Well, managed to figure out (finally) how to record games on my laptop with commentary. What do y'all think? I was whispering because it's early in the morning and I didn't want to wake anyone up. I'll keep making more videos as I practice; just wanted to see what you all think and if there's anything I should improve on.
TW: Bigotry and Prejudice http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-cringe-worthy-way-sci-fi-fantasy-deal-with-prejudice/ This gave me some thought. When attempting to address prejudice and bigotry...is creating a clearly non-human race to stand in for a human minority/creating a group of people with clearly dangerous natural powers really such a smart move for authors of sci-fi and fantasy? I don’t think so, simply because by making the alien/fantastical race stand in for a real-world minority, or giving them natural powers (like the mutants from X-Men), the message of “look, we’re all human! So stop with the bigotry!” is kind of...flawed? I mean, the basic definition of bigotry/prejudice is when you hate members of your own species (in our case, fellow human beings) just because they’re different from you in one way or anothe (i.e., race, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) To combat this, a story where humans oppress elves on a regular basis wouldn’t work because well... **the elves are clearly not humans**, which defeats the entire purpose of the message of “We’re all humans/elves/whatever species we call ourselves, so stop with the bigotry!” Sure, be nice to the elves, but I don’t think Legolas considers himself a human. If you asked him if he were a human or an elf, he’d say he was an elf. Now, if, say, Rivendell had a schism where one group of elves persecuted another over religious differences, that could work. Because, again, it’d be elves persecuting other fellow elves, treating them like they were subpar, inferior. The message of tolerance and compassion for your fellow kin would work. ————————- TL;DR: A story where a fictional race is a stand-in for a real-world minority group is cringy and doesn’t work for two reasons: • Said fictional race is living alongside *actual humans* • The message isn’t “Don’t be a shitlord to your fellow man” like the writer intended. Rather it’s “Don’t be a shitlord to this fictional race.” This does nothing to combat any belief of real-world bigots because the problem is that they see OTHER FELLOW HUMANS as inferior. That was my two cents after reading this article. What are yours?
So after two days of being anxiety-free, my dear old "friend" anxiety paid a visit today as I was writing. "What are you doing?" it asked, "writing that same old story you've been doing for a decade now? And the other stories? Ha! You suck. Give up writing. Period. Never write again. Trust me. Delete everything you've done." In short, it was the same old voice that tormented me for the past twelve years about my writing. Saying I was a failure for not completing a book/getting it published or...whatever. But after a year of being on anxiety meds and having that voice gagged and tied up in a cellar away from my thoughts, it occurred to me that writers have an awful stigma attached to the profession. It seems like we've generally got this idea that unless we're writing to get published or write at all, then we're automatically failures of human beings or whatever. Holly Lisle, a renown fantasy writer, once wrote in her blog that if we never wrote, then we'd be 'grounded', that we'd look back years later and remember with regret a time when we "once had wings..." Can I just say how full of goddamn bullshit that is? Let me tell you all a story. A family friend of ours, an elderly woman, likes to sculpt. She's done it for years now. She isn't famous, she's never published them out to the world. So by Holly Lisle's logic, this woman is somehow a failure because she isn't fucking Michaelangelo if he were American and had boobs? She's sitting in her chair looking back and regretting never having 'tried' to publish? I can assure you, she doesn't give a single llama's shit about it. She does it because it gives her pleasure, she does it because it gives her a reason to get out of bed every morning. So I tell you all... We have permission to write for a hobby if we so choose to do so. First and foremost, writing has to give us pleasure at all. It has to give us a purpose, a reason. I certainly wouldn't want to read a book that sounds like the author had to torture him/herself into writing. Write when you're ready. Publish when you're ready. If the latter never comes, if you're content with just writing as a hobby, then for God's holy asscrack, do it! As a friend of mine on Facebook said, books never expire. As long as there are humans on this planet Earth who want to read, there is no deadline. There is no pressure to publish. If you want to write for a hobby, if the idea of entertaining the masses with your work sickens you to the core, then don't publish. Writing should give us some amount of personal pleasure at least. So if anyone tries to take you down, make you feel bad about yourself because you haven't finished a book within a single year, or publish... don't bother with them. We're all in this together. We're all writing. Last thing we need to be doing is guilt-tripping our fellow writers. So sit your ass down and get to writing. Link the Writer out!
So after having some time to calm down from the shock of Donald J. Trump being the next President of the United States, something just occurred to me. Something that I hadn't even considered before. In some way, both he and Obama proved that America is indeed the land of opportunity. Policies aside, think about it: Before Obama came, all the presidents were old white guys. Before Trump came, they all had years of political experience. Again, policies aside... isn't that a good thing? I grew up believing that in America, you can be whatever you want to be if you put your mind to it. Well, in some way...Obama and Trump both showed that. You don't have to be an old white guy to be President of the United States; you don't have to have decades of political experience to become President of the United States, or come from the elite class. You just need to have a shitload of money and the belief that you can be the President. If the Trump vs. Kanye 2020 thing is to believed, we'll again see it play out. Look, my own personal political beliefs is that you do need some political experience before you run for the highest office in America; but I still can't help but wonder if both Obama and Trump were taking that statement and making it a literal reality without even knowing it. Anyway, that's what's on my mind right now.
https://youtu.be/2NsUKqT1Who?t=548 Start at 9:08 Steve Donoghue is a book nut who discusses books and writing on his YouTube channel, and in this video, he encourages writers to start their NaNoWriMo with something I found encouraging -- and I hope it'll encourage other writers whether they're doing NaNoWriMo or not. "Get it done." Set a word goal and just get it done. If it's 2,000 words a day, then write 2,000 words. Don't fret over how good they are, or if the grammar is correct...or anything about it, really. Just get it done. That's the goal: get it done, not right. Another encouraging quote I found that comes not from him, but from a long-dead Roman Emperor: “Do what nature demands. Get a move on--if you have it in you--and don't worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don't go expecting Plato's Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.” - Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161-180 AD in his personal journals. Just get it done, and don't expect yourself to be the next Plato. You don't have to be the next Plato.
DISCLAIMER: I'm extremely protective of my identity online -- so much so that I once tricked another forum into thinking I was from France. Well, I tricked at least one forum-goer, not sure about the rest. So believe me that when I'm suddenly revealing to you all what city in the US I'm from, you know shit's hit the fan in a nuclear way: Remember way back in June how I told you a black teen was shot by a police officer in my hometown? http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/11/mobile_da_michael_moore_case.html Well, um... yeah the grand jury said the officer responsible hadn't done anything wrong and won't face charges. Of course, the teen's family strongly disagrees and will look elsewhere -- even file a civil right's claim. My worry is, well... The last couple of times this happened, there were wide-scale riots. I'm worried history will, yet again, repeat itself here, in my hometown. In Mobile. I'm not sure whether this betrays my apparent lack of faith in humanity, but I don't see how history could not repeat itself. It's like there's a step-by-step procedure: Step #1: Something bad happens. Step #2: "BURN ALL THE THINGS!!!111" Step #3: "We must ensure this never happens again." Step #4: Return to Step #1. It's like we're more interested in looking for a reason to burn shit down than to actually fix problems. So that's what I'm afraid of. :/ I'll be keeping an eye on things and posting updates.
OK, this is going to be a difficult read for some, and hardly like the rest of the blogs I've done on this forum but...I need to get this off my chest. In short, recent news (that I've seen from The Young Turks and Secular Talk, both talk shows on YouTube) have left me very pissed off at what's happening here in America. Unarmed black guys getting killed by cops, riots breaking out with cities like Charlotte being turned into pseudo-warzones with more innocent people getting hurt. This is, of course, ignoring the whole Trump/Hillary thing. Just... What in the flying FUCK, America!? A part of me wonders if "united" means anything anymore. We're just one step away from killing each other all over again. United? Ha! From what I've seen, we're far from that. Some part of me wonders if, deep down, we were just looking for a reason to start killing/maiming each other...that we never truly, actually liked each other. Give me a few examples, if you please, to show that we genuinely give two shits about each other. I feel ashamed to be American, ashamed to be in this country. I want to live somewhere else. Europe, specifically the UK but I don't have the finances to do that. I want to like my country, I want to believe that there are good things about America, that we Americans aren't just deranged animals looking for a reason to tear each other's throats out...but the news is making it very hard for me to see that. So that's that. :/ I've completely lost faith in America and my own people.
WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOY FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T READ IT AND CARES ABOUT NOT BEING SPOILED!!! IF YOU DO READ IT AND ARE SPOILED, THEN WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF? <takes out wand> EXPELLIO!! -------------------- In short, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child begins 19 years after The Deathly Hallows, picking up exactly where the epilogue of the seventh book left off. Now, if you're expecting a prose-styled format, you will be in for a shock. It's not. It's written out in a screenplay format, as if they took the script of the play (that's what it was initially) and stuck it together and called it a book. I...don't think I like the format. For starters, there's little to no description of the new characters so I've no idea what they're supposed to look like. For example, I imagine Harry looking exactly as he did at age 17 when he's in his late-30s/early-40s in this book. Nostalgia makes me feel for these characters but if I honestly had never read any of the previous seven books, I probably would not have given a single damned about any of them. Prose-style, like what...99.99% of books everywhere uses lets readers grow to understand and feel what the characters are thinking. Instead all we have are their words and sparse actions. I kind of understand why they're doing it, but I'm not sure if I have any emotional investment in their actions. The whole theme revolves around the notion of parenthood and trying to come to terms with the actions of the parents. Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy have their own internal battles. Albus thinks Harry doesn't love him and is tired of being the son of the most famous wizard ever; and Scorpius has an even nastier history: there's a rumor that he's really Voldemort's child, not Draco's. The plot kicks off when they hatch a plan to steal a Time-Turner to go all the way back to the events of Goblet of Fire and prevent Cedric Diggory's death at the hands of Voldemort. Yes, you read that right. This isn't a Time-Turner that lets you go back hours, this takes you back YEARS. Albus' motivation is, as I understand it, that he didn't think it was fair that Cedric had to die as he was “the spare”, so he figured he would correct this one mistake. He drags poor Scorpius into it, so I actually feel for the boy. I actually liked Scorpius more than Albus: Albus came off as your typical whiny “Whaaaa I don't like my daddy!” He actually reminded me of Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens to tell you the truth. Scorpius seemed like an innocent, decent kid with a lot of baggage he didn't ask for. Ironically, he reminded me strongly of Harry from the first book. Albus? I actually wanted Harry to pull a Vernon Dursley and punch the brat. Speaking of the Dursleys, there is a very touching moment when it's revealed that Petunia Dursley had actually kept the blanket Harry was wrapped in as an infant after all these years. When she died, Dudley found it and gave it to Harry. And it was this scene that really made me wish Harry took a leaf from Vernon's book. Harry is trying to have a bonding moment with Albus by giving him the most important, personal thing second only to the Invisibility Cloak and Albus basically verbally shits on it, throws it against the wall and tells Harry to the effect of, “I wish I wasn't your son!” At any rate, I was disappointed we didn't get to see Dudley. You'd think with all the theme of parenthood, family, and reconciliation, we'd get to see Dudley. Maybe he invites the Potter family to his house for dinner and we learn what's been happening to him?? Nope, we just get one brief mention of him and we don't hear of him again. GAH! What happened here? Clearly the two reconciled, otherwise Harry wouldn't be speaking so fondly of him. I know they had the handshake when they parted in the seventh book but I wanted to know more! >:C Back to the plot, the whole “going back in time to save Cedric” basically screws with time. Albus and Scorpius accidentally create alternate realities where Hermione is a professor at Hogwarts, or a darker reality where Voldemort won and a new age of Darkness has dawned. It's explained that because they intervened and made Cedric lose the first two tasks, history changed so it's kind of like the Butterfly Effect? I dunno, but I fail to see how Cedric losing the first two matches would change anything. As I understand it, Cedric was never meant to grab the Portkey that got them to the graveyard so even if he lost, things would play out the same only Cedric wouldn't be dead. As for Harry himself? Well, I can understand his stress because his own son's missing (note: the subplot is Harry and the other characters we've known from the main series trying to find Albus and Scorpius) but there were moments I felt he acted way out of character, such as threatening frickin' McGonnagal that he'd use his entire power as a Ministry agent on her and Hogwarts if she didn't use the Maurader's Map to keep track of his kid. I thought, “Who are you, and what have you done with Harry?” At one point, Draco confronts him and basically goes, “WTF?! You go into Hogwarts, threaten two professors, re-arrange school timetables so our sons can't be together...on the word of a centaur??!” I actually agreed with Draco here, even began to sympathize with him when Harry starts implying that Scorpius is dangerous. Wow, good job Harry. Draco's sick with worry over his son's safety, he's trying to quell rumors that his son is the child of the wizard equivalent of Adolf Hitler and you have to pull that? Come to think of it, Draco and Scorpius actually reminded me more of Harry from the main series than Harry himself did! I'm not sure if that was the intent or not but...damn. At times I found myself wishing the play was more focused on the Malfoys rather than the Potters as I felt both Draco and Scorpius had more to lose, not that I'm saying Harry and Ginny's issue of “OH MY GOD OUR SON IS MISSING!!!” is trivial of course. I'm just saying that these two had more issues to work with, what with Draco's dad being a Death Eater, him becoming a widower, and having to deal with the vicious rumors about his son being Voldemort's child. The finale? Well, this is Harry Potter after all, and the whole plot focused on the kids trying to alter a very important moment in Harry's life so...I'm gonna let you all fill in the blanks. Suffice to say, I...felt kind of let down with the book. I liked Scorpius, but most of our attention was on Albus, the annoying brat. So...I'm gonna have to rate this book a 5/10. :[ To anyone else who read it, what are your thoughts??
Here's a list I've compiled after Imaginarily looked over a story I PM'd her for critique. Hopefully this will be of help for not only me, but for everyone else. #1- DON'T INFO DUMP!! Seriously, don't. You've got the entire book to build your world. Keep in mind that what you reveal will be through your character and his/her personal opinions and interests. If you must discuss something, make sure it's something that's relevant for the character or for the plot at that appropriate time. If your character enters a house, don't wax lyrical about when the house was built, who owned it previous, etc. If all that is crucial to the story, give it to us sparingly to add to the air of mystery. I mean, can you imagine it like... ROBIN: “Egads! This house once belonged to Mr. Witherford, Amos! Our culprit!” AMOS: “Uh, dude?” <gives him the book> “Everything was spelled out in the first twenty pages. And way to go with the expository dialogue, bro.” #2- EMOTIONAL CONNECTION!! This is not a police report or a wikipedia page. Your characters are living the story as its being told; so their emotions have to feel real. Let them live in their actions and feelings. This is the only way you're gonna get your readers to care about your characters at all. #3- SHOW, DON'T TELL!! Unless it's not necessary, show the readers what's going on, don't just tell them. If your character is in pain, let the readers feel that pain, Make it suck for both the character and the reader. #4- BE VAGUE!! You don't always have to give a blow-by-blow account of every action your character takes. This isn't a script for a movie or a TV show. This isn't a comic strip. Sometimes you can be vague about certain things. “Amos grabbed the cup and tapped his way out of the room” is a lot better than, “With his left hand, Amos quickly grabbed the cup and slowly tapped his way out of the room, sweeping his cane side-to-side.” Leave room for the readers to imagine what's going on. #5- DESCRIBE WHAT'S RELEVANT!! By this, I mean you describe what is relevant for the scene, the character, and the plot. When I read, I don't mind brief descriptions to get a general idea of what's going on, but if there's a whole paragraph dedicated to the fact that there's a curious gouge in the wall of the character's home and there's nothing more said beyond ‘Oh, that exists’, then I'd be a bit disappointed. #6- USE THE SENSES!! Assuming your character isn't in a coma, chances are he/she is experiencing the world in some form or fashion. Examples: “Amos gagged, pinched his nose with his fingers as the raw, putrid smell assaulted his sinuses.” “Small strands of spider web caressed his cheeks, tickling them. Amos brushed and pulled it off. ” “He took a swig of the beer, felt the sharp taste in his mouth.” “A loud boom attracted his attention, he spun around toward the source, listening carefully for any new development.” Yes, I know Amos is blind, but the point still stands. Even if your character is blind, deaf, blind+deaf, or can't smell (like me), he/she can still interact with the world with whatever senses he/she has. #7- BE CONCISE!! @Imaginarily said it best when she critiqued my work: if you can convey the same message/meaning with fewer words, do it. I am reminded of a passage in Paolini's Eldest where Paolini went on a tangent about how Eragon closed his eyes and drifted off to a realm where all things were possible. As in, the dude went to sleep. #8- FAMILIAR THINGS!! OK, so your story is set in a fantasy/sci-fi setting with all sorts of things that don't exist in our world. Start by showing something that's familiar within our world, or maybe even within the genre (ie, something they'd be familiar with like a spaceship battle or envoys talking with the king of a foreign land before assassins start shanking fools.) Gradually introduce the readers into your world by first showing them what's familiar, then surprise them with stuff they've never seen before. I may be missing more, but these were the tips I wrote down for future references. Hope this helps others.
Hey, I've been doing some preliminary readings involving the UK leaving the European Union across the various forums. Some of the British folks I know there (and some here) are afraid, panicking, etc. Reactions vary from one end to the other, and some are very upset about this, especially in the other writing forum. If I remember correctly, a British poster on the Zelda Universe forum even declared that this was the demise of the UK. Now a caveat: I'm an American. I've absolutely no clue about how British politics and laws work. This may sound a bit arrogant of me because who am I, an American on the other side of the world, to tell the British what to feel when their country voted to leave the European Union? Still, I wanted to get this out to you all. <puts on preacher robes and stands on a conveniently placed soap box> In short... Whatever happens, whatever consequence arises from this choice, you all will pull through. Yeah, it must be scary because it's different, something new (something old, something blue-*is shot*) but you all will pull through. One way or another, you all will pull through. You've done it before. When World War II happened, and it was just you lot against the terrifying might of Nazi Germany, when the London Blitz was raging in the skies, you all pulled through. You all survived. Hell, dare I say it, I think the UK and the USSR basically won World War II all by themselves. Everyone else (who could) just helped. For those who didn't approve of Margaret Thatcher and her policies? Well, you survived that as well. Northern Ireland survived all the bombings and shootings in the latter part of the 20th-century. This just illustrates to me how powerful a nation can be, its people. Everywhere in the globe. No matter what happens, no matter what changes or calamity visits a people they pull through. They survive. Whether it be the UK leaving the European Union, or the US facing the reality of a Trump or Clinton presidency, or all the horrible shit you see on the news. People pull through. They adapt. They survive. So whatever happens, I think you all will survive. The UK will keep on doing its thing. It did before, I see no reason why it couldn't do it now. Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest.
I think I just made a very important step psychologically. A crucial victory in my self-improvement and personal happiness. It's hard to put it into words, but it feels liberating. I feel like I've just been let out of jail (to use a clichéd phrase.) I feel free. I think I just overcame my own worst enemy: myself. I think I just conquered my own inner-bully. For those who may not know what that is, imagine a common bully that puts you down either physically or emotionally. In this case, however, the bully resides within you. It's basically your evil half for want of better word. I think I just outright destroyed that son of a bitch. To fully understand how I did this, I think I need to start over from the beginning, when all this came into being. And before you say it, yes, it involves Historium and the cyber bully who used to put me down because I was an American. Please stick with me on this, I promise there's a point to it all. I can't very well just go, “Huzzah! I've slain the beast!” without first explaining everything that happened up to this point now can I? That's not how a story works. The cyber bullying had left me filled with vindictive rage. Understandable, as I had done nothing to this poster and he goes to shit on me because I just happened to be from a country he didn't like. It boiled in me, festered on the inside. Sometimes I would lash out by passively-aggressively asking the internet if it were OK if I studied/wrote things related to the United States (re: see the thread I linked in my last blog.) But then something happened, I began distancing myself from things that I liked (ie, the American Civil War, American literature, etc.) because I wasn't allowed to like it. While I didn't know it at the time, I pinned it all on this poster who was long gone from the forum in question. Everything was his fault; my suffering was his fault. He was the big bad monster. But then I made that blog about revenge. Why? Because it occurred to me for the first time ever that what I was doing was not only hurting myself, but the people around me. But I was especially hurting myself. This was especially evident last night when I was browsing Listverse. I stumbled upon an article listing ten countries who provided foreign aid to the US (mostly around the time of Hurricane Katrina and the BP Gulf oil spill.) Pretty heartwarming stuff, right? Look at these humans, putting aside their differences to help fellow humans in need! Awesome! Go humans! Even the commentary was very friendly, where at one point an Australian commentator was wishing an American commentator well when she went to go have a baby, and congratulated her when the baby was born. “I'm surprised,” a inner-voice peaked in my head, “Figured everyone would hate you and the US. They're all just lying, wearing masks that disguises their true nature! Exhibit-” I caught it. And for the first time in my life I realized it. All those moments when the inner-voice told me that humans were incapable of coexisting peacefully, that kindness between two different cultures was merely a facade to hide the fact that they really do hate each other and wish to see the other one destroyed, all those moments I told myself I wasn't allowed to be happy because of [xyz reason related to that poster]... That was my inner-bully. That was me. That was me, not some long-gone poster I hadn't seen in years. I was hurting myself. “Your pain was real!” it would argue, but who is in control of my emotions? Who gets to control how I feel? I do. Korra from Avatar: Legend of Korra once had this to say: “You're oppressing yourself!” I never knew what she meant until I looked at what I was doing. Essentially, I was making myself miserable by coming up with a whole host of reasons why I shouldn't be happy and do what I want, pinning it on some external source. I was making myself miserable by convincing myself that no way would humans ever be able to coexist peacefully despite their differences, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. I took one nasty moment in my life and used it as justification as to why I shouldn't be happy, why humans were all rotten to the core. As a result, I was growing bitter and spiteful. Depressed. What's the point of being happy if people are basically cowards looking to get one over you? Looking for an excuse to turn their backs on you when you need them the most? But at the end, I was only hurting myself. That old fart's long gone. As much of an asshole he was to me, I have one thing he'll never have. And to those who were/are bullied, you have one thing they'll never have: The ability to choose to be happy. None of us can control how other people act, but we can control how we act and feel. I've finally let go of the grudge. I'm at peace, and now I'm learning when to catch that inner-bully and put a stop to it before it goes too far. So for those who were witness to my drama about that forum: sorry you had to see that. Wasn't fair for me to take it out on the internet, even if what I felt was genuine. Life's too short to spend it feeling bitter and spiteful over something that happened years ago. <takes a deep breath> It's a new day. And it looks brilliant.
http://historum.com/american-history/107684-all-right-if-i-study-american-folklore.html In case you ever wanted a case study on what happens when you let old grudge fester within you, take a gander at the thread I made there yesterday when I was in a somewhat sour mood. To make an exceedingly long story short: An event happened there years ago, when I was cyber-bullied on that forum. Though the member in question is long gone, I never let go of that grudge. Never let go of that hate if you will. Yesterday, when I was in a sour mood, I decided to go back to this forum and be as passive aggressive as humanly possible (by my standards) and make that thread. Result? I'm ashamed. Horrified. I've no words to describe it. They knew what I was doing and correctly called me out on it, and for the first time I realized just what I was doing: I was allowing an old hate to ruin my reputation on that forum, to alienate myself from everyone else there. Guess this is why they always said revenge was never a good thing. Revenge, though satisfying in the short term, as it satisfies whatever primal feeling you may have, it doesn't do shit in the long run. Exhibit A: that thread I made. So here you go, an example of what happens when you let an old grudge fester; what happens when you attempt revenge for something that happened years ago. If anything else, I hope you all learn from my failure. Revenge may be sweet in the short-term, but in the long-term it does nothing but make you look like an asshole.
<CHAPTER 3> HEAD CHANGE!!! We are now in the head of Levi Jonnson, the owner off the Jonnson Millworks. In short, I feel for this man. I really do. Forget Francis, I feel very bad for Levi Jonnson. How so, you ask? Well imagine yourself in his situation: It's the early hours of the morning and you hear someone on your front porch. You have your pistol ready in case you need to fight off a robber, but instead you find some disheveled woman who smell of smoke accompanied by a small boy. She, without your permission, enters your home with the boy and blurts out a request for you to protect and shelter this boy while she gets the orphanage rebuilt. You refuse and she says, “You can't claim you lack the space to accommodate one small boy.” You again attempt to explain to her why you can't take in some random boy, she says, “Are you rejecting him because of his blindness?” Within a span of a few paragraphs, all respect I had for Willems (not a lot) is flushed away at her treatment of Levi Jonnson, as what I've listed out is exactly how she treats him. She accuses him of having something against blind people without bothering to consider that maybe, just maybe, Levi's got a million other things to do, things that don't include caring for a blind street urchin. No, he's clearly a selfish man who can't spare even a small corner of his home to the blind boy. Seriously, this is what she says, “Won't you please offer a small corner of your home to Tommy?” Levi has no idea who she is, she's entered his home uninvited and is basically guilt-tripping him to keeping a blind child in his house. At this point, I think Levi is well within his right to raise shit over this. Summon the constables; force Willems and Tommy out. This is his home. You just don't go around barging into someone else's home uninvited forcing burdens on them that they never asked for. OK, maybe I'm not one to talk considering in both my fantasy-mystery and historical-mystery, my blind MCs are orphans under the care of someone outside an orphanage facility. Here's one marked difference there. My MCs weren't forced onto those caretakers; rather the caretakers themselves decided to take care of them. Hell, in my historical-mystery, the caretaker for Amos basically went, ‘Good hands...strong back...working ears, I assume. I'll put you to good use, boy. Come this way.’ and that was that. As for my fantasy-mystery MC? Her detective skills at the end won the admiration of a rich family who decided to take her in as a reward. The fact that she helped them was a bonus for the both of them. Here, Levi doesn't know who in God's name Tommy is other than he's a blind orphan. And he's being forced to care for Tommy against his wishes by the owner of the Asylum who is basically making him feel bad for not doing otherwise. Anyone else feel bad for Levi, or am I the only one? At any rate, we finally find out how Tommy is scarred. He was injured in a boiler explosion and not only was his sight taken, but the explosion left, quote, a patch of rippled skin on the boy's jaw. The pink, puckered flesh flowed down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. Levi's chest went tight. What? In my mind, it looks like Tommy has a patch of rough, bumpy skin on his jaw. How would that make people reject him? Before this, I imagined that he was badly scarred, like the lower right part of his face was nothing but raw, disfigured flesh but he's...mildly scarred on one side? Why does this remind me of the recent remake of The Phantom of the Opera where the Phantom has something similar on his face? What was supposed to be a mark of hideous disfigurement in the play was interpreted by the movie as something...not as harmless. Actually quite cute for those into scarred guys? Honestly, when Tommy turns 15/16, I don't doubt he'll find a lady who will find the scar and the whole ‘was blinded in a boiler explosion’ thing very adorable. So Levi reluctantly agrees, probably to spare himself more ‘you clearly hate blind people!’ comments thrown at him by this woman who invaded his home unannounced and without his permission. She leaves Tommy alone with him. Here's something I want you to note: ...the boy slowly turned his head, his unblinking eyes seeming to search for something. Tommy twisted his face around, aiming his unseeing gaze in Levi's direction. This will not be the last time we see descriptions of Tommy's eyes like this; almost like the book is afraid that unless it mentions that his eyes don't work, we're going to forget that he's blind. Funny, as I have blind characters and I don't feel the need to address that their eyes don't work. I address it by their actions, the way they move. The way they use their remaining senses to navigate the world. The second phrase is interesting: ‘Tommy twisted his face around,’ What does this mean? Is he actually turning his head around to find where Levi's voice is coming from? Is he actually smiling when it seems like Levi isn't going to throw him out? Instead, this phrase makes me think he's contorting his face into a weird expression. So let's pause for a brief moment: we have now a disgruntled mill owner with seemingly no children of his own and he clearly doesn't want to care for one. He's just been saddled with a blind orphan who has no place else to go. Huh. Bitter old man, forced to take care of a child he doesn't want, said child is a homeless orphan with no place to go... Why does this sound so familiar? View attachment 22946 Oh, that's right!! Except... View attachment 22945 Kid's blind, and unlike Joel and Ellie, Brambleville is not dealing with a zombie apocalypse. ...You're now imagining a blind Ellie killing a pack of undead monstrosities with a katana. With hard rock music playing in the background. You're welcome. Yep, it's the age old cliché, and the savviest of us can already guess how this is going to end up. Look at the chapters leading up to this. Asylum burns down, everyone but Tommy has a place to go. Levi is the boy's last chance and the man reluctantly agrees to look after him after basically being guilt-tripped into doing so. He even feels some measure of pity for the boy. We all know what's gonna happen here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author Note: Sorry for the delay, been writing up the critique for Chapters Two and this one. Hope you all are finding this entertaining. I'll be reading Chapter 4 and writing up the critique later.
<CHAPTER 2> So here we are, Chapter Two and what have we learned? - There's an asylum for the rejected and impoverished in 1890s Kansas. - Willems is a devout Christian who lost her father a year ago. - There's thirteen people in all. - Tommy, the blind kid, needs help going to the bathroom. - The asylum is now on fire. OK look, I'm perfectly fine with the first chapter ending with an event that drastically change the characters' lives forever. We see it all the time. In Harry Potter, it was when the Dursleys were saddled with Baby!Harry. In The Hunger Games, it was when Katniss learned that her sister was picked to play the deadly games. It's perfectly acceptable. Without Baby!Harry on that porch, or Katniss's sister learning the horrid news, we get no story. Hell, if Dumbledore decided that Harry would be better off living with the Weasleys, we might have had a completely different series all together! Harry and Ron would've been brothers rather than best friends, Ginny certainly wouldn't be Harry's love interest because in this version, she would be his youngest adoptive sister. But here's the thing: before you royally screw up your characters' lives forever, you've got to let us bond with them first. Let us see how they lived before everything went to hell. As boring as it was, we needed to see Vernon's life before Baby!Harry was put on his family porch. We needed to understand just what kind of man he was, his personal perception on wizards, etc so that when Baby!Harry arrived, we would have an “oh shit” moment. When that happened, we knew it couldn't end well for both parties. In this case, with the asylum and everyone living in it, I've no earthly idea what their lives are like. Who are they? How do they feel about each other? We got a brief taste of it from Francis who, as we learned, is very grabby at food and hates being Tommy's personal outhouse-escort. Great! So how does he feel about the asylum? Does he like the people there? Does he like Tommy? Does anyone there think him a burden because of his blindness? In order for there to be a bond with the characters, there needs to be time given for the readers to understand them. I'm more interested in what Francis feels because I got insight into his personality. Rather, the story pulls the same cheap stunt movies do by demanding that I feel bad for these people because they're in such a dire situation. Look, it really sucks and all, but one brief scene isn't enough for me to fully understand who they are and how devastating the asylum fire is to them. It's like those war movies where a soldier pulls out a photo of his wife and newborn, then dies five minutes later. It's sad and tragic and all but...we want to feel the loss. It's doable, but not in this manner. There needed to be time to bond with the people of asylum. Instead it was, “Here are a bunch of homeless people. Look at how happy they are. Oh no, a fire destroys their happiness.” So instead of feeling the horror and despair they're feeling, I'm left with an awkward “Oh...damn. Sorry about that.” It's like meeting someone for the first time ever, and five minutes in they suddenly reveal to you something deep and traumatic that happened to them years ago. You, a total stranger, are bestowed with this news, leaving you utterly speechless and it's the same thing here. They're total strangers to me. “Ever heard of empathy?” you ask. Well yes, again, I can imagine it sucks to lose your only place of refuge as they did but beyond that, I'm not emotionally invested in their problem. Emphasis on emotionally invested. I don't know squat about them, there's nothing keeping me interested in their situation. But on to the next chapter: Everyone had escaped the fire and after they tearfully reunite. There is something here that I found interesting: Florie and Joe dropped into her lap and clung. Hands patted her shoulders, and fingers clutched at her arms. A chorus of voices -- some crying, others comforting -- filled her ears. In a huddled mass they held on to one another as the wintry wind chilled their frames. I don't know why, I just like it. It shows me how much they all depend on Willems, how much they need her right now. There's a brief moment where she wished God had answered her prayers to heal her father from his respiratory illness because I need you right now. That was a nice character development for her. So they all huddle into the barn where we get a brief back story about it. Apparently she and her father moved to this asylum eighteen years prior, after her mother's death. The barn was part of the entire property, but was its own separate building. This had always annoyed her father who wished it had been done the Russian Mennonites way with the barn attached to the house. This part? I actually liked this part, learning a bit about the history of the property even if it only lasted a few lines. There's also some character development for Florie who begins to cry when the lantern is struck alight--obviously giving her flashbacks to the horror she and the others had just survived moments before. There is one thing that bothers me, though. After they do a little prayer, Florie tells Christina, “You put all of us in God's hands, but you didn't put you in His hands.” Doesn't this seem strange coming from a seven-year-old girl? I know this is the 1890s, but this sounded like it would come from an older person's voice, not hers. Especially when she's supposed to be traumatized by the whole ‘Almost Burnt To Death In The Fire’ thing. Anyway, something has to be done. They can't stay in the barn forever. Louisa McLain leaned close to Christina and whispered, “Rose and I carted out clothes, too, and we can share with Harriet, of course, if need be. But I got a look at the things Alice brought, and they're mostly for youngsters. None of us thought to grab shoes, and we don't have anything at all for the menfolk, I'm afraid.” That's not a typo on my part: that's literally how it's written in my Kindle edition. What should be one single strand of words is split into two different paragraphs. This is mostly used when a character is going on for paragraphs and paragraphs and the author doesn't want a solid block of text. The dialogue above doesn't need that as Louisa isn't going on a long-winded speech. She's simply informing Christina of a few things. The plan is to go into town for supplies and shelter as the barn doesn't offer a whole lot, and the Asylum proper is just a big stack of limestone filled with noxious smoke. Louisa doesn't like this. Louisa's brow pinched. “I've heard some of the folks in Brambleville weren't too pleased about this fine house being made into a home for the destitute. They might turn us away, just as the innkeeper did to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem.” OK, time out. Why is this? Who did this house belong to before Christina Willems and her dad moved in eleven years ago? Obviously someone rather wealthy if the house were made of limestone, and some of the folks are in a huffy about a bunch of street rats moving in. But that was over a decade ago, I would think the vast majority of the people would've gotten used to it by now. And is it just because the house is now an asylum for homeless people? While granted I can see how some materialistic folks might not take it too kindly, I would imagine that, again the vast majority would be OK with it. Get the poor and destitute off the streets and into a home. Lower crime, maybe Willems and her group can teach the poor and destitute life skills that would make them productive citizens of Brambleville, how would that be so terrible? How would it be so bad if they just so happen to HQ in a fancy house? Thirdly, why wouldn't they help? Even if the Josiah Q. Adams of Brambleville were complete dicks, I would trust that even in the 1890s, cities like Brambleville would've had fire stations. There would be places for them to go to seek refuge. And fourthly, it's implied, at least to my eyes, that the innkeepers rejected Mary and Joseph because they were assholes. In this Episcopalian's humble opinion: the innkeepers weren't assholes. Remember, Mary and Joseph were going to Bethlehem for the annual Roman census, so the city was jammed to the walls with everyone from almost all possible corners of Judea coming. There simply wasn't enough room. And especially since Mary was moments from birthing the baby Jesus, I can understand the hesitation the innkeepers had in terms of accepting them. With all the logistical crap happening, with figuring out where to feed and house everyone in Judea, is it that hard to empathize with those poor people? They probably went, “You two managed to pick the worst possible time to come here, you know that?! I'm ass-deep in trying to feed, clothe, and otherwise tend to my tenants here and you two come in here expecting me to prepare for the coming of an infant!? That's it, I'm going to drink myself to oblivion! Good day, sir!” At any rate, this scene ends with Christina promising that God will not abandon his children in their time of need. In the meantime, I'm left with questions regarding the history of the estate, who were its former owners, why does no one want it turning into a poor house. I know that you'd want to avoid info-dumping everything, you want to leave the right details in at the right time, but were this chapter (and the first one) longer, more developed, we could've learned about the history of the Asylum. At least enough to know what its original purpose was. Anything to clue me in. Even something like: this house was once the home of the mayor of Brambleville,...
Hello everyone! This is the first entry of what I hope to be an ongoing series where I critique books chapter by chapter and dissect what went wrong. For this first entry, I will look into a Christian book called What Once Was Lost by Kim Vogel Sawyer, published in 2013. Why did I read it? Because of curiosity and I stupidly thought it was a historical fiction. The general gist of the plot revolves around mending yourself through God -- finding the strength to patch yourself up after a devastating loss and how God looks after the unwanted rejects of society. With that said, let's take a look at this! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <CHAPTER 1> The story opens up in Brambleville, Kansas in 1890 where a prayer is just being wrapped up. The person leading the prayer is Christina Willems, leading the poor farm. The first thing she sees is an empty chair where her Papa used to sit. This is the description: "Loneliness smote her, as familiar as the smooth maple tabletop beneath her folded hands. Would she ever adjust to her dear father's absence?" ...I don't even know where to start with this. She's clearly not gotten over her father's passing a year prior, so why would this description of the tabletop be relevant here? How does she feel? Overwhelmed by the amount of work she finds herself in? Bitter that for all their work, they're still struggling to get by? Point is, she isn't going to be thinking about the tabletop -- she's going to be thinking about that empty chair and the memories associated with it. Sadly, this was just in the opening line. The book is drenched with purple prose and telling, rather than showing. This poor farm/asylum is a place for the homeless and deprived to seek shelter, and their food consists of mainly pork and beans. The subsequent paragraphs reveal this place's actual name: The Brambleville Asylum for the Poor. There are thirteen people present: #1- Miss Christina Willems, the owner #2- Alice Deaton #3- Francis Deaton, her kid #4- Laura Deaton, Francis' sister #5- Tommy Kilgore (ten years old and blind) #6- Joe Alexander (seven years old) #7- Florie Alexander (seven years old) #8- Cora Jennings (a young woman) #9- Lousia McLain #10- Rose McLain #11- Wes Duncan #12- Herman Schwartz (an old man with arthritis) #13- Harriet Schwartz (Herman's wife) Thirteen people in an asylum for the poor. They eat pork and beans because these are the only food they can really afford to use. They had a hunter named Hamilton Dresden who provided them good game, but he was kicked out because he was getting frisky with Alice. Wait, somewhere in this scene Wes apparently had a shotgun, so that's how they're able to eat something other than bacon and beans seven days in a row. ...How long is she planning to take care of them? Can she even afford to care for them all?? And honestly, that's all we know from the first scene They're all in this asylum for the poor and they're eating the first decent meal in months. And Miss Willems is a devout Christian. Slow start, but perhaps by the end of the story I will have grown to care about the orphanage and all the inhabitants within. ~*~ The next scene has Miss Willems being roused from her sleep by Tommy Kilgore later that evening. She figures that he needs to use the potty and tells him to go fetch Francis and have him walk the boy to the outhouse. Francis is nine and often doesn't want to do that (I wonder why?) OK, brief note here: why? I get that this is the 1890s so all the stuff for the blind wasn't available back then, but this seems like a no-brainer problem that could've easily been solved on Day 1. I want you to spend a few moments pondering this question: You're in an age before indoor plumbing and you're caring for a blind child. How are you going to get him/her to the outhouse when he/she needs it? If it were me, I would've fashioned a simple rope line -- tied to sticks and broken broomsticks -- that would go from the house to the outhouse and teach the child where this is. See? Took me maybe a few seconds to figure out that little quandary. Not like we're asking them to teach Tommy how to perform open heart surgery; just how do we get him to the bathroom without him (a) soiling himself and (b) having to rely on others to get him there. Secondly, wouldn't Tommy know roughly how to get to the outhouse by himself after the first few times? I know he's only ten, but I would think a blind person of any age would take special care to form a mental map on how to get to the place where he/she can answer Nature's call. Even if they don't do the rope thing, I assume the outhouse is still where it always is so Tommy should have a mental roadmap on how to get there. But hey, what do I know? I went to a school for the deaf and blind, had blind friends, and am half-blind myself. What do I know? Blind people don't know how to get around without the sighted to help them? Duuuurrrr.... But we don't have time for Tommy's bathroom-related problems because the orphanage is on goddamned fire. Specifically, the kitchen is on fire. A few things I want to note here: This is how the passage described Tommy's urgency: "Urgency underscored Tommy's tone." That's...wow. Nothing about Tommy jumping up and down in fright, jerking on her arm or whimpering in fright? We get things like hysteria rising in his pitch and volume and him sobbing as his body quivered but that's it? Secondly, how did Tommy get there first? Wouldn't Cora logically be the first one to have gotten there? Did he wake her up first? If so, why didn't she raise the alarm? Why did he need to go get Miss Willems? What follows is mass chaos as everyone tries to get the hell out of the Asylum. I'm going to pick now to check on the descriptions I found...interesting: "Papa's silver watch, which hung on a chain around her neck, bounced painfully against her chest, and she paused to tuck it beneath the neck of her gown before proceeding." The orphanage is on fire and she's worried about her dad's silver watch around her neck? I would think most people would just ignore the damned thing. "Smoke created a murky curtain (...) Flames exploded behind the kitchen doorway, then attacked the wooden frame, taking on the appearance of dancing tongues. Would the floorboards catch fire and carry those hungry flames to the door?" What's the imagery here? How does the fire attacking the frame correlate to the "hunger" thing I'm getting from this passage? Everyone's finally out! Except an elderly couple, Harriet and Herman whose room was right next to the kitchen. The chapter ends with Wes, who is apparently slow in the head, obtaining the brilliant plan to run back into the flames to get them. "He broke free and stumbled to the doorway with its dancing circle of fire." "Exploded", "Attacked", "dancing tongues", "Hungry flames", "Dancing circle of fire". I'm not concerned with how the fire looks, I'm more concerned with why I don't feel the same panic and fear as everyone in this chapter feels. Yeah, this all sucks but I know little to nothing about any of these characters -- there's no reason for me to care about any of them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well that's it. That's Chapter One. Let me know how you all thought of it. If you've any tips on how to make it more interesting/entertaining, feel free to leave suggests in the comments below. I hope you enjoyed it.