Moonlake's Fiction Space

“What does Writing Mean to you?”

I skipped out on the post yesterday because I was preparing the response to selection criteria document for a job- yes, that most pesky activity that one could be engaged in! Having said that, I’m applying for a job in familiar fields so to speak and there would be no more weird questions at interviews as I’ve encountered when I was trying to make a switch.

Anyway, personal life aside, I’ve decided to base today’s post on the question of “What does Writing Mean to you?” I don’t think I explicitly mentioned it here but I was trying my hand at novel writing and was working on the first book of a five book series. But then let’s just say a number of things happened both with the writing itself and my life circumstances such that I just couldn’t continue.with it. That was in February of this year. At that point, I had meant to come back to it, say in a month maybe, but now the status on this novel just ended up being “stalled”.

Now, to be honest, I never really had the ambition to be a published author up to a year ago, except to dream that one day (possibly when I’ve retired) that I would try my hand at novel writing. Now, I can only say that novel writing is much higher up in priority in my life but I can’t really say that I want to be making a living out of writing. Still, I would like to be able to be in a position to produce a high quality fantasy series one day. And note that, I say fantasy series, not just a book, for I’ve found that what I enjoy most out of writing is the creation of a fantasy world and really, as a reader myself, I love the extent of immersion into the fantasy world that only a series can provide. So really I think at this stage I’m just trying to re-affirm what writing means to itself, and hence this post.

So what does writing mean to me? Well, in essence, it is an activity that I immensely enjoy. It provides me with a sense of freedom that no other activity could. When I’m writing, I could live in the moment and not think about anything else (on a good day, that is, I of course encounter Writer’s Block very often etc. etc.) In general, I am very good at self-therapy when I feel down and I’ve just found out that writing is the ultimate form of self therapy available in my hands. For me, it is also a form of self expression, in a format that I feel comfortable with and actually adore (yes, I’m an introvert and I’m the type of person that hate being induced to talk when I don’t feel like talking). So yes, writing for me is purely and simply a leisurely pursuit, much like how I love to watch TV drama and love to read books. Also, I think there is beauty in words, just by individual words necessarily, but definitely when they flow together and create certain effects. At high school, I already know that I enjoy writing but well, I’ve always been very intellectual (nerdy for some), very rational, very practical and I worry about the prospect of earning a living as an author. I’ve always had the impression that earning a living as a writer is some sort of “rich people’s occupation” if you are working age (hence my dream used to be that I would pursue writing in retirement).

Anyway, I think I’ve gone onto a side-track. As I’ve said, my ambition is not to be a published writer. Rather, what I would like to produce one day is a fantasy series that I deem to be high quality. I don’t really care whether it sells or not but I want to produce something that I deem worthwhile, as simple as that.

This post has ended up being random personal musings as I suspected it would but I really feel that it’s time for me to put things down in words somewhere so that I don’t forget about what writing really means for me and then to get side-tracked into a million of other things that do nothing to do with me and the type of writing that I am pursuing. And at the end of this post, I would like to thank any of you who ventured to read (and finish) this which is really a self-therapy that I’ve concocted to move me forwards on my stalled novel and writing in general. So cheers and stay tuned for more posts that are less rambling.

Moonlake’s Book Discoveries- May 2015

I’m going out tomorrow so posting in advance again. As I promised, this will be about the books I’ve read in the last 3 months and what I thought about them. For my new followers, I don’t do book reviews per se because I’m not really objective as a reader of books in general. I can appreciate good writing but as a rule, a book either chimes with me on a personal level or it doesn’t so my bookish posts are what I call “quick and dirty summaries of my thoughts on series, standalone books and authors”.

The actual books that would be covered in this post include:

The boy with the porcelain blade by Den Patrick
Giant Thief by David Tallerman
The Tower and Knife trilogy by Marzarkis Williams
The Murder of Roger Ackryod by Agatha Christie
The Enchanted by Rene Denfield

Here’s what I thought about each of them:

The boy with the porcelain blade- to be honest, I’m sort of indifferent about it on a personal level. It is an okay read in general and it’s the first book of a series but I don’t think I’m too keen to follow the actual series, preferring to be done with the book as a standalone. That, however, is not to say that Den Patrick’s writing style is bad. Even though the story is only set in a castle, I don’t feel the underlying world being ‘constricted’ in any sense (which is what I hate in a fantasy story). Also, I do feel that it is interesting that he had decided to tell the story in alternating chapters that go between the present and the past. As for the effect of this storytelling method… well, I can only say that I personally feel that it has been a hit-and-miss. At some points, I feel that it worked really well, the chapter that delved into the past added an extra layer of depth when put together with the previous chapter on what’s happening in the present. At other times, I could see no clear link between the two consecutive chapters on different timelines so then the chapter on the past becomes a kind of annoying obstacle to the sequences of events unfolding in the present that you want to follow. So overall, I would really prefer that the chapters on the past are put in sparingly rather than the current alternate chapter structure. The story itself features some detailed scenes of swordplay, a few mysteries as the plot progresses, light brushes of politics at intervals and a kind of dark gothic feel.
Giant Thief- A good light read for me, quite fast-paced, starring a typical rogue (a thief) as the protagonist and his adventures after stealing a giant to earn his freedom from forceful conscription into the army
Tower and Knife- it has been an interesting read for me since it is my first-time exposure to the ‘grim fantasy’ niche. It definitely tells a layered story in that in each book of the series, the protagonists face a different enemy but the underlying source of the threat (pattern magic) remains the same and in each book, some extra layer(s) of truth about this underlying threat is revealed. Such layering also happens at the level of individual character actions. All in all, I quite like such a layered story telling approach. Also, I feel that each book of this series can be read as a standalone as in each book, new character perspectives are presented which is something new to me and I find that quite interesting. Of course, I prefer to read the trilogy all together as I did because of the layering and in general I’m just more used to fantasy trilogies that “hang together”. But as I’ve alluded to before, I always need periods of “light reading” after a good fantasy series that I really sink into. While this series is definitely not light reading in terms of content, this relatively standalone nature of the books in this series is good for any fantasy readers who doesn’t feel like being drawn into an actual trilogy/quartet/quintet etc.
Murder of R.A- a quite unique twist in terms of the culprit and by quite unique, I mean that I think I’ve read another book of hers where she did the same thing. This copy at my local library includes a foreword and afterword by Laura Thompson who is a biographer of Christie and in my opinion, reading them in addition to the actual story not only gives you more insights into Christie as a person and her conceptualisation of the book but is an enjoyable experience in and of itself.
The Enchanted- I forgot about it when I did my post on unusual reads. I actually didn’t pick this book on my own but because I joined a book club and it was designated as the book of the month. The story is set at a death cell prison, with the narrator being a death-row prisoner observing about the blossoming love between a ‘fallen priest” as he calls him who works at the prison and a lady who works to help death-row prisoners get a kind of re-assessment (or get clear) before they are due to be executed (I don’t know the actual technical term for it, this is what it roughly is in my own words). There’s some beautiful prose in this book but more, I like the fact that it tells of a lot of disturbing events but doesn’t tell it in a very sentimental way that gives the readers emotional baggage.

I have the following books currently borrowed but haven’t started to read yet:

The Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
A Dreadful Murder by Minette Walters

Going forward, I have the following books marked on my reading list, not in any particular order (all of them available at my local library):

The Noble Warriors trilogy by William Nicholson (YA)
The Desert of Souls by Howard A. Jones (historical fantasy mystery)
People of the Weeping Eye by Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear (historical fantasy)
Shadow’s Son and Shadow’s Lure by Jon Spurk
Wolfsangel by M. D. Lachlan (historical fantasy mystery)
Keith McCarthy mystery books

I have scrapped both the Imriel trilogy by Carey Jacqueline and Ian Irvine’s trilogy off my reading list, the former because only book 2 is accessible to me and the latter because my fellow Strolenati told me that the it was no good (he said that Ian Irvine doesn’t seem like a bad writer but it looked like he was writing according to trend, resulting in the creation of one-dimensionality on a grand scale). I’m contemplation about the Mistborn trilogy from Brandon Sanderson because somehow my local library only has the first book of the trilogy in English but instead has the full trilogy in Chinese. While Chinese is my mother language, I never has a thing for translated books (I read some of the world classics in childhood which includes Pride and Prejudice and reading it again in English as part of high school literature analysis really drove home to me how much loss occurs in translations). On the other hand, I have read multiple positive reviews about the series so now I’m of two minds on it.

That’s all for books for May. Stay tuned for the recurrence of this post on the first Monday of August.

P.S. This is the second long-read that I’ve written and I’m still surprised by it.

Characterisation- Moonlake’s List of Moods

I won’t be able to post tomorrow so I’m posting in advance today and it is about yet another list I’ve created as a result of my 10 by 10 exercise for characterisation, which is on the possible moods that a character typically goes through.

· affectionate

· aloof

· angry

· anguish

· argumentative

· authoritative

· avoidance

· bashful

· boastful

· boisterous

· calculating

· cheerful

· concentrated

· confusion

· contemplative

· content

· demanding

· depression

· despair

· directing

· directionless

· disappointment

· dreamy

· excited/hyperactive

· Exhaustion

· firm/forceful

· focused

· frustrated

· gleeful

· grumbling

· grumpy

· happy

· hopeful

· humorous

· ice-cold

· intense thinking

· introspection

· isolation

· killing edge

· lamenting

· lecturing

· lethargic

· lighthearted

· lightning

· longing

· malice

· mischievous

· numb

· obedient

· philosophical

· playful

· quiet

· reasoning

· regret

· relaxed

· reminiscent

· restless

· sleepy

· stubborn

· sweet

· tender

· unfazed

· vulnerable

· wistful

· worrisome

· zone out

Characterisation- Moonlake’s List of Personal Values

Before delving into the actual topic of this post, I have to mention that I edited the previous post about Catalyst Events and Elements yesterday rather than going with 2 separate posts on the same topic as previously planned.

So in today’s post, I’m going to share yet another list I had created that aids characterisation- a list of personal values, what is particularly important for a particular character that potentially drive a significant part of his/her actions . This list might not be as comprehensive as that in the previous post. It’s basically made up of items that I had come up with in the process of filling out my 10 by 10 character grids that I had talked about. So anyone reading this should treat it as a post for starting ideas rather than a comprehensive article on the topic.

I’m going to go by alphabetical order this time since it’s quite short at the moment:

Affection- mainly thinking of people who want to please others all the time
Comfort- not necessarily lazy people but could be for example women who dislikes high heels because they’re uncomfortable and don’t have occasion to wear them
Compassion
Convenience- people who likes taking shortcuts, people who dawdle on tasks that are complicated….
Duty
Equity
External approval/praise
Freedom
Happiness
Harmony
Idealism
Independence
Integrity
Love
Materialism
Momentary gratification versus long term welfare
Moderation- mainly thinking of how likely the person is to go to extremes
Planning versus improvisation- mainly thinking about personal preferences for planning or not
Power
Practicality
Security
Self versus collective achievement- “self achievers” are more ambitious and seek credits whereas “collective achievers” care about whether they make good contributions to a collective cause the way I see it
Self expression
Self sufficiency- distinguished from independence in the sense that the ultimate driver for the character is to not rely on others
Stability
Status
Visibility- attention seekers basically
Wealth

Plotting with Catalyst Events and Elements

Today I’m going to talk about a particular approach to creating plots- the use of catalyst events and elements, which is just my term for any event or element that moves the story along. Normally, the grand skeleton of a story comes to me of their own accords but I find this catalyst event approach quite useful for filling up a particular plot arc. For example, I might have decided that a particular plot arc involves my protagonists adventuring in a desert and then I could just consult my list of catalyst events in order to fill up what the protagonists actually encounter during this desert plot arc. It also comes in handy when I’m particularly stuck on what happens to the protagonists next.

I was going for completeness of coverage for a fantasy story when I created the list and in total the list has about 100 items.

Roughly, they fall into 6 groups:

Related to nature: natural disasters (famine, drought, earthquake, tidal wave, volcano eruption, typhoon, flood), weather related events that could have interesting interactions with the terrain and hinder protagonists’ movement (storm, blizzard, rainfall, fog, nightfall), other bad events (avalanche, pestilence), good events (bounty)
Societal changes: “threats” from outside a society (war, different plane [of reality], divinity, alien sentience, breakout of ‘evil’ sealed in), change in authority (just ruler coming on, tyranny), within a people/group (dissension, corruption, conservatism, a break of tradition, a forbidden rule broken), discovery/rediscovery of knowledge, discovery of old/ lost civilisation
Related to people, relationships and personal fortunes: life class, widening of social circle, growing apart from friends/lovers, increasing intimacy with someone, maturing/growing up, moving on versus stuck in the past, losing all/going on a brand new start, unemployment, sudden fame, personal loss, memory abnormality, minor illness/injury, reincarnation, being lost, being trapped, indecision, oversight, travel to foreign lands, mutation, exiled, poisonings, enslaved), power dynamics (old bloodline versus a new power), layers of truth (misunderstanding, misconception, mistaken impression, rumour/gossip, lie/untruth), character actions, not necessarily that of protagonists but all characters in general, I sometimes think actions by other characters besides protagonists are more interesting catalyst events (reunion, union of lovers, lovers who missed each other, a promise kept/broken, revenge, past trauma, family feud, oath/geis, family heirloom/duty, penance, personal sacrifice, act of generousity/mercy, act of small malice, act of curiousity)
Sources of dispute: treasure, relic of power, legacy of power, ill begotten wealth, new ability that surfaces, racial/ethnic feud
Symbolic elements and other standard troupe of fantasy: prophecy, dream/vision/oracle, illusion/mirage, a fortune telling, local lore, legends, curse, secret, portal, non-aging (effect of the Ring on Bilbo and Frodo in LoR, fountains of youth etc.), possession by ghost, secret meeting, duels, hauntings, sacrifices (as in cult sacrifices ala Indiana Jones style)
Chance encounters: chance meeting/stranger, chance acquiring, mysterious note, overheard conversation

Moonlake’s Lyrics (12)

What is your ultimate pursuit in life? Everyone has different answers. For me, it has always been something internal that I seek so the lyrics that I’m going to share today chimes with me particularly.

The title of the song is Extraordinary Bum. It is the theme song for a HK drama whose protagonist is an advisor to the Emperor in the Qing dynasty but who acts like a bum most of the time (in the story, the protagonist doesn’t have an official rank but goes by the title of “personal assistant” of the Emperor). Of course, it is wholly made-up without making use of any historical reference whatsoever but I rather like the central theme of the drama and the theme song which is really about having low desires of fame and status.

The actual lyrics is as follows:

*Not greedy for rise in official ranks and the attainment of nobility
Haven’t seen such achieving anything
Maybe a bum is bound to be looked down upon
Never sought to outshine you                   with endless depth in terms of handling affairs

Don’t laugh at me                                            I no longer have the heart for competition
Only one leisurely like me                            can discover love
If one does not have the inborn ability for leisure
Who would know how to let go

Don’t be envious of working for the Emperor
Maybe it’s ultimately a dream
Not greedy of fame and the claiming of accomplishments (*here specifically referring to those that allow one to climb up in status)
Inappropriately dream of riding phoenixes and dragons

If you’re arrogant of inborn intelligence and show off your prestige
Maybe you will be ultimately fooled
Only one wise can think through (fame and status)

Repeat *

Notes: riding phoenixes and dragons is a term that refers to climbing up in rank, specifically through sucking to those already in a high position

Writing Challenges

This is the made-up post that I had promised earlier for the post I had skipped due to sickness. In this post, I’m going to talk about writing challenges. How are these different from writing prompts, you ask? Well, not different at all in essence as they are both meant to spark off ideas. It’s merely that this is what they are called over at my virtual writer’s home that I’ve blogged about previously (since they are challenges thrown out by specific Strolenatis) so I stick to the term.

Firstly, I have to admit that I’m quite “picky” when it comes to writing prompts. That is, I have to find the ‘right’ writing prompts for me so that I could write. As for writing challenges, at the least they’ve prompted me to create a submission for the Citadel which is usually less than 2000 words but tend to be longer labours of love than the random passages that I tended to write off any other prompts. So in this post, I am mainly going through those writing challenges I encountered that inspired me personally. They include:

The Bizarre Lifeform Challenge- based on the premise that in theory, anything could be the sustenance of a particular lifeform. Personally, I came up with the Sheen Leech which made a ‘diet’ of sheens as part of its mating process. As for the physical appearance of these creatures, I came up with the idea that they look like caterpillars but have frog-like tongues that have a suction-cup located at the tip that they use to capture flies.
The Red Herring- not the standard term for detective books but referring to some item utterly useless to standard adventurers starred in fantasy. For this I came up with the idea of Fools’ Gems that are coloured due to exposure to magic but would very quickly lose their colouring when ‘mined’ and taken out from where they are found.
Placeholder Gods- the idea that standard gods had left a realm, resulting in a new set of unconventional Gods to step in as replacements, meant to be silly in nature really. My personal contributions include Zxtkvf, God of the Unfathomable and Unbelievable and Setam, the Goddess of Nerves. Both of these I had written a neat 100-word snippet for. Both are fun ideas but I’m not quite geared for silly/humorous pieces for that’s the most I want to push out for these ideas.
Archaic Words challenge- did anyone know the special name given to the “miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another’s eye on looking closely into it”? no, well, it’s called babies-in-the-eyes. Based on this term, I came up with a method of fortune telling purely revolving around gazing intently at the babies-in-the-eyes reflected in the fortune teller’s eyes.

Btw, there are heaps more writing challenges actually on the Citadel if anyone is interested in them. I’ve given out the link before but here it is again for new followers: http://strolen.com/main. It is a fun community for writers really, especially fantasy writers (there’s a fair amount of sci-fi as well). So visit it and join if you are as keen on fantasy and writing and improving with honest feedback as I am.

Worldbuilding- Moonlake’s Favourite Elements

This post is somewhat inspired by the post of Berkeley Kerr that I’ve reblogged under this same category some months back but compared to his very extensive article, mine is more modest in scope. I’m merely talking about my favourite elements in world building aka things I like to include whilst building my own fantasy world. In no particular order, they are:

Lore (including creation myth): personally, this is the element that always draws me to fantasy. Whether it’s stories/poetry/ballads about past ages, lost races, fallen empires or plain creation myths, they fascinate me. I’m less interested in treasures and tales of dragons except on a light reading basis. Anyway, for me, lore adds complexity and depth to a world and is an integral element of building up the history of my world. In fact, I’ve personally found that it is way easier to construct these relative to actual history of a fantasy world (probably because I never actually care for history myself)- sometimes they even come to me of their own accords.
Speculative biology: basically the creation of fantasy fauna and flora. Personally, I tend to create more fantasy plants in the process of world creation for my novels- don’t know why, just happens to be. These are just tidbits that I drop in to spice up the world.
Constellation: personally I always create constellation that embodies a particular culture’s values and ways of living
Cultural adverbs & fantasy vocab: something I always create despite myself, I use them both as spices and to reveal the underlying culture that I’m writing
Social customs: this encompasses things like special festivals, various habits in daily life, gestures etc.

Again, I stress that this is not meant to be comprehensive in nature, merely a discussion of my favourite elements when constructing my own fantasy world. And that’s all for today. And oh, I haven’t forgotten that I’m still owing a post. I will make it up shortly.

Moonlake’s Lyrics (11)

This set of lyrics that I want to share is about breaking up. Moreover, it’s about positive breaking up and that’s what I like about it. It’s from a Cantonese song about ten years’ back.

The song title roughly translate to “good start, good finish”.

Hugging each other with a smile                     till it’s time to let go
Let all the eyes on the street                             watch as they please
Pray and then pray again                                    that a sweet impression would be left
Making me feel warm                                          and able to recollect it later

*Having too much to say                                   but not able to connect up in speech
Haven’t opened my mouth                               there’s nothing more suitable for this time
Look fixedly and then look fixedly again      Departure is like this
Calm but long

Looking ahead                                                        see how bright the sky is
Each facing the future with each’s hopes
To love needs two                                                  to separate also needs two
Because of having loved once                            having a good start and finish
Will guarantee a calmness of heart even in separation

Thinking of how ideal it is                                   even my steps are light
Yet I did not expect that in the dark
Two streams of tears have stealthily appeared on my face
Pain have surfaced from within my heart

Did not hasten and chase after the other         to lay the truth bare
I am hurt slightly                                                      but haven’t lost direction yet
Look back and then look back again                   what if we meet again
We’ll still wave and say goodbye to each other

Chinese Lore- Tian Gou (Heavenly Dog)

Physical Description:

A fox-like creature whose head is white, said to be originating from a pre-histoical mammal.

Lore:

Originally seen as an animal that can counter evil, it somehow became the synonym to comets which are seen as bad omen in ancient China.

In particular, the Tian Gou eating the Sun or the Moon is a common story passed down through folklore, which was how the ancient populace explained the phenomenon of sun or moon eclipses. During such times, the populace often rang gongs, played drums or even used firecrackers so as to ‘scare away’ the Tian Gou. Closely related to this story is the legend that when Chang E stole the immortal pills rewarded to her husband Hou Yi for shooting down nine Suns (and thus only leaving one sun in the sky), Hou Yi’s hunting hound chased her all through her ascent up to the sky. Hearing its bark, Chang E hid herself in the Moon. Meanwhile, all the hair on the hound’s body stood up erect and its body kept on expanding. Then in one motion, it leapt up and swallowed the Moon whole. When the Heavenly King and Queen heard about this event, they sent the Heavenly Guards to apprehend the black dog. When it was brought forth, the Heavenly Queen recognised it as Hou Yi’s hunting hound and gave it the title of Heavenly Dog and the responsibility of guarding the Southern Heavenly Door. As a result of the honour given to it, the hound spat out Chang E and the Moon. Thereafter, Change E made the Moon her home.

There is another story concerning how Chang Xian (an immortal in Chinese lore) shot the Heavenly Dog. In this story, the Heavenly Dog was obstructing the constellations from going to the mortal realm as children. When Chang Xian shot the Heavenly Dog and made it run away, the people were then able to get children and as a result, Chang Xian was known as “the children-giving Chang Xian”.