Master of the Whoosiewhatsit

Confession: If I didn't enjoy reading it, I wouldn't. So yes, this post is hypocritical. So what, you're saying you can be hypocritical, and I can't?

Reading:

• Master of the Cauldron by David Drake
• The Snapper by Roddy Doyle

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Dolly Hobbles"

This morning I finished the last few pages of Master of the Cauldron. I was left with a profound sense of futility and frustration, and I couldn't imagine why the main characters didn't feel the same way.

First of all, the guiding premise of the story is that Garric must unite the Isles against the coming Evil, or else all of mankind will be destroyed. In fact, no greater motivation for unification is given, even though the Isles have not been united in 1,000 years. Now that's a nice round number, but just imagine if all of a sudden, some whackjob claiming to be the distant ancestor of Charlemagne decided he had to unite Europe under one flag (i.e., his).

In fact, the entire argument reminds me just a little too much of the "War on Terror" propaganda campaign which has dominated so much of the media for the last six and a half years. Now I specifically do not want this blog to get political

Obama in '08!

but I don't think I should ignore politics when it slaps me in the face. In the world of the Isles, all Wizardry is Evil! Unless, of course, the Good Guys are using it, and they do it the right way. (Is "waterboarding" a spell?) Humans are the Good Guys, but everything that is non-human is presented as monstrous and extremely well motivated to kill us. The huge climax of Cauldron features wave after wave of misshapen creatures boiling out of the ground to serve as sword fodder. Why do they want to kill? We never find out, although it might have something to do with Wizardry. And when the Wizard dies, the rest of the poor sons of bitches are hunted down anyway. No pity. No mercy. It becomes a game, and even the game is held up as a Good way to train the soldiers for battles to come.

To be fair, this is the first book in this series in which these overtones have really come through for me, and I don't know anything about Drake's politics besides what I read in the pages of his books. And all of the above is a critique of the themes of the story, not of the mechanics of the writing itself. Both are valid critiques, but if the point of this blog is to improve my skills as a writer, I should turn to the mechanics before I'm done.

First of all, the titular character, this Master of the Cauldron, doesn't even appear until the last fifty or so pages. When he does, we do not recognize him as such until towards the very end. You see, the misshapen creatures I mentioned before are pouring out of a cauldron, and the Wizard who enchanted it is their master, and you see... you see where he went with that?

But let's rewind a little first. As I suspected, it wasn't long before each of the four main characters were split up to pursue their own plotline. Ilna and her pirate boyfriend Chalcus get sucked into a parallel universe/dimension/other world/strange continent/place, just like always, along with a dude named Davus who seems to be pretty cool and likes rocks. They're purportedly searching for little orphan Merota, but she doesn't get much of a mention except at the beginning and ends of that plot thread. Their story consists of a Journey towards a Citadel, with adventures along the way that don't really contribute to the story, and barely add to the characterizations of any of the three.

Meanwhile, Ilna's brother Cashel gets whisked away by a lady-type Wizard who seems to be pretty decent. She gives him the grand tour of a Crystal City, and I spent the whole book, until the end, thinking that it was the same Citadel mentioned in Ilna's plot. After all, Ilna and Cashel disappeared off the same mountain at the same time, so why couldn't they be in the same universe? Both plotlines were talking about the rule of the Old King, and described a similar wasteland of neglect. One plot mentioned trolls made out of rock, the other plot told of the Made Men who were created by the King. It all fit together! I was looking forward to seeing Ilna and Cashel on opposite sides of a growing war. That would be juicy!

It also didn't happen. They were in two separate alternate universes/parallel dimensions/conveniently distant plot threads. Huh. Cashel winds up inspiring a bunch of kids to give their bodies to six dead heroes and go into battle, where some of them die, but that's okay, because it's a Good Thing. Oh, and the Wizard Lady is a Queen and also Cashel's mom, which we figured out from the moment she introduced herself, even though Cashel had to be told at the end of the book by people who weren't even there.

Now onto Sharina, who managed not to get sucked into any parallel alternate dimensional pocket universes until the beginning of Chapter 13! After a bizarre sequence in which she cuts off her hair to give to some sea nymphs for a faster transit time back home, she dicks around for a bit, gets zapped to the enemy headquarters, and unveils a plot for a bunch of bronze armored blond guys to take over the kingdom. They kill a bunch of them and save the day. But then she is needed back at Garric's plotline, so they hop the deus ex machina express back to the island where they started.

That's where Garric has been hanging out this whole time with his hot library girlfriend, Liane. (Well, she's a noblewoman of some description, but she has the function of a glorified secretary throughout the whole story, and I can just picture her being played by Jennifer Garner wearing horn-rimmed glasses. She would take them off halfway through the story to reveal her RAGING FEMININITY!) He's trying to play nice and take over the island without a fight using all sorts of passive aggressive political techniques. Meanwhile, the voice of his long dead ancestor Carus provides a sort of commentary in his head, which usually consists of variations on "Yep, I wouldn't have done that, because I was a bloodthirsty bastard when I was a king."

Eventually, Garric gets it into his head to, I don't know, do something about the people he suspected from the very beginning, but it's Too Late, and the freakazoid patrol comes bubbling out of the Cauldron which, we are informed, has a Master. (This guy is killed toward the end of the book by the Isles equivalent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I just reread that sentence, and it makes the book sound a lot cooler than it is.)

As my confession indicated, I must have enjoyed this book on some level, or else why keep reading? In part, it's because I've ridden through six books with these people, and I want to find out what happens. But also understand, I waited over a year between books five and six, and I feel no real need to pick up Fortress of Glass immediately. (That's book seven, and the volume that promises to be the antepenultimate entry in the series. Next to next to last, in case I made that word up.)

I think the explanation is that they became all the same. I kept waiting for character development that never came, because all four of them are already perfect... even Ilna, for all her self hate. So here's what I would do for each of them to re-energize the stories.

Garric:

As I mentioned before, he's got a voice of a long-dead king in his head. (That must be inconvenient when he's trying to get some hot library sex with Liane. You don't want to hear comments like, "You're a much better lover than I was, lad! You really care about the lady. I just drove my oxen for home like the oxcart was on fire!")

The problem is, Garric and Carus always agree. Let's have some disagreement, dude! And even better, leave it vague as to who the reader is supposed to think is right! Carus may try to take over Garric's body at some point or another, at least to accomplish one task. Maybe he succeeds? Does Garric try to banish him? Let's say he does, and loses the advice that he needs later on. Garric is proud of the job he's been doing, but what if he gets prideful? Does he do something to hurt Liane?

In essence, Garric is powerful when he has his ancestor's advice, his girlfriend's support, and an army at his back. Okay. Take those things away, one by one, and make him earn them back. We'll learn who Garric is when we see him with nothing.

Sharina:

She was great in the first book when she had a mentor who was teaching her the way of the Fierce Warrior. Her plots have been kind of bland since then, even with Tenoctris the Good Wizard at her side.

I'd like to see Tenoctris fail at something, or for her strength to give out. She has just been too perfect up until now, always lasting as long as necessary, magic always doing what she intends and no more. Has she no desire for anything more?

Much is made out of the way Tenoctris uses bamboo shoots as an athame (read: magic wand). What if she finds an athame that she thinks she can control, a Good athame, as it were. And at first, it seems to be working, but as time goes on and she grows more powerful, she starts to change, and has to give it up.

That addresses her, but not Sharina. She has acted as Tenoctris' friend and caretaker, but what about when she has to step in and do the intervention? And when she does, she fails. More than fails. Tenoctris blasts her, and suddenly Sharina isn't the beautiful blonde princess anymore. Maybe she's old, or ugly, or disfigured. Will Cashel still love her? And for goodness' sake, don't do the Fairy tale Fuck-up Fix at the end and turn everything back to normal. Give us consequences we have to live with!

Cashel:

Dawwww, he's a big dumb lug who always does the right thing. Isn't that wonderful? Cashel has absolutely, positively, the least character develop of anybody in these stories. Yet somehow, he's the most likable character, and I can tell that Drake likes to write him. He's the perpetual underdog in intelligence, but his simplicity, sincerity, and fucking huge muscles manage to win the day every time. But above all, you can always rely on him to do the right thing, no matter what.

There's two ways you can go with this. One, have him get scared and not do the right thing for once. Show us he's human. Unfortunately, six books on, that probably wouldn't work, since it goes against everything we know about his character. So take it a different way.

Instead, have him do the right thing, push forward no matter what the cost... and then he finds the cost is greater than he had thought. Maybe it has something to do with Sharina or Ilna, or even Garric. If Cashel had simply been misled, it wouldn't bother him. He would blame the person who misled him and not himself. No, Cashel will have to have been demonstrably wrong about something, and that leaves it up to him to fix it. And I would love to see him in a situation that his quarterstaff can't fix.

Ilna:

I saved her for last since she's the most interesting of the four. In the first book, she actually had plot development, starting as a chick crushing on Garric and turning into a force for Evil. Hot damn! Then the spell is broken and she sees a trail of death and destruction behind her, and decides to take the path of righteousness.

Yes, that's the same path that the others are on. But they are on that path because they are led to by their very natures. Ilna walks that path because she chooses to... in fact, chooses to act against her nature. So every single day, she feels the temptation to be and do evil, and resists because she has made that choice.

But arrrrrrgggghhhh, that potential gets wasted. She has never deviated from that path, even for a moment. It's like the recovering alcoholic who never takes another drink. That's awesome in real life, but in literature, if you've got a recovering alcoholic, he's got to take a drink at least once. Because then you get all the meaty territory of figuring out how to deal with backsliding and all the self doubt and self loathing it entails.

Another thing--emotion. Ilna seems to be emotionless, so much so that the scene at the end where she thinks Chalcus and Merota are dead rang completely untrue. (They had been turned to stone. So? The story started with her freeing someone who had been turned to stone. You can't tell me she wouldn't have figured out a way to turn them back if Davus hadn't fixed things.)

I would have liked seeing her worry for Merota building throughout the story. Let emotion get in the way, let her make mistakes. Let's see an explosion! Let's see her take it out on Chalcus, and let's see him not be perfectly understanding for once. I want some goddamn conflict!

In conclusion (because I should conclude, I really should), the characters only have external conflicts. The story could be improved if they had internal conflict, or conflict among themselves. Without that, they don't change, and without change, each book is interchangeable with the one before it. Of course, that might be just what Drake is going for.

The Fallacy of Fantasy

Confession: I love old Kung Fu movies, especially early Jackie Chan, back when he did all his own stunts, but none of the lines... at least, not in English.

Reading:

• Master of the Cauldron by David Drake

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

I just finished my last few revisions on "Illuminated" today over my lunch hour at work. I've formatted it according to the guidelines posted on the Realms of Fantasy website, and tomorrow I submit it for publication, along with a long overdue car insurance bill.

That's got me thinking a lot about fantasy (the story, not the bill). In particular, this innate contradiction inherent in most fantasy settings.

Any world should be one that draws us in. Fantasy, in particular, succeeds because it presents a world of which we'd like to be a part. More than most other genres, fantasy invites us to live in a new and different place, one in which our values have meaning and the realities of normal existence can be countermanded with the wave of a wand. It's a world in which people can be Special (note the capital), and those people are us.

Yet in order to be believable, the story must ring true, in characterization and description and motivation and all the other pieces that make up a story. In order to compensate for the fantastical elements, everything else must be grounded in relentless realism.

Do you see the inherent contradiction? Most fantasy settings are medieval or even earlier. Master of the Cauldron, for example, is based around classical era technology (in the seafaring especially) and Sumerian culture. And yet the characters have the same point of view and standard of living as we do. If I were suddenly transported to this world, I might not have much more to complain about than itchy clothes and a long walk in the morning for a cold bath.

But is that really surprising? To make a world one that people would want to live in, it is necessary to gloss over some of the more unpalatable elements. Yet in doing so risks sacrificing the believability of the setting, which is so important in a fantasy story. So the author is left to walk a thin line between gritty realism and escapism.

Some stories choose to fall off the tightrope entirely and follow one path or the other. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire goes 100% gritty. It is not a world in which I would ever choose to live, but I enjoy visiting it very much. Of course, very much the same story could be written in an historical novel, if a few of the fantasy elements were replaced with real world equivalents. I would submit that A Song of Ice and Fire is not a fantasy per se, but rather a story with fantastical elements.

On the other side of the spectrum, David Eddings' multi-volume saga consisting of The Belgariad and The Malloreon spring readily to mind. The world in which they are set is a pageant, not a real world. I'm not claiming it wasn't an enjoyable read, but it was by no means deep literature.

I'm not trying to impose a value judgment on one technique over the other, although my tastes tend more toward Martin than Eddings. And it would be a mistake to believe that all fantasy can be measured along that same spectrum, or that none can succeed in balancing the two. I believe that Charles de Lint's Newford books are stories are a great contender for the prize, blending vivid characters and troubling realism with a fantasy world I'd love to explore.

For my own writing, I think I'll want to decide from the very beginning whether I want to walk the line, or take the story in one direction or another. My worry is that I will try the balancing act, and I will fail, and the result will be more of the usual insipid fantasy prose.

Fantasy Title: Noun1 of the Noun2

Confession: I write most effectively at work, when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Reading:

• Master of the Cauldron, by David Drake

Writing:

• "Illuminated"

I completed my study of On Writing today, and the one thing I noticed most was how much of a narrative thread it had, for a non-fiction book. I wouldn't exactly claim it had a plot, per se, but not far from it.

It wasn't an autobiography of King as much as it was the biography of his writing career. The first part of the story was how he got there, and the middle section ("On Writing") was where he was, what he had learned. What struck me was the last section, which detailed his infamous accident and his recovery afterwards. (I already knew the details, having read The Dark Tower series, in which the incident plays a prominent role.

His writing would have moved me to tears, had I not been in the middle of a pizza place at the time. (Shout out to Tony's Pizza, Montauk Hwy in Bayport just east of Sayville.) It perfectly encapsulated the power that writing has, not miraculous, but inspiring nonetheless.

No sooner had that book cooled than I started another, also in Tony's. It's David Drake's Master of the Cauldron, the sixth volume in Drake's Lord of the Isles series.

A little backstory: over two years ago, I went through my old books in my parents' attic and did something I had rarely done before--picked out books to get rid of. I'm one of nature's packrats, but when it comes to books, I have no self-control. In my one-bedroom apartment, I've counted more than one thousand, and those are just the ones that I couldn't bear to be parted from when I moved here. (That's not true, because I probably bought about 100 of those in the past year I've been here.) As you can imagine, no one likes to help me move.

Anyway, I sold them to a used bookstore and got all kinds of store credit. Among the new acquisitions was the first three books in Drake's Lord of the Isles series. I thought it was a trilogy, in fact, but imagine my surprise when I learned that I was just getting started? So much for cleaning out some of the bulk of books.

They're... okay. That's no insult to Drake, especially since (as I understand it) his true talent lies with the military sci-fi genre. But I was left with the feeling that I could do better, at least in the mechanical aspect.

What kept me reading was the story. Anyone who has read this series knows that, after the first book, they're all identical. Main characters get separated and sent to alternate worlds; they do good deeds and are coincidentally reunited at the same place and time in order to do final battle with the villain. It's a formula, pure and simple, and one that appears to work (sales wise) for Drake, but it sure does take a lot of the surprise out for the reader.

A note on a few of the characters--the nominal main character is Garric, shepherd turned prince. Turns out he's the direct descendant of the former King of the Isles, and Garric is tasked with following in his footsteps and uniting the realm. His plotline shows how his inherent goodness and kingliness always win the day.

Then there's Cashel, his best friend, who most closely resembles Perrin from Jordan's Wheel of Time series. The gentle giant, simple but trustworthy--his plots always entail how that simple trustworthiness, paired with an indestructible body and fighting ability, confound his enemies. Oh, and he's in love with Sharina.

That's Garric's sister, and the most interesting thing that happened to her was in the first book when her mentor died. Yeah. Now she babysits the elderly wizard lady Tenoctris.

The most interesting character is Ilna, Cashel's sister, who spent the whole first book possessed by Evil. (Hey, Drake uses the capital E, not me.) She got away and got some neat-o magical powers out of the deal, but is the only character who has ever been tempted to do anything wrong ever before in her life ever. I'm not sure if Drake quite knows what to do with her, though, because she's been spending most of her time lately going over the same emotional ground, book after book.

The prologue of Master of the Cauldron is the typical fantasy beginning, where the bad guys start their evil plot. If they'd been wearing signs that said, "This will become important by chapter four," it wouldn't have given anything away. No real hook, just a lot of magic words, and the unveiling of a new person who wants to become Lord of the Isles instead of Garric. (Other than the fact that Garric is the main character, the book thus far gives us no reason to prefer him to this other guy.)

I'm going to make a remarkable promise now. If I ever write a series of fantasy novels, not a single one will use the Noun1 of the Noun2 title format. Not one, dammit!

In the foreword, Drake stated that he wanted to make the book accessible to people who hadn't read the first five. His way of doing this is for chapter 1 to dabble in each of the four main characters' point of view for a few pages. Garric and Cashel's sections are embarassingly similar (fighting is bad, but I love my lady type person!). Ilna once again decides to be good instead of evil, and Sharina babysits Tenoctris. There ya go.

If you're reading this post, you might be saying to yourself, "All right, jackass, you thought you could do better, then fucking prove it!" Okay, then, I'll tell you what I'd do different.

First, I'd start the book in medias res. Do you want the reader to become acquainted, or at least reacquainted, with the characters? Fine, but first you have to get them interested, or at least reinterested, with the characters. Long expository passages, even from a POV, aren't the best way of doing that. Give me some action, some interaction, some substantive dialogue. I want tension! Maybe address one character in the first chapter, and branch out to the other POVs in the subsequent chapter. That way it sounds less like a book report, and more like the beginning of an enthralling new novel. Hell, I'm 23 pages in, and all I've had is a boat docking and a spell of uncertain effect. Give me more!

As for the prologue, we've got a pair of magic types casting spells. We don't know what the spells are doing, and we don't get a lot of description of even what casting them is like, other than some nonsense words. If you want to establish that these are bad guys, get them doing something evil! Give us a cruel twist at the end of the prologue, so just before we see the good guys for the first time, we're thinking, "Shit, how are they gonna get out of this one?"

It's not my story, so it's not my job to rewrite it. I just hope that with my own fiction, I have the stone cold balls to look and see what's wrong, and the tools to fix it afterwards.