Tag: Writing

The Things Characters Tell You

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations7 Comments

I’ve noticed recently that I’m a fairly trusting reader.  By that, I mean that if a character (especially a narrator) tells me something, I believe them.  I’m good at catching twists in a plot, so in a way I can spot when things aren’t what they seem.  But if one character, for example, describes another character to me, I’ll accept that–and sometimes I think it causes problems.

I’ve just been reading a book with two first-person narrators, going back and forth.  At first, they don’t like each other when they meet.  I noticed that when one narrator described the other one as annoying and stuffy, I started seeing him that way–even though I’d liked him perfectly well (and hadn’t had that impression) before she described him.  The trouble arises because, as I read on, I do think, intellectually, that she was wrong, and she even changes her opinion–but I’ve incorporated her initial impression into my impression of the character, and I have trouble getting rid of it.

Another, perhaps more illuminating example, from a different book: a ten-year-old girl, narrating, meets an adult man and describes him as old.  Years pass, they’re friends, she realizes as she gets older that he was probably only twenty or so when she met him.  But I’ve been picturing him as old, and I have a terrible time trying to get rid of that impression now that I’m learning new information.  Which made the whole thing fall a little flat when they eventually got together romantically–the age difference is big enough, and I’m saddled with an impression that it’s much larger.

I heard in a writing class once that having one character say something about another is one of the best ways to reveal things about that second character (and the one doing the describing, for that matter).  But it gets more complicated with a character who’s mistaken, or even lying.  How does a writer, or a reader, handle that?

It makes me think, as a writer, that if you want to pull a twist on your reader, it’s better to do it by leaving out information than by telling the wrong information.   I read another book recently where a supporting character named Jamie seems to be male–then turns out to be female.  I don’t mean she was in disguise.  All the characters who knew her knew perfectly well she was a girl, but the author kept the reader from realizing it through very clever writing–and careful avoidance of personal pronouns.  And that worked.  Even though I was imagining Jamie as male, when she turned out to be a girl no one had actually told me otherwise, and I could appreciate the twist.  If another character had told me something about Jamie that needed to be re-thought, I think it would have been harder.

Anyone else want to weigh in?  Do you believe what characters tell you?  And can you change your impressions when they tell you something new?

Watching Opera with the Phantom

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday3 Comments

Looking back over my Fiction Fridays, I find there’s at least one representative of almost all my major writing projects.  My Golden Age of Piracy story and my Fairy Tale Retelling, as well as the significant interests of my fanfiction years, Star Trek and Pirates of the Caribbean.  But–I am missing my one other fanfiction interest.  And the Phantom of the Opera does not like to be ignored (somewhat paradoxically, he also doesn’t like being noticed–a complex character).

My Phantom Programs

To round things out, and keep the Phantom happy 🙂 I thought I’d share a scene from my Phantom novel.  There’s not a lot of context needed for this particular scene.  Backstory (spoilers for the original, you have been warned)–the Phantom is a masked musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.  One of his demands for the opera company is that Box Five be reserved for his exclusive use.  He falls in love with Christine, a singer at the Opera, there’s a romantic triangle and a lot of upheaval, and she eventually leaves and he’s left at the Opera House with a broken heart.

My story picks up from there.  It’s mostly but not exclusively based on the Webber musical (the original, NOT in any way, in any form, in the slightest bit, on the sequel–and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, good, you’ve been spared).  It primarily focuses on the Phantom, whose name is Erik (not something Webber mentioned), and on Meg Giry, a supporting character in the original.  She’s not actually in this scene, although she’s loosely referenced in the remarks about blondes.

This scene is a little while into the story, a few months after the original ends, and the management of the Opera has just decided to sell Box Five for the first time.

I think I’m okay on copyright here…Leroux’s Phantom has got to be public domain by now, and nothing here is directly from any other version.

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            The young man who bought the seats in Box Five was named Pierre.  His lady friend, whom he had met exactly two days previously, was named Jacqueline, and so far he had done very well impressing her.  They greatly enjoyed Act One.  Then, in the middle of Act Two, the voice started.

            “You’re in my box, you know.”  It was really a very nice sounding voice.  Definitely male, almost melodious in nature, and conversational in tone.

            That didn’t stop Pierre from taking issue with the words.  He rose from his seat and turned to address the apparent direction of the speaker.  “It so happens that I paid for these seats—”  He broke off abruptly, looking wildly around the box.  There was no one there.

Continue reading “Watching Opera with the Phantom” →

Ensign Jones and the Orange Juice

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday6 Comments

Having recently written about my recurring character, Sam Jones, I thought it would be fun to share some excerpts featuring Jones from a very old Star Trek story I wrote.  This was a long Star Trek serial, and Jones frequently appeared as a supporting character.  It leaned toward a parody, so sometimes very odd things happened–often to Jones.

If you’re not familiar with Star Trek, all you really need to know here is that Kirk is the captain of the Enterprise, Spock is the eternally calm Vulcan first officer, Jones is a security guard aboard said-Enterprise, the Klingons are the villains, and the replicators are these fairly awesome machines you can walk up to and request food, and it’ll appear.  At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work…

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           It was coming on towards ship’s night, and the Mess Hall was deserted as Ensign Jones walked over to the replicators to order his drink.

            “Orange juice, please.”

            “Specify quantity,” the computer said crisply.

            Jones shrugged.  “Oh, lots of orange juice, lots and lots.”

            Orange juice began gushing out of the replicators at an alarming rate.  And kept gushing.  And gushing and gushing and gushing.  Jones began to feel alarmed, as the orange juice spread rapidly across the floor.

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Tribute to That Man in the Red Shirt

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations3 Comments

Today I decided to write a bit about one of my favorites of the characters I’ve created.  In some ways, he’s the least important–but only because he’s written to be that way.

Richard Samuel Jones is one of my earliest, longest enduring and certainly most suffering characters.

It began when I wrote Star Trek fanfiction.  For those not familiar with Star Trek, there’s a concept among Trek fans of a redshirt.  You see, the redshirts are the men who beam down to the planet with Captain Kirk and don’t come back.  It’s very typical on the original series for Kirk, several regular characters, and one or two crewmembers no one has seen before to beam into a dangerous situation.  Three guesses which one is going to get killed.  Both according to legend and according to statistics, the man who gets killed will most often be wearing red.  (This actually makes sense–security guards aboard the Enterprise wear red uniforms, and it’s logical to bring them into dangerous situations.)

In my Star Trek stories, Jones was my redshirt.  I never killed him off (because that would end the story) but whenever I needed something dreadful to happen, it would happen to Jones.  That sounds awful, but it might help to note that I don’t write bloody stories.  So usually Jones would end up attacked by carnivorous plants, or swept away in a flood of orange juice when the food replicators malfunctioned, or turned invisible when chemical beakers fell on him.

Jones is the quintessential redshirt.  He’s nondescript in every physical appearance.  He’s clumsy, hapless, and prone to accidents, of course, as well as nervous and beset by large numbers of phobias.  He is eternally well-meaning, and, though pessimistic in the moment, generally optimistic in his larger world-view.

His full name is Richard Samuel Jones.  Jones because it’s the nondescript, common sort of name you’d expect a redshirt to have.  Richard Samuel because R. S. can also abbreviate to Red Shirt, and because Sam Jones (which he goes by) is another very nondescript and common name.  Obviously I over-thought this!

I put a lot of Star Trek stories up on Fanfiction.net, and Jones actually became quite popular with my readers.  I think the haplessness was endearing.  I got attached to him too.  So when I went on to write non-Trek stories, I decided to take Jones with me–he is, after all, an original character.  He stopped being a security guard aboard the Enterprise, and simply became a nondescript, hapless, well-meaning man, usually in a red shirt, who turns up with at least a cameo in all of my major writing projects.

So far, Jones has been chased by a swarm of angry rabbits near Port Royal, Jamaica for my Pirates of the Caribbean novel (it was an odd story).  He has also been a scene changer at the Paris Opera; he went with a mob below the Opera and fell into the Phantom’s torture chamber, but was pulled out unharmed.  He’s also been a pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy, sailing with Captain Red Ballantyne aboard the Ocean Rose for my original pirate novel.  Most recently, Jones has been working at the Nightingale, an inn in the magical country of Perrelda.

Sometimes when I look at my stories, I feel like they’re all really the same story, in that they all have the same themes, whether I intended it or not.  Freedom comes up a lot.  So does chasing dreams.  The People the Fairies Forget is largely about realizing that everyone, even those people in the corners of the story who are rarely paid attention to, has a story to tell too.  But I think that’s been Jones’ message all along.

So this post is for Richard Samuel Jones.  And for all those men who beamed down with Captain Kirk, and had the misfortune to not be wearing blue.

A Window in Thrums

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday6 Comments

I bought A Window in Thrums because L. M. Montgomery recommended it to me; she mentioned it in her journals.  She mentioned a lot of books she read in her journals, and since this one was by J. M. Barrie I decided to try it.  But this isn’t a book review, this is a Fiction Friday post.

I recently wrote about books as objects, especially pieces of history, and mentioned my copy of A Window in Thrums.  It’s a good story, but one of the most interesting aspects of my copy is the inscription on the flyleaf: “For Grandma from Mary Eunice, December 25th, 1898.”  I don’t know who Mary Eunice or her grandmother were, since I bought the book used online only a few years ago.  But shortly after buying it, I decided to write a story imagining who they might have been, and who else might have owned the book over the years.

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A Window in Thrums

            “Do you think Grandma will like it?” Mary Eunice asked, hugging the book to her chest.

            “Of course she will, dear,” her mother said firmly, continuing briskly down the row, eyes on the baskets of fruit for sale.

            Mary Eunice frowned, the frown of a girl just old enough to start questioning firm parental assurances.  “But will she really like it?” she persisted, hurrying after her mother.  “I want her to like it because she really likes it, not just because it came from me.”

            Her mother absently picked up an apple, put it down, and went on to the oranges.  “There’s never anything really fresh this time of year,” she muttered.

            “But, Mother, will she?”

            “What?  Oh, the book.  Yes, of course, you know she likes Mr. Barrie’s novels.”

            “That’s true,” Mary Eunice said thoughtfully, feeling reassured.  She watched her mother walk down the row but stayed where she was, to look at the book in her hands.  She enjoyed the proud thrill of ownership for at least the twelfth time in the last ten minutes since they’d walked away from the bookstore.  It was the first book she’d ever bought with her own money.

            Mary Eunice thought it was the prettiest little book she’d ever seen.  The cover was dark blue, with silver curls and swirls and a scattering of pink flowers.  The spine was the same, the back pale gray, the pages crisp and white.  Mary Eunice ran her fingers lightly across the silver title stamped on the cover: A Window in Thrums.  She checked on her mother, saw she hadn’t gone very far, and carefully cracked open the book.  She turned a few pages and found Chapter I.

            “On the bump of green round which the brae twists, at the top of the brae, and within cry of T’nowhead Farm, still stands a one-storey house, whose white-washed walls, streaked with the discoloration that rain leaves, look yellow when the snow comes.”

            Mary Eunice stopped reading with a puzzled frown and closed the book.  “Oh well,” she whispered to it, “I still think you’re the prettiest little book I ever saw, even if I don’t know what a brae is.  And Grandma likes Mr. Barrie’s writing.  That’s what matters.”

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