Here There Be Dragons

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (‘Ancient home’ and ‘Slipped’)

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:45:34 GMT

The ancient home stood against centuries of wind, but then…

The crack was no bigger than a fingernail. Yet she slipped down it, and she…

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (‘Flying out the window’ and ‘Digitized’)

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:15:28 GMT

The best option was to fly straight out the window, just spread her wings and go. She…

I was digitized, and…

Fantasist Tuesday - Prompts ('Darkness' and 'Chill')

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:46:51 GMT

She knew it must be morning, but outside the window, the sky was dark. She started to rise...

I stepped onto the ground, and the chill stabbed....

Fantasist Friday – An-Only-Average-Superhero

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:47:29 GMT

I’m stealing this idea from my kids. During their annual vacation with old friends, in a lakeside cabin without electricity, they tend to play many games. And one they played this year essentially required them to invent an Only-Average-Superhero. For example, a superhero who isn’t actually invisible: he’s translucent. Or a superhero who can only hover vertically 4 feet above the ground. Or a superhero who can fly as fast as a station wagon, but not as fast as a plane.

So, I set you this task - Invent your own Only-Average-Superhero and write a story in which he saves, maybe not the world, but at least his small town or neighborhood block.

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (Secret Identity)

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:13:18 GMT

Imagine your favorite teacher has a secret identity. Start a story in which you discover his/her secret identity.

Fantasist Friday - First Day at a New School

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:58:54 GMT

That first day. You don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. It’s a chance to make a fresh start. Or perhaps it’s a challenge: you must find a new set of cronies, partners in crime, among a crowd of strangers.

Currently, Harry Potter probably has the most famous first day of school. He learns about chocolate frogs and spells and prejudice in the wizarding community. He also gets sorted, as he wishes desperately not to end up in Slytherin. He is suddenly transformed from the boy living under the stairs to the famous survivor of a dastardly attack: a boy with an archenemy.

In honor of school starting up - think about your main character’s first day at a new school. Maybe she’s moved, or she’s headed off to college. Maybe she’s recently discovered a power or talent that’s allowed her to attend a special school. Maybe she’s lost her ability to use a power or talent, and she has to go to a ‘normal’ school for the first time ever. What does she do as she walks into that classroom with a bunch of strangers? Write up that first…Terrifying? Terrible? Fantastic?…moment.

Fantasist Tuesday Prompts (‘Torrents’ and ‘This was no super-power’)

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:51:55 GMT

Torrents from the sky. Too much and too many to be caused by anything other than…

Super-power? No way, this was no super-power. It was…

Reading Spotlight

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:24:37 GMT

I’ve been reading Margo Lanagan’s Red Spikes, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is uniqueness. Blurbs on books often say things like, “the next Harry Potter.” Or, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Twilight.” Yet when I read Margo Lanagan, I never think “this is the next” or “this is Something meets Something.” I think, how did she come up with this?

Not everyone enjoys such a reading experience. I’ve suggested Lanagan’s work to others who’ve later told me, “Different. Weird. I didn’t get it.” Sometimes this is a matter of taste. But sometimes I have to wonder if we’re all a little too obsessed with “the next” whatever and famous formula “meets” famous formula. Do original ideas come from formula meets formula?

What makes something original? Lanagan’s tales don’t take place in vaguely medieval worlds. Often their settings seem to be some kind of far away that dwells strictly in Lanagan’s head. Other times the worlds are like ours, but odd souls inhabit them, like guardian angel birds. Death, heaven, purgatory, and hell make regular appearances in this collection, though not the kind a reader would find in any scriptural text. The characters in “Under Hell, Over Heaven” seem enslaved in a bureaucratic nightmare, transporting souls to a glorious Heaven and Hell they feel intensely and momentarily when they near it. The rest of the time they trudge in gray forgetfulness. “Winkie” is a great and chilling twist on the nursery rhyme “Wee Willie Winkie.” I’ll never think of the rhyme the same way again. Lanagan’s stories aren’t strange for strange’s sake, though. In “Under Hell, Over Heaven” we see the go-between’s trap: always close to greatness, but rarely feeling it herself. “Wee Willie Winkie” shows a child a little neglected by busy parents, as well as the dangers that haunt the night.

What makes a story original? Perhaps simply its author’s determination not to write a tale the way it’s been written many times before.

On Enchanted Inkpot

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:39:27 GMT

This week, posted Slang Musings on Enchanted Inkpot.

Fantasist Friday – Fraught Images

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:08:55 GMT

Since Solstice’s residency, I’ve been thinking a lot about fraught images: those images that instantly mean something to us, even if we don’t immediately know why with the logical halves of our brains. In the class I taught, we discussed the eyeball in Martine Leavitt’s Keturah and Lord Death. That eyeball rolling restlessly in Keturah’s pocket. She keeps holding it in her hand while near different men, to try and discover if it will go still, thereby identifying a man as her one true love. Of course, once she finds her true love, she doesn’t need to check the eyeball – just as we need no outside information to inform us whom we love. Pullman’s daemons, too, are fraught images, along with the way Mrs. Coulter harms the children. She slices away their daemons, their souls. And though she may have good reasons for doing so, depending on your sensibilities, the children without souls often end up in despair, as many of us do when we’ve lost the connection to our deepest, most vulnerable selves.

The fraught image also suggests a story, one with an emotional charge. Why would someone slice away a child’s soul? What might a child do to prevent being cut?

As a way to gather ideas for stories, try writing up a list of fraught images. Like a monkey king that longs to leave behind his monkey nature and become a god (Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese). Or a girl with powers to see in the dark, so shadows are drawn to her (Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s The Shadow Speaker). Or…?

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (‘Truck rattle’ and ‘Bones’)

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:05:46 GMT

A little late, as I couldn't post this the other day.

The truck roared past, rattling the walls and…

I knelt and saw they truly were bones, but they were unlike any bones I’d ever seen before.

Fantasist Friday – Fairy Tale Retelling (Or The Tales that Haunt You)

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:12:21 GMT

Often, fairy tale retelling assignments have to do with plot. A fairy tale gives all the “what-happens-next.” All the “beginning-middle-end.” Fine and good.

But what about the meaning of the tales? Why might a stepmother resent her stepdaughter, or a stepdaughter resent her stepmother? Why might a childless woman require a poor couple to give her their baby? Why might a father abandon his children in the woods? This last question is one I return to again and again when I think of “Hansel and Gretel.” It is, to me, the horror of the tale.

When you think of your favorite fairy tales, what are the questions that haunt you? Maybe try reading less familiar ones at the wonderful Sur La Lune fairy tale site. What questions haunt you after reading a story you’ve never read before?

Try answering these questions by retelling a fairy tale in your own way. Create characters or situations that provide answers to those haunting questions. Offer your readers the underlying motivations – the truths about human nature – at the heart of the tale.

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (‘Not a witch’ and ‘Machine rises’)

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:44:20 GMT

She wasn’t a witch, exactly. At least, that’s what she told everyone. She was…

It had no power source: I was certain of that. Yet the metal form began to rise, and…

Fantasist Friday – Defamiliarization

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:11:22 GMT

So, I’m working on my class for the Pine Manor residency, and I began to reread Charles Baxter’s “On Defamiliarization” in Burning Down the House. Those of you who’ve worked with me know I’m fascinated by the concept of defamiliarization (a la Skhlovosky): the idea of the familiar made strange, which helps us see the world anew. In some ways, I think this possibility – to help readers see the world anew – is one of the most wondrous things about speculative fiction.

Seeing the world anew as writers can also help us break free from tired clichés.

So, how about trying to see the world anew? Pick up a notebook and go somewhere you know well, like your kitchen or your bedroom. Or you could pick the setting of the story you’re working on. Just stare at or think about it for a while. Notice all the tiny details you generally ignore: the way one of the wheels on the bed is crooked, or the unevenness of the gravel strip beside the road your character walks along. Write up all these details as if you are stranger, seeing all of them for the first time. Maybe even as if there is something in that place you’re looking for, something tiny, something vital and completely hidden. Write every crack and crevice as you search for it.

Classes in the Boston Area

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:48:49 GMT

Writing a lot, not online a lot. And so I'm resolving to be a better online resident.

Which starts with mentioning Pine Manor MFA classes open to auditors.

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (“Fine dust” and “Ripped pages”)

Tue, 24 May 2011 17:33:42 GMT

I stepped outside and a fine dust coated everything. I….

She ripped up every page. Hundreds of them. And then she…

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (“The news came through” and “Bread”)

Tue, 03 May 2011 19:04:04 GMT

The news came through on the wire, and I couldn’t make sense of the words at first. I….

She was supposed to buy the dark bread, thick and black-brown, but…

Fantasist Friday – View the First Moment

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:19:35 GMT

We don’t always recognize the first moments, the beginnings, of many things in our lives. What was the first moment you fell in love with someone? Or out of love? What was the first moment you became a writer or a musician, a clown or a belly dancer? What was the first moment you stopped being a kid and started being an adult?

Sometimes we have a first moment, but we don’t recognize it as we’re living it. We drift along, changing piece by piece until we suddenly realize we’re something other than what we were before. Only later, in retrospect, can we look back at a particular moment and say, “Yeah, that’s when it started.”

Then there are those flashy first moments. The strike of lightning. The vivid rainbow. Burning the old clothes in the driveway. Laughing so hard everyone stares, but not caring in the least. Something’s changed forever: we’re absolutely certain.

What are a few of your story’s vital first moments? Which characters do they belong to? Where and when do they happen? Sketch or in some other way (Collage? Photoshop a photograph?) visually create those first moments. Then hang them up where you can see them well – and write them.

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (“No spring” and “Birdsong”)

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:55:37 GMT

Spring didn’t come, nor did summer. Four feet of snow at the end of July, and I…

She opened up her mouth, and all that rose out of her was birdsong.

Fantasist Friday – Handwritten Letters

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:12:58 GMT

Think about your closest friends. If they were to handwrite notes to you, would you recognize their handwriting?

Say, before 1994ish, I used to check the mailbox for letters. In fact, I still have stacks of old letters from a couple of people I met while I was in high school: all through my college years, we wrote each other. I could glance at these letters’ envelopes and without even reading the return addresses, I knew exactly who each letter was from. The way my friends shaped their letters, the amount of space between each letter, the size of their printing or cursive – all these things were as familiar to me as voices and faces.

Not so now. I recognize my children’s handwriting, my siblings’ and parents’, my husbands’. A couple of friends’. Basically, I know the handwriting of the people closest to me. Which leads me to ask this –

Consider the people in your main character’s life. Whose handwriting does s/he know well enough to recognize? Why? Who recognizes your main character’s handwriting and why? What do your characters handwrite to each other? Write a series of handwritten letters/notes that your characters give to each other. Then create your main character’s scrapbook or shoebox collection of his/her handwritten correspondence.

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (‘Gills’ and ‘Burrowing’)

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:46:30 GMT

I’m definitely having trouble keeping up with everything these days. Being busy isn’t a bad thing, but I’ve got to try harder to stay on top of it all. So –

My gills didn’t seem to be functioning properly, so…

He’d never burrowed through earth that was quite so thick before, and…

Fantasist Friday – Listing

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:00:23 GMT

I’ll admit that I’m fascinated by people’s lists because I’m a compulsive list-maker. I write down appointments. I write shopping lists and chore lists. My desk tends to be covered with stickies listing tasks I have to finish by the end of the day. I take great pleasure in finishing the tasks and throwing the lists out.

I have trouble preventing myself from peeking at lists that don’t belong to me. Someone I know tends to list names of people – each one in need of a phone call or email. I have family members who list meals for the upcoming week and hang these on their refrigerators. They always seem to have complicated Christmas and birthday present lists attached to their computers.

All these lead me to wonder about my characters’ lists. What lists do they keep and why?

Try writing the lists you think your characters make. Where do they keep their lists? What do they do when they’re finished with their lists? How might these lists tell you more about who your characters are and what they care about?

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts (“Code” and “Unfamiliar muscles”)

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 16:37:45 GMT

The code wasn’t one she recognized, so she…

I stretched the unfamiliar muscles, and…

Fantasist Tuesday – Prompts – Every Character’s Got a Story

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:26:22 GMT

Take one of your favorite stories, and pick one of the very minor characters. This could even be a character mentioned who doesn’t actually appear over the course of the tale. Write a story in which that very minor character is the central character.

Fantasist Friday -- Havens

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:53:14 GMT

Most of us have havens. I don’t mean homes: we have these, too. But within our homes, or maybe apart from our homes, we also have places that we go to get away from the day-to-day demands of life. These places tend to be private. We share them with few people – or possibly with no one.

What were the havens of your childhood? Who did you invite in and who did you keep out? Why? What did you do while you were in your haven?

Now consider your main character, or maybe a secondary character you need to know more about. What is this character’s haven? Who does s/he invite into it and who does s/he keep out? Why? What does s/he do while s/he’s in her haven? How might what s/he does there relate to his/her overall story? Write a scene, which may or may not end up in your WIP, set in your character’s Haven.