, both for his own comfort and to be able to stay with his new lover. It's a complicated process. Each of the usual characteristics (tropes) of a vampire, and becoming a vampire, are examined in various scenes and accepted as plausible or disproven as medically impossible by the characters in the scenes. And yet, there is always "magical realism" to fly in, rather like a bat out of hell, to save the day!

Today I reveal the latest cover for this so-called vampire novel. Because the title refers to a diagnostic situation, I thought to use some medical-related image. I received many suggestions for syringes dripping blood. Squeamish myself, I dismissed those ideas. I found several truly hideous faces, people with advanced disease disfigurement, but I did not want to scare away readers from even opening the cover. I also did not want something too obviously related to vampire tales. I was not rewriting Twilight or Dracula, after all.

The twists in the plot lent to the cover art design the idea of Gothic horror and the sub-culture Goth. I looked at a lot of Goth girls--I was doing research!--and searched for a duplicate of the character in the novel. No such luck--because my imagination is much more vivid than my mundane reality. I returned to the "love story" aspect and continued searching for something that would speak volumes about some major theme of the novel, until I found what you now see: a couple embracing, maybe for the last time, as their situation becomes dire.

So I went with a basic black and white design, adding a catch-phrase line in blood red just for the amusement of those vampiriacs who cannot drink the words. Yes, I'm sick that way.

And now...without further adieu...the cover!

The actual line from the novel which has been repeated on the cover goes a little like this:

It was easy to drive to the hotel where a room should still be waiting for me, although I had yet to spend a night in it. The hotel staff would be happy to keep charging my MasterCard for whatever days my name was associated with the room. At least I could get a cold shower and change into fresh clothes. Then I would decide what to do next. After all, life has choices, I often told myself. But so does death.

It comes late in the book, as our hero (or shall we dub him anti-hero at this point?) is reflecting on his life. Perhaps he had been thinking a similar thought earlier, in several instances, but it was not recorded in the first-person narrative because it did not mean so much until this later scene. I hope that is not any kind of a spoiler. It is, of course, not so much what happens as how it happens in these kind of stories. I trust the journey will be full of pathos, romance, horror, and gut-wrenching insight into the nature of humanity. 

Either way, I'll be starting on the next book soon enough. I think I'll try Epic Fantasy. Thanks for your support!

www.myrddinpublishing.com

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

What We Gain From Loss

Life makes you take turns, wait your turn, and often turn around so much you get dizzy. Instead of rushing on into the heady world of publishing thrill, I've been forced to pause and consider everything in the world around me. Oh, the new novel is fine, waiting its turn. Summer vacation is full of the usual indolence. The day job is waiting like a closed oyster. And the laundry is done. But something is missing. There is a strange emptiness here.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said that all we have to fear is fear itself. The point was that worrying about something can be as crippling as the effect of the something actually happening. In the same way, fearing loss can be as debilitating as experiencing the loss itself. But loss is its own strange animal. 

Perhaps what a person fears most is loss of him/herself: loss of identity, loss of agency. When you are no longer who you are, who you have always believed yourself to be--when you lose that facade or mask you relied on for so long and people see you for who you really are, a kind of psychological nakedness--that kind of loss can be as real and as painful as death. Loss of agency, your ability to make a mark in the world, to make your own way, to act for your own benefit--can also be as devastating as a physical injury or paralysis yet it can come in psychological forms just as a loss of identity can.

Loss is the principal issue in many of my novels, it seems. It is easy to see in hindsight. Perhaps I chose that theme unconsciously or perhaps there was something intriguing about loss that drove me to explore it and its pain. After all, having a character lose something important and struggle to regain it is always a great way to introduce tension and advance the plot.

Of course there is the obvious loss of the significant other in a character's life. In AFTER ILIUM, Alex Parris loses Elena, the woman he has been having an affair with, and that loss drives him to take all kinds of risks to get her back. Along the way, he is threatened with the loss of his identity--how he sees himself, the kind of man he has been taught to be--and with loss of agency (his inability to act for himself, first by being in a jail, then by peer pressure to act differently than for his own interests, then by violence).

In THE DREAM LAND Trilogy, Sebastian is initially hurt by the loss of his love interest, Gina, but as he grows into his role as interdimensional voyager and accepts all that role entails, he becomes caught up with a life full of threats to his identity. He gets a little schizophrenic (mere IRS clerk or warrior on another world?) and from that wound also paranoid as he sees that others do not see him as he sees himself. Through the trilogy he is constantly losing and fighting to regain many things. It never gets easy. In Book III, Gina faces the loss of her daughter, who she gives up in order to save her.

Eric, the male protagonist in the campus anti-romance A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and his female counterpart, Iris, have each suffered loss in their lives. When they find each other one winter night, they think the losses will cease. They think they have plugged the gaps--only to find they become each other's worst enemy. Each has a plan for the other but they do not accept such plans because they represent loss of identity.

Now, in my new novel, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, our hero, Stefan, faces the greatest loss of all: his own bodily integrity. As he fights against nature--and God--he fights against the loss of himself. He does not want to transform, against his will, into a hideous and grotesque creature of the night. Moreover, it is that transformation that will cause him to lose Penny, the love of his life, who he refuses to let see him as he becomes uglier. He sees himself condemned to a painful, miserable, lonely existence: complete loss of identity, agency, and love.

People lose lots of things. Some things are given away, purposefully or haphazardly, with or without regret. Others are taken away. Car keys, card games, a race to a traffic light, the city's sports team's championship. People lose first grandparents, then parents, sometimes siblings, sometimes children. Fathers lose wives, mothers lose babies, babies lose fights with nature. People lose jobs. People lose weight. They lose pets. They lose homes. They lose their sense of well-being. They lose their safety. They lose their peace. They lose a pair of shoes they somehow misplaced. But misplacement means the shoes still exist, only they are in another realm. And loss itself can be when something you have is destroyed, whether deliberately or accidentally. You no longer have it. When the tornado comes, people cry out that all is lost--and it often is.

Or loss can be when you hope or expect or anticipate having something and then it doesn't arrive. It's rather like a child's Christmas wish. You have sat on Santa's lap begging for that special toy and the big guy assures you that you'll get it. Parents confirm you'll get it. So you wait anxiously through the days, even counting them off, looking forward to that wonderful day. But instead of that gift you have desired, there is nothing. Not a lump of coal, not even a stocking hung with care. Nothing. It's as though Christmas has been canceled and all the trappings have been taken down. It's as though the holiday never existed and your hopes and dreams never were hoped, never were dreamed. And everything is as it was before. You are returned to the heat of summer and Christmas seems years away again. That is what real loss is: never having that one precious thing.

So grab hold of all you have and be glad for it. Take pictures and stencil id numbers on everything. Lock them away. Then stare into the nearest mirror and make sure you are who you want to be. And always love your bunnies.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Are you itching to read A DRY PATCH of SKIN?

As those who have been following this blog must know (and those who spy on those who follow), I recently finished a new novel, my one and only entry into the genre of vampire tales: A DRY PATCH OF SKIN. (You can read more about it on an earlier blog post and here.)

The story is narrated by Stefan Szekely, the happy-go-lucky lab technician who one day notices a dry patch of skin on his cheek. Just as he is falling in love and building a wonderful relationship with local TV reporter Penny Park, he begins to suffer from a certain affliction for which he seeks treatment, if not an outright cure.

Let me share with you some trivia as the manuscript begins its journey from twisted mind to slick, published novel.


A DRY PATCH OF SKIN is a rare example (for me) of a title coming first and the text making use of that phrase in several places in the book. I knew from the start that I wanted to write more of a medical thriller of someone "turning into" a vampire rather than simply another paranormal romance. Here are a few excerpts:

What will be the first sign? Will it simply be a dry patch of skin? An odd blemish? A discoloration?

“I do care about you,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound positive. “We can’t let a dry patch of skin get between us, now can we?”

“So...what brings you here this morning?” asked the perky physician’s assistant.
“A dry patch of skin,” I said glumly.

“Hey, you know who else is allergic to garlic?”
“No, who?”
“Dracula.” 
She burst into laughter. Until she saw my stern face—with the dry patch of skin on my cheek. 

I was not going to let a dry patch of skin defeat me and make me miserable for the remainder of my life. 

In deciding to write a vampire novel, I had the challenge of avoiding everything that had been done before. That was not too much of a problem as I tended to want to spoof them--well, not spoof, exactly, but poke fun at them, just for fun. The characters are aware of Bram Stoker and Stephanie Meyer, of the TV shows and the movies, and frequently make comparisons between those and what is happening in my book. It often makes for great comedy.

Mother Park inquired about my ancestry, amused that my name was, for her, unpronounceable. She alluded to the Twilight books, suggesting I looked like that Edward Cullen character but with different hair—better hair. She went on and on about that series, practically telling me the whole story, as we consumed our dinner. Penny tried to intervene.

“He doesn’t want to hear about that vampire stuff,” she said, flashing me an expression of sympathy.

“I’m only saying there’s a resemblance,” said Mother Park.

“There is no resemblance,” Penny countered.

“If not that Edward then his father, the doctor, Mister Cullen. Since your boyfriend is older, he could pass for Mister Cullen. He’s a very handsome man—I mean, vampire. They’re all popular now.”

“No, it’s zombies that are popular now. Not vampires. That trend has passed.”

When they paused to take a breath, I spoke up:

“I think both of them merely play to humanity’s fear of the unknown, especially that age-old concept of the abnormal couched within the normal. That is, a real, biologically viable man who is yet again not a man but something undead. It’s the same with zombies: they’re normal for the most part yet they’re infected with some fatal flaw that renders what once was a perfectly normal, lovable family member into an unexpected, unthinking evil. That’s what scares people. That something normal can so easily be transformed into something abnormal. It’s got nothing to do with some disease or a weird appearance that someone might have. It’s the visceral fear of transformation into something hideous—and with no cure—that forces us to irrevocably face our mortality.”

They stared at me and we could hear the crickets all the way over in Korea warming up for the night’s chorus.

“He reads a lot,” said Penny.

and

“No, what is it? What skin disease do I have?”

She lifted a hand and placed it on my shoulder, the typical doctor-patient confidentiality pose. “I hate to break it to you, but it seems that you are a vampire.”

“A what...?”

“It’s circumstantial, obviously.”

She saw that I was not amused.

“I’m kidding,” she said, removing her hand from my shoulder.

“I hope you are.”

“It’s all those Twilight movies. And then they got shows on TV. Lots of rip-offs. It’s all pop-culture now. Can’t escape it. So many sexy vampire hunks and sexy vampire vixens. The Vampire Diaries; that’s what it’s called. Ever see it? Oh, and another show: True Blood. And I got a paperback out in the car that’s a vampire story. Heart Search is the name. Vampires in love.”

I remained unamused.

“Don’t worry, Stefan. I didn’t mean to tease you. It’s just a...a trend society is going through. You know, one of those vampire hunks is named Stefan, also?”

My original idea for the climax and conclusion of the novel did not please me once I got there. I struggled with what the characters were experiencing. Then, like so many other nights, a dream saved me. I awoke and went immediately to the computer to rewrite the penultimate chapter and make changes in other chapters to connect with the new storyline. That made the novel into a beautiful allegory. 

As such, you may find the number 3 used a lot in the sense of the Christian trinity. There are three acts. Key events happen at 3:33 a.m. or p.m. Our hero stays in three hospitals, meets three women, and so on. He visits three countries in Europe: Germany, Hungary, and Croatia. And he converses with God: at first teasing, then as equals, then humbly, making deals, begging to be saved from his affliction. This is not intended, however, to be a "Christian fiction" book.

Another interesting trivia thing that I noticed but did not really contrive to put in is the variety of modes of transportation our hero, Stefan Szekely, uses throughout the novel.

1. by foot
2. by bicycle
3. by personal car
4. by SUV
5. by rental car (twice)
6. by airplane (a few times)
7. by cargo ship
8. by express train
9. by local line train
10. by street car/tram

As a bonus, our hero, Stefan Szekely, flirts with riding a horse, but--pay attention, trivia gamblers; you could win a bet someday--the horse is spooked by his evil presence and so he cannot actually ride the horse!

NEXT TIME: Cover reveal and official blurb!

NOTE: My gamma reader approved the so-called final draft but then I took a knife to it anyway, trimming more fat here and there, a single word or sentence at a time. It is now in the hands of my delta reader...who [trivia note] is the model for Mother Park in the book.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

One Thing Never to Blog About: Reviews

You know how things happen when you least expect them to but they leave you with a feeling like you just gotta say something? 

Yes? Well, here's my something. It will read like a rant, for which I must apologize. However, I assure you that I was probably drunk at the time so it's not really my fault. I should probably blame Facebook, where it is so easy to post things you regret the next morning. In the end, I intended no offense to anyone, anywhere. Honestly.

One of these days I'm going to remember to promote my novels again. Until such a time, look me up at Amazon. And if you can add to my review tally, I'll send you the book of your choice as a Kindle gift to read. 

Top of Form

[Returning to that Facebook post the next day...]

Oh dear. Did I really post that? I thought I was drunk. 

But, yes, I had a fair number of reviews before the great Amazon purge, when they removed everyone's reviews, believing they were all fake. I only had two novels out at that time but lost about a dozen reviews.

Then I got lazy. For me, being lazy means locked in my own mental ward writing something new...which is always preferable to doing the promotion thing. Besides, I'm rather altruistic and introverted when it comes to promotion; hate to foist anything upon anyone. And there's no accounting for taste; sometimes a story is just not someone's cup of tea, no matter how well written it may be.

I've always written stories that interested me, following the axiom of write the kind of stories you want to read. I've been very good about following that idea. Whether others want to read them is, of course, another fair question. But, really, that is the lesser question because I have always, right from the start, written to entertain myself and gave little thought to what to do with them next. Maybe I'll be accused of coming to this conclusion after not selling massive amounts of books, like it's a kind of salve for the soul. Possibly; only a psychiatrist would know. Perhaps I came to this conclusion while deep in a meditative pose? Would that make it more or less valid?

At any rate, selling some and having the readers express enjoyment of them is the most basic measure of success to me. My only rule is that I will never make a book free--unless given as a gift to a specific person, of course. I believe "free" cheapens the product, and for what it's worth, I put in a lot of time and effort to produce a novel, as all writers do. It's worth at least the token 99 cents.

I must be drunk again to write a rant such as this. Never mind. I've got my latest novel, the vampire story, locked away for the two-week crap test. If it survives, I'll seek a gamma reader and go from there. Onward and upward. The day job awaits!

[And returning the following day...]

It occurred to me this morning as I was preparing to go to school for the summer class I'm teaching, that someone will remind me to consider the reader or some variation on that meme.

The quick and easy answer is I do consider the reader. I consider the reader during revision, editing, and proofreading. The first draft, however, belongs to me: I am trying to please myself and not really thinking of who else may one day read it. Only later do I take on the role of objective reader and try to shape the manuscript into something perhaps more palatable.

The longer and more complex answer is that there is a fine line between challenging the reader and, for lack of a better phrasing, making it easy for the reader. I see the dumbing down of education every day and I am swept along with that tide. One sign is the reluctance of young people to read anything which requires sustained attention and reflection. The Tweet is the perfect medium for these people.

So should an author make it easy for a reader? I'm sure if I tried I could boil down a novel into a paragraph, but it would necessarily lose a lot of deeper meaning, nuances, the beauty of the language, and heart and soul of the fictional people dealing with their crises.

I prefer to lean toward challenging. Not challenging in the way, say, James Joyce did with Finnegan's Wake. I want the text to be clear, certainly, and the meaning not obscured. But the story must flow with its own inner fire and sometimes that means the reader must meet the author half-way, at least.

In fact, what keeps a reader going? It's bizarre enough that someone willingly chooses to read about something he/she already knows is a lie. Fiction is a lie we accept for the sake of entertainment...and perhaps some kind of catharsis. So it's rather like a performance, a stage play: Here is the play which I have created. Sit back and enjoy it. If by the end, or somewhere in the middle, it is not to your liking, you are free to leave. It would not be the same medium if a reader could intervene in a novel.

Unlike the interactive video games available today, can we allow the reader to decide at any point in the story what a character should say or do, or how the plot should turn or twist, or who actually is killed in the end? No, it's already set, just like performing a play. You can have endless debates afterward, of course, but in the product itself (a play or a novel) the performance is already done and the reader must experience it as it unfolds according to the instructions of the author.

Yes, there's plenty of room for self-indulgence in the author's tasks, but most of us weed out those examples of purple prose and kill our darlings to a reasonable degree. (I wrote about this in a recent blog post.) But how are we as a society, as a civilization, as the keepers of literary culture supposed to go on without some maintenance of the standard, any standard, which assures our performance on the page is welcomed and ultimately appreciated?

New things always come and then, for better or worse, always go. Ebooks then self-publishing then whatever is next occupy our attention, but the imagination, the construction of texts never ends.

Sorry for all the literary criticism jabs. I was considering my readers when I decided to make short paragraphs and add blank lines between them to make the reading easier. 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How to Make Purple Prose a little more Blue

Dear Blog Readers, once again Yours Truly has been accused (albeit in a playful manner) of writing Purple Prose! 

Pshaw! My first thought was about which color might be in question because my usual font color is black. But it quickly occurred to me that I really do tend, at times, to lean toward the morbidly obese when it comes to richly compiled sentences. What I have just written may be an unworthy example of it.

I suppose we are all guilty of flowery language and purple prose when we are writing. At least at some time or other. It's not really that we want to show off. It's not that the scene or the character really needs it in order to be authentic. And we know what it is and that we should avoid it. After all, it slows down the reading, makes the reader have to work harder to comprehend what is happening, and in the end does not afford us any kudos for our highly honed verbal wordplay.

Recently, I had such a linguistic joust with a writer colleague who swears she is going to have her own blog post on the subject. One thing that came from that exchange was the idea of metaphors and, in particular, how a writer can build a beautiful, poignant metaphor (perhaps even one that advances the story) as a substitute for using purple prose or flowery language. 

Yes, it's possible to craft a deep thought or feeling from plain, ordinary language.

Now that I've finished my Work-In-Progress (WIP), *A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, which I now can refer to as my Work-Just-Finished (WJF), I was able to quickly pull out a couple of convenient examples. Let's deconstruct one of them to see how a simply-worded metaphor can stand in for flowery language or purple prose.


[Set-up: At this point in the story, the protagonist is facing a desperate situation and, with no other recourse, turns to God--with whom he has been feuding during his journey to seek a cure his for his fatal disease. The following paragraph comes after the end of the soliloquy (spoken aloud) but is in standard first-person narrative.]


A flake of snow alighted on my nose, then more flurries fell around me. Probably it was God sending me a sign, but as usual nicely disguised and suitably vague. But I did not stop to gaze at the snowflakes. I knew they would melt. They always do. And become someone’s tears.

Not a high-brow word in that entire paragraph. 


Sentence #1 is merely a statement about the weather. Some readers may instantly latch onto snow as a metaphor, but that would only be because we have been trained through all of our previous reading of the literary canon to think that way.

In Sentence #2, the protagonist himself makes the comparison between the snow and a message from God, and by extension, so does the reader. His personalized assessment of the message (disguised, vague) gives us some of his (the protagonist's) mindset, further building the metaphor. Hence, if the sudden snow falling upon him is a message from God it is typically vague, thus requiring him to do the interpreting of the message.

Sentence #3 is a bit of a switchback on the road to metaphor. He takes the snow as a message from God but refuses to get caught up in interpreting the message.

Sentence #4 becomes a rebuttal to Sentence #3: He did not concern himself with the snow because he knew the flakes would melt. In a metaphorical sense, the symbols that the snow flakes represent will melt, hence become nothing (in a moral sense)--or in a practical, realistic way, nothing of significance. 

Sentence #5 is simply a trailing fragment of Sentence #4 but, left as a fragment, it becomes a separate, added comment rather part of the original comment of Sentence #4. The effect is two separate ideas, not one combined idea. There is a difference. If one wanted to, a semi-colon would probably work just as well to join these two sentences.

A day after writing the paragraph, I returned to read through it and make sure it said what I wanted it to say and felt the way I wanted it to feel. Then I added the final sentence. Just four simple words.

Sentence #6. Here is the metaphor--the leap of link between a fact of snow falling, a character's thoughts about God that are sparked by the snow falling, then a rebuttal or dismissal of those thoughts, and finally that leap into the metaphor. Snow obviously does not become actual tears. That happens only in the imaginary sense. It is the character who, like many real people might, makes that comparison.


That is what metaphor is. 

I've been reading a fascinating book about metaphor (I is an Other) in which author James Geary declares that everything is a metaphor. That is, if it is not the actual, physical thing itself, it can only be a description of the thing (my words). He further elaborates on the brain's unique ability to form patterns from each and every experience we have. Then, upon encountering a new experience, the brain relies on the patterns it has stored to determine if the new thing is in any way like something previously encountered. Metaphor is that practice of pattern-forming. This is like that, therefore, I can identify certain properties of this new thing which match the old thing and I'm ahead in the game of identification. 

But I digress....

In fiction writing, we do not use metaphor for survival or to make patterns per se, but rather as shortcuts, as more interesting ways of introducing emotions, connections, and other perhaps esoteric claptrap. Sometimes they work, sometimes not.** But purple prose and flowery language can be dismissed in favor of the carefully constructed metaphor which, in the end, is usually going to be more powerful and more beautiful than a stream of beautiful words themselves.

*I hope to have this medical thriller/vampire tale available for end of year holiday shopping.

**My first novel, AFTER ILIUM, has sections of "flowery language"--'tis true--but I believed it was warranted and appropriate because it is reflecting the romantic hero's mindset as he works his way through a seduction and an affair. Conversely, once the affair ends and reality is thrust upon him, the writing style is quite lean, even terse--matching the survival effort he faces where there is no room for frivolous thought.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

How and Why to Unmurder Someone

As many of my 35,000 followers, likers, G+ers, tumblrites, fellow writers, beloved readers, and their assorted dogs and cats, and children of all ages know, I have been writing a new novel which I have decided to title A DRY PATCH OF SKIN.

I've written (i.e., blogged) previously about the origin of this story and its name.

About a month ago I finished the first first draft, which is always a writer's first truly significant milestone--or word count stone? page number stone? Well, woo hoo and hurrah! Right? Nope.

Now I can begin the real work. I like to imagine a potter getting all his wet clay together and finally tossing it all on the spinning wheel. Yes, it's all there but it's hardly finished, and it hardly looks like something anyone would want. But you have all the clay there. Good for you! Now you work with it, shaping it, fashioning it into something beautiful, something which has value, something people would want.

As many of you who craft these novel things know, sometimes things just don't fit together neatly. Yes, I got my hero to the intended destination but not in the smoothest or most convincing way. Plot holes haunted me. Now, I'm not admitting there are any; I admit only that I knew there were spots I would return to and fix once I reached the end. So I did. Fixed. But it took a whole rewrite of a chapter, and in that process, a nameless young man got to live rather than die.

Yes, I unmurdered someone. It felt good, too. It's not as though he was essentially a good and decent person anyway. That was not the reason for his unmurder. I revisited the scene and looked at it from a couple different angles--much as a film director might go stand over there or there to see how the stage looks. For me, it was a matter of practicality.

You see, murder is a big deal, whether in real life or fiction, and it has consequences. My hero would be pursued, arrested, questioned, perhaps go to trial, lose and be locked up. And is that any way for a novel to end? Sure, I suppose there's some irony in that scenario, where the hero does not get to fulfill his journey's goal. But that is not what I can allow to happen. So, rather than a fight than ends with a young man dying, it may be enough that the young man suffers a serious ass-whooping and runs off.

Then our fine hero can mope about how he almost killed someone but did not. It's enough that there is blood sprayed. Besides, he knows God would approve of him showing mercy upon the young man. That's a fresh angle to the story: the tests that God may or may not be setting in the way of our hero's desperate journey to save himself from the steadily encroaching disfigurement of his disease. No, ladies and gentlemen, he does not want to transform into a vampire. He would prefer to find a cure for his medical condition and be able to return to his Beloved for a long, happy life with her.

Any more would likely take us into Spoiler territory.

However, I can offer the first page of this forthcoming medical thriller / vampire tale.

A DRY PATCH OF SKIN

1

The priest stood before me in his black suit and white collar. His eyes studied me as I approached, strolling quietly up the aisle of this small chapel set high on the hills above the resort town of Makarska, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Far below the open doors of the chapel stretched the picturesque town of red tiled roofs and gray plaster buildings, its sandy white beach bookended by massive granite cliffs where dozens of vacationers took in the sun and swam in the turquoise sea.

With a curt nod to acknowledge our meeting, he started to speak, could not find the words, then recovered.

“Mister Székely,” he spoke, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” Then, as if only at that moment remembering, he handed me a beige envelope with elegant black writing on its face. The logo of a Hungarian law firm was printed in the corner. “This is from your parents. I am to give it to you as soon as you arrive. Before the funeral service. I hope it is not rude of me.”

“No, not at all, Father.”

“Thank you.” He gave another curt nod.

“I’m sure glad you speak English,” I said sheepishly, “because I don’t know any Croatian.”

I took the envelope, glanced at it, and wondered what value it might have. Mother was always fond of writing letters, sending cards, but during the past dozen years she had dwindled down to only birthday and Christmas.

I turned the envelope over in my hands, felt how thick it was, which could only mean it was longer than most of her letters.

“Does this letter explain what happened? I mean, why they committed suicide?”

“I do not know the content of that letter,” said the priest. “They only wished me to give it to you. Also, they wished for you to take a week, or more, if you can, and enjoy a richly deserved vacation. Your room has been reserved and everything is paid for the week.”

“How kind of them. They must’ve believed I would travel all the way here to see them off.”

“You work so hard, they always told me, thus you need a good break.”

“But there’s no need to kill themselves just to get me to fly over to Croatia.”

I tore open the end of the envelope and pulled out a trifolded letter of three pages wrapped around a generous gift of cash. The letter, written in my mother’s hand, stated almost word for word what the priest had just told me.

“Yes, I supposed it’s my duty,” I said, looking up from the letter and casually folding the cash into my front trouser pocket. “Me being their only child…. It’s an obligation. So….”

I took a few deep breaths.

“You’re a good son,” said the priest.

“At least they were old—old enough, sure, but not too old to be able to make a rational decision. Probably they were simply tired of all they had endured.”

“Indeed, Mister Székely. I’m sure it was for the best.”

“Please, Father...call me Stefan.”

We shook hands and he assured me that everything would be ready for the service the next day.

So it was without much amusement that I came to accept the truth of my parents’ situation. I did, however, fully appreciate the irony involved. Reclining on the bed in the hotel room they had arranged for me, I reread the last letter.

[cover artwork coming soon]

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.