Back of the Envelope

I'd write something meaningful, but I'm listening to the NBC special's attempts to be meaningful and I'm finding it annoying, so I'll spare you my version of New Year's sappiness. I'll just share with you my one resolution for 2006: Get something published. That's it. Last year I got some things written. This year I'm going to get some things published. We'll see how it works out.

While in Louisiana this week, I took the opportunity to visit New Orleans on Monday. I couldn't go to the Ninth Ward, as that's closed to the public, but I did see some other places hit by the hurricane. There's evidence of damage everywhere, as you can see in this picture, where a street lamp is completely bent over--probably by the hurricane winds:


The neighborhood we visited was Lakeview, which was a pretty nice part of town. Now it's mostly rubble. Literally. People are throwing away all the stuff that was damaged in the flood, piling it in front of their houses.


Yes, that is an old military uniform--Marines, I think--in that pile. Many of the houses are completely gutted: windows, doors, furniture, carpet, even parts of the walls gone. On the outside of the houses you can see lines, marking the levels of flooding they experienced:


Still, there are signs of life, people going through their remaining possessions, signs telling people they're back. I saw several churches declaring that they were having services. Some houses even had Christmas decorations up.

Despite that, there was a lot of property damage done. Cars which didn't make it out are all over the place.


As are boats.


The worst I saw was this building here. I'm not sure what it is or where it's supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be like that.



Maybe tomorrow I'll put up what I have from the French Quarter, which avoided the worst of the damage.

Yesterday, I said that I couldn't get into Battlestar Galactica because I didn't care for the characters. That got me to thinking about what kind of characters I like and don't like. That's not an easy question to answer. A lot depends on how the character is written, what his personality is, and how he shows his mettle by his deeds, so that it can't be easily translated into certain types. That said, there are some archetypes which appeal to me, and I have an easier time getting attached to them, so I'll talk a bit about them. As they're archetypes, I'll just use the masculine pronoun, but most of these archetypes work just as well for male and female characters. Also, as these are generic character types, it is possible, in fact common, for characters to fall under more than one archetype during the course of their role in a story, sometimes more than one at a time.

Character archetypes I like

The Good Guys

The Rogue Hero — My favorite, probably. This person usually has a criminal or mercenary past, but he always has a rebellious streak, a low regard for the rules, and a cynical attitude. He has, nevertheless, joined the right side, usually because he finds that he cares for the people, rather than because of the cause.

The Defector — Originally on the wrong side, his reasons for changing allegiances can vary from true repentance to a desire for revenge against his former employer. He brings with him a dark and suspicious attitude as well as an intricate knowledge of the enemy's inner workings.

The Underdog — Apparently weaker and less intelligent than his enemies and his protectors, he proves to have hidden reserves of strength. In fantasy, this often involves magical power or hidden ancestry, but I think this character type works best if it is "merely" strength of character and an innate goodness.

The Bad Guys

The Honorable Antagonist — Not really a bad guy, the honorable antagonist generally believes he is doing the right thing. Even if he knows his side is in the wrong, he believes that the higher calling of loyalty or honor requires him to continue down his path, even though it puts him at odds with the good guys. Because of his high principles, he can be won over.

The Mastermind — This type is truly evil, but more importantly, he is truly brilliant. A master manipulator, he is always one step ahead of the heroes, often using their supposed successes to further his own goals. He occasionally makes mistakes, but he is quick to learn and recover from them.

Others

The Outsider — He does what he does for his own purposes, and in order to do so, he'll make common cause with either the good guys or the bad guys. But because he does not share their allegiance, he's likely to turn against either if it's to his advantage.

The Conflicted — This type finds himself torn between two paths, with conflicting desires and circumstances driving him. Unlike the outsider, he does serve a side, but he finds himself drawn to the other.



Character archetypes I don't like

The Good Guys

The Superhero — It's reasonable, even expected, for the hero to be a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, and a little bit smarter than average... that's how he survives long enough to be the hero. However, when the hero is so overpowering in his abilities that he dwarfs mortal men and tramples over the common opponents, the only way to challenge him is to create stronger and stronger enemies for him until the story becomes a contest of gods.

The Bumbler — Often nothing more than comic relief, the bumbler is a sidekick who never accomplishes anything on his own. He is often in the company of a superhero, who will constantly need to rescue him. Occasionally a bumbler will turn out to be an underdog in disguise, but often not.

The Questgiver — This is a very old archetype, the wise old man or woman who explains to the hero what he must do, he often acts as a guardian to the hero early on. Of course, if he's so wise and powerful, shouldn't he be performing his own darn quest? He's always removed by a convenient plot twist in the fourth act.

The Bad Guys

The Incompetent — Less intelligent than he believes, often cowardly, this bad guy is never as much of a threat as he seems.

The Traitor — One can change sides for honorable reasons, but to change sides out of greed or cowardice is merely patheric.

Others

The Victim — The victim never accomplishes anything. Instead, it just happens to him. Those who face adversity and grow stronger can achieve much, but those who merely suffer are simply boring.



Now, those are my general thoughts. I'm not saying that a story shouldn't have any of the archetypes I don't like--sometimes they play important roles in the story. I'm just saying that I find it hard to get attached to those types of characters. Of course, a particularly well written character of a type I don't usually like can grow on me, and I can lose interest in a character of a type I do like if his personality just doesn't sit right with me.

Here are a couple of pictures I took this Christmas when I visited my family in Louisiana.

That's the Christmas tree at my parents' place. Yes, it is crooked. In fact, I think I'm holding the camera at an angle so it looks straighter than it actually is.

That's my niece, Kara, the daughter of my sister Rebekah. She's two, and much neater than her mother, as you can tell by the fact that she's playing with a toy mop.

I'm heading back to Boston today, so I'm going to be offline all day. I'll check back in once I'm home.

God bless y'all! I'm celebrating the holiday, but I'll be back tomorrow for more of my Irregular Holiday Blogging™.

Well, I spent hours writing instead of visiting with my family this Christmas vacation, but I finally finished the first draft of the sequel to Fire, tentatively titled Water. As I say every time I mention this story, "sequel" is probably the wrong word, since Fire and Water are actually two parts of a single book. My biggest concern with Water is that I focused too much time on a single story thread and let the other threads and their associated characters languish. I hope that in the revising I'll be able to trim the main thread, which is probably too wordy, and maybe expand upon the other threads. In any case, that will wait, as I don't plan to revise Water, or even look at it, for a couple of months. For now, I'll simply enjoy the fact that I'm finally done!

Oh, and maybe I'll find some time to enjoy Christmas as well.

My luggage didn't. I still don't know where it is or when I'll get it. When I told my niece about my problems, she thought it was funny, at least until I told her that her present was in the lost bag. I'm kind of annoyed at Delta, as they weren't all that helpful in dealing with the problem. They won't offer any remuneration until it's at least 24 hours late, and then it's only $25 a day. Whatever happened to trying to assuage the customer?

I'm traveling to Louisiana to see my family for Christmas today, so I probably won't be blogging. I won't be completely out of touch for the week I'm there, but don't expect me to be prolific.

Responding to my earlier pessimist saying, Doc adds one of his own: "The optimist dies a thousand deaths, the pessimist only one. And he saw that one coming." I think he's just trying to be funny.

Remember the original saying that I quoted? "I would rather be an optimist and be wrong than a pessimist who proves to be right. The former sometimes wins, but never the latter." I think that's just plain untrue. A quick rewrite gives: "I would rather be a pessimist who proves to be wrong than an optimist and be wrong. The former really wins, but not the latter." Contrary to popular beliefs, pessimists do like to be wrong. Pleasant surprises are good. It's just that it happens so seldom, and when it does, it's usually because the pessimist saw the problems and corrected them.

For the past few months, I've had nothing for the Storyblogging Carnival but chapters from Fire. The reason for this, as I've stated before, is that I've been working on Fire's sequel, or more accurately, Part II of the book for which Fire is Part I. Well, I finished the last chapter of that yesterday. Now, all I have to do is write the Epilogue over Christmas vacation, and I will have finished it this year, which is the goal I set for myself at the end of 2004. I'm very happy to have completed it, and I look forward to revising it, after I've set it aside for a while and revised Eyes in the Shadow.

While in the midst of this task, I've noticed that I'm writing a lot more recently, producing the chapters I had planned to write ahead of schedule. I get like that when I'm finishing a writing project, eager to get to the end. I had the last chapter of Eyes written about a month before it was time to post it. I'm also like that at the beginning, whem I'm still eager to get going and busy giving the initial shape to the characters and the ideas, eager to get to the good parts which I've envisioned in my head. It's the middle where I have the most difficulty, muddling through difficult passages, disciplining recalcitrant characters when they veer off the course I've set for them, and realizing halfway through that I didn't research my central premise well enough to make my story's underlying conceit believable. That's when I want to call it quits and give up on a story, when the glorious end is only a will o' the wisp spark in the distance. Once I muddle through that part, and the end hoves into view, that's when I start galloping full speed ahead to cross the finish line with yet another overreaching metaphor. Then all is well with the world. At least until the first revision, when I realize what a mess I've made of the middle, beginning, and the end.

All right, after a bit more work, here's what the final version of the blogging card I was making looks like:


I needed to do a better job of separating the name and title from the Internet addresses, and I think adding the color bars did that nicely. Overall, I think this looks pretty good. I've printed up a few should the need ever arise. I'm going to have to go to one of those blogging conventions now just so I have a chance to hand them out.

Ever notice how optimists have all sorts of clever sayings about how wonderful they are? Donald Sensing has one of them: "I would rather be an optimist and be wrong than a pessimist who proves to be right." He got it from Hootsbuddy's Place's blog description, which continues "The former sometimes wins, but never the latter." I have a self-professed optimist friend who's said, "Without optimists, human beings would never accomplish anything."

I don't know a lot of pessimist sayings, so I came up with my own: "Without pessimists, all the optimists would be dead." As you might have guessed, I'm somewhat pessimistic. Not drained-of-life, nothing-can-ever-go-right pessimistic, just the sort who hears good news and wonders where the downside is. Tell me about the wonderful idea you have, and I'll tell you why it won't work. And here's the thing: you need me, or someone like me. You need someone who can look at solutions and see problems, just as you need someone who can look at problems and see solutions. Most of us can do a little of both, with varying degrees of skill, and I could do without the condescension because I'm better at finding the weaknesses than the strengths. You can't deal with problems if you can't see them, and those sorts of problems have a way of hurting you in the end. You don't want to get on an airplane that no pessimist has ever had a chance to check for design errors.