And a quarter cup of frustration...

Frustration.

That's a word with which most of us are very familiar. Frustration is a natural part of life. We don't always get things our way and often times it can seem that, to quote Anne Shirley quoting someone else: "'The stars in their courses plot against me.'" Frustration in real life can be horribly annoying. It can be something as small as a trip to the DMV where everyone and their brother smells of cigarettes and can't remember their middle name, to something as big as a coworker purposely framing you as the genius behind the office arguments. Okay. I haven't been the victim of the latter form of frustration, but you will probably understand the sensation.Writers always talk about adding conflict, adding tension, adding lots of negatives to a scene to make it dance. In a dreary sort of way, the more negative elements you pour on your characters, the more positive the effect. Some authors take this advice and go all out with illegitimate births, jealous half-brothers, more and more villains, twists of fate, etc. That works for many authors and I think that it is an excellent maxim to add some of those elements (and preferably many others) to your plot. What you don't always need to drag out a long-absent brother or an abbot who knows your character's dubious background to ratchet up a scene. There are subtle ways to make your character miserable. Can you guess the simplest, easiest way to add realistic conflict?

Frustrate your character.

Life hands us seemingly coincidental incidents that pile up in in our favor or against it. Play out this concept in your characters' lives and see how well it works. In the current chapter of Anon, Sir, Anon, Vivi is in a certain social setting, wanting to use this chance to observe and ask questions of the locals. If I let this scene be, it would probably fall out as a sort of dull triumph for Vivi. She'd probably get her information and move on to the next dull triumph and so on and so forth, amen. But you can't do that and expect to win friends and influence people. In the same vein, I didn't need to bring in the villain to stir the pot. He is better left till called for via the dictates of the decided plot. What I did, was construct the setting so that the room was over-crowded, noisy, and confusing, giving Vivi a silent migraine. This has nothing to do with any villain, conflict between other characters, or anything of that nature. It is very simply a natural, very frustrating occurrence. (Believe me. I get a silent migraine every time I try to go contra-dancing.) The migraine debilitates Vivi by cruelly lifting away her capacity to think, digest information, or otherwise use this very good chance to work on the murder case. A frustration. A natural one. This is the same technique filmmakers use when they add rain to a scene. There are two reasons for rain in scene: one; it frustrates the characters further, or two; it makes the mood romantic...somehow...(picturing dripping wet Mr. Darcy hair and wondering where the attraction lies). A natural frustration is going to cause your reader to, in Stephen King's words, "prickle with recognition". Why? Because your reader might not have a snarky, murderous half-brother but he probably has dealt with the hiccups in a professional interview, a distraction in a moment of concentration, locked his keys out of his car (which would foil a getaway in a genius and simple way), or experienced some other small (or major) frustration.

Make real life work for you. Most of you are coming up on two centuries (or at least a century and a half) of life experience. Some of you have lots more. Surely you could draw up a lengthy list of naturally-occurring frustrations to add to tension in your plot.

Vivi’s eyes flickered over every face one by one but there were too many people. Far too many.  A hundred grinning mouths became two hundred, two hundred smiling eyes became four-hundred. All five of her senses protested against the overload. The living heat, noise, and colors swirled in a twist of confusion. A vague, disquieting sensation of falling asleep and rising above the rest of the room filled the front of her head, and she struggled to make it back to the shore of reality. Fresh air. She wanted it as a thirsty man craves drink. She moved toward the now dark square of the doorway, flickers of alarm shooting through her chest at the idea that something might impede her freedom, or that she might stumble head-long into the crowd before she made it to the salvation of the outdoors.

-Anon, Sir, Anon

If you must be Quixotic...

I like to hand myself a hard question now and then and stretch the all too lax abstract/logic muscles of my mind into trying to give a suitable answer. As I sat down this evening and thought about what to write, the question came to me:

Why do I like to write?

In forming my answers for this question, I laid certain parameters upon myself: 1) I could not use "I just love it" to explain. 2) I could not mention Epic by John Eldridge. There. Pact made, and no backsies. 

So why do I like to write?

In a pale, mortal way my answer is a mirroring of 1 John 4:19 which speaks of why we love God: "We love because He first loved us." The question "Why do you like to write" is one of a capricious nature that has no beginning and no end. It simply is. {which, incidentally, is not breaking my pact. No fear on that account. I will explain myself.} I love to write because I love to read, and as I've grown older I believe I love to read because I love to write. The things are inverse and adverse and companions and fools. A love of reading came before an acknowledged love of writing, but I would not say you were incorrect in wondering if the love of writing was always there waiting for an outlet it could not find until I first took up a pen with the intention of forming my own words on paper.

Asking a writer why they like to write {in the theoretical sense of the question} is like asking a person why they breathe. For me, writing is a natural reflex to the beauty, the events, and the people I see around me. As Anais Nin put it, "We write to taste life twice." I live and then I write. The one transfers to the other, for me, in a gentle, necessary way. As prosaic as it sounds, I believe I process by writing. Part of the way I deal with stressful situations, catty people, or great joy or great trials in my own life is by conjuring it onto paper in some way; a journal entry, a blog post, my writing notebook, or my latest story. While I am a fair conversationalist, my real forte is expressing myself in words on paper. If I leave it all chasing round my head like rabbits in a warren, I'm apt to become a bug-bear to live with and my family would not thank me. Some people need counselors. Some people need long, drawn-out phone-calls with a trusted friend. Some people need to go out for a run. I need to get away to a quiet, lonesome corner--preferably on the front steps at gloaming with the North Star trembling against the darkening blue. I need to set my pen fiercely against the page {for at such moments I must be writing--not typing.} and I need to convert the stress or excitement or happiness into something to be shared with another person.

The beauty of the relationship between reading and writing is its give-and-take dynamic. For years I gathered and read every book in the near vicinity and absorbed tale upon tale, story upon story, adventures and sagas and dramas and classics. I fed my fancy, my tastes, and my ideas upon good books and thus those aspects of myself grew up to be none too shabby. When I began to employ my fancy, tastes, and ideas in writing my own books, the dawning of a strange and wonderful idea tinged the horizon of thought with blush-rose colors: If I persisted and worked hard and poured myself into the craft, I could create one of those books. One of the heart-books that foster a love of reading and even writing in another person somewhere. I could have a hand in forming another person's mind. A great responsibility and a great privilege that, and one I would love to be a party to. Books can change a person. I am a firm believer in that. I cannot tell you how many sentiments or noble ideas or parts of my own personality are woven from threads of things I've read over the years. I hoard quotations and shadows of quotations and general impressions of books like a tzar of Russia hoards his icy treasures. They make up a large part of who I am. I think it's worth saying again: books can change a person. For better or for worse. As a writer it's my two-edged gift to be able to slay or heal where I will. It's my responsibility to wield that weapon aright and do only good with my words. Or only purposeful cutting. I am not set against the surgeon's method of butchery--the nicking of a person's spirit, the rubbing in of a salty, stinging salve, and the ultimate healing-over of that wound that makes for a healthier person in the end. It's the bitter herbs that heal the best, so now and again you might be called upon to write something with more cayenne than honey about it. But the end must be good. We cannot let the Light fade from our words.

My last answer for this self-imposed question is a bit shallower, a bit meaner, a bit more like the saucy miss I'm apt to become now and again when the mood is upon me: I like to write because I savor the power. I like to draw a person in and attach them to fictional people. I like to transport them places they've never been, introduce them to observations they'd never have seen were it not for me. Presumptuousness, I know. I like to implant a bit of Rachel in them that may stick there like a cockle-bur the rest of their lives, never to drop away. I like to entrance a reader in my intricate, gossamer web of story and spin them out to the other side, breathless and dew-damp; a little bewildered, a deal pleased. So these, dear friends, are my answers to that wonderfully quixotic question of why I like to write. I'd like to see sister-posts of your own reasons if you so had the time or the inclination. But for now I'll leave you and trot off the practicality of fetching my dinner.

"...He had begun writing again—fierce, warring words she could tell, by the bold black strokes."

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

When the dawn opened.

Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,
The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,
I turn my tale to that which next befell,
When the dawn opened, and the night was not.  

-Dante's Inferno

Every person has a religion. Generally I avoid that term like the plague--it carries such a horrid feeling of dry-bones and long tradition and deadness with it. But I use the term in lieu of the fact that I haven't found a better one that is so all-encompassing.
 That explained, it's a fact, despite the myriads of human beings who deny their allegiance to any sort of "religion" in the general sense. I would boldly declare [again] that everyone has a religion. Your religion may be the Religion of No-Religion. But Man was created to worship and whether it is worshiping Jesus Christ, as it should be, or whether it is worshiping your own ideas of no-worship, it happens. It's built into the very fiber of our being. We need to understand that in order to live in this world--it's a fundamental truth that is often overlooked. And this is issue no less important than in literature. I know that many authors have done far better and more thorough jobs of the topic in longer posts, but I thought I'd just tell you a bit about where my Scarlettania and Gildnoir lies in this plethora of rabbit-trails.

Gildnoir worships neither God, nor any other sort of material idols. They reverence battle, warriors, skill with the sword, and allegiance to one's country and clan. That is the long and short of the doctrine of Gildnoir. Most obey it and bend knee to this god of War but others, namely a certain Diccon Quarry--are not content with this life and they almost unconsciously refute this War-god by forsaking their clan and breaking allegiance with their country. Diccon cautions Fitz-Hughes not to swear by the Hand that made him, for he will find the Hand's punishment far worse than that Diccon proffers. It's a primitive scheme, but rather powerful--even the Greeks and Romans had bouts with such a god in their day.

Scarlettania is a bit different--as it is essentially a fairy-tale world, it mirrors closely our own. There are church-men, there is truth, there is light. The Light is not exactly clearly named, for it filters into that world from our own and a little something is lost in the translation, but they are, like the places in Pilgrim's Progress, beautiful and just and noble. They crave light and live in the light and, did they live in our world, they would be God-followers. There is no definitive mention of Christianity in Scarlettania and Gildnoir, and yet I have made certain to keep Darkness and Light separate, meaning for the light to be from the one True Light: Jesus.

Diccon Quarry comes out of Darkness craving...he knows not what...and yet he is drawn to Scarlettania as if by an invisible hand and he finds Light. He finds purity and honor and love and truth. It's a beautiful paradox that I never grow tired of.

You see, I am not finished thrashing out all the details yet, but Christianity gets to this world shadow-like. Enough to cause one of the characters to wistfully remark to one of the Macefield bunch that at least earth-folk have an unerring Hand working in their lives. Thus it is that the Macefields learn to turn to the Author who is perfect.

And this is where things get muddled-er, if that's a word. Because you see, since Scarlettania is a make-believe country full of make-believe people who are all dictated to by Mr. Adoniram Woolcott Macefield, he is, in essence, their god. Not that they worship him--oh no. But he is writing their story just as God has written ours. Everything, truly, revolves around the Pen of Macefield. They swear by it and their oath is concrete after having that mighty name before it. They wait for his inky decrees as pilgrims wait for a sign on high. So you can imagine their delight, slight trepidation, and awe when a whole covey of sons and daughters of Macefield drop into their laps. The Scarlettanians frequently mention the fact that they are celebrities:

"Never let it be said that I let a daughter of Macefield wear rags when there are gossamine gowns at hand..."

Charlotte says she finds it uncomfortable to be in the position of a sort of demigod and looked upon with such reverence and awe.

Comments like that pepper the book and provide amusement on one hand and a slight bitter-sweet flavor on the other...I am not sure I am making much sense, but I was trying to extract from the annals of my mind just what was going on with religion and my Gypsy-Song.
But one thing is certain: as I write this book and realize how erring the hand of an authoress really is, I am ever more thankful that Jesus has written my story with perfect precision. There will be no rewriting and no editing is required. I've got the real deal in my Savior. He is Author, Editor, and Publisher all rolled into one....yes. We earth-folk have a blessed existence indeed.