The Next Aristotle

Hi guys! I meant to post this and start off your weekend with a post that's not me flailing and just having crazy feelings, but Special Needs Prom, an event that my Key Club hosts for special needs kids around our area every year, swallowed up most of my time.

Anyway, my topic for this post is, as you might have guessed, philosophy.

And no, I'm not going to talk about whether I like Aristotle or Socrates better. That's what Philosophy courses are for and for you to decide. That's why it's philosophy, there's no right answer.

I mean the philosophy of characters, and those ever-coveted, quotable lines that characters seem to randomly spout that the book's fans will quote until the movie adaptation comes out. These tend to be the most memorable lines from a character or long bits of dialogue during one character's drawn-out monologue to make a point. You can find them all over tumblr, reddit, and even Facebook nowadays.

A few examples:

"Not all those who wander are lost." ~J.R.R. Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings series.

"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations." ~Aristotle, NOT Augustus Waters from John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, said this.

"You cannot change your journey if you are unwilling to move at all." ~From the book Reached, part of the Matched trilogy by Ally Condie.

(You also have what are more like 'trademark sayings' by characters, such as Severus Snape's famous "Always", but we'll get to those another time.)

These kinds of ideas are wonderful to put in books, because they give books substance. Anyone can write a book about wizards and witches battling an evil master wizard trying to take over the world. It's been done and done again.

What makes Harry Potter different? J.K. Rowling's philosophy. She very casually slips in deeper meanings in the book, generally from Dumbledore or one of the other adults, while they're still alive. They're comments given when they're comforting Harry, or explaining why he's the Chosen One. You read them and then sit back and think, "Oh."

J.K. Rowling is a great example of good philosophy writing. However, there are many, many more authors who aren't so graceful. In fact, it's getting to be more of a problem in YA fiction, because it seems like the authors are trying too hard. Not everyone in a story is going to be wise and able to say these things.

For the sake of my argument, we'll take some characters from The Artist as an example.

As much as I love my characters, and believe me, I do, many of them aren't really qualified to be saying such deep things. A character with experiences, generally older or at the very least someone tried and tested, is a good character for this kind of writing. Therefore, someone young and inexperienced, like Razzo or Eoin's sister, Eire, are probably not good candidates.

We'll take Rowe, Collins' oldest brother, for example. He is twenty-four years old and a miner. In a normal case, he'd be considered rather young. However, he and his siblings were orphaned when he was eleven, when he was forced to become the head of house and try to provide for all his younger siblings, all of whom are ten or younger. He's been forced to do things he isn't proud of, face imprisonment and beg for food to provide for his siblings. He has had an extremely difficult run at life, and so him saying something to Collins would make sense.

However, Razzo is different. He was forced into exile around the time he was fourteen, and then has lived in Haven ever since. Haven sheltered the artists, including Razzo, from the outside world, allowing them to live almost like children. Therefore, Razzo probably wouldn't have many worldly things to say.

So, who would say, "Claro...It’s like he’s sticking his head into the beehive and is too distracted by the honey to see the bees." More than likely someone older, and who has seen that kind of behavior before.

Who would say, "Tough as nails, are we? I always thought there was something in the water over there."? Probably someone more immature, light-hearted, someone who is still pretty young.

So make sure that you're not giving someone like Razzo big, beautiful, deep-thinking lines. Wisdom comes from experience. Just because you want your love interest to be philosophical doesn't mean that he can say things like that if they're nothing more than a rich kid from old money at a prep school. Give them something they would know best about, and that's their source of wisdom. We can't all be Dumbledore, unfortunately.

Wishing you a most excellent adventure,
Brie

My first ever video review!

Hello everyone! I'm super excited to show this off - in fact, when I saw this first I pretty much Facebook Chat-bombed most of my writer friends using a shameless amount of caps lock and flailing emoticons.

I asked for a video review of the portion of The Artist I have up on Wattpad, and Ms. Dunbar was very kind and said she'd be happy to.

Little did I know she'd have such a reaction to it:

http://ask.fm/dunbarsi

Due to the website, I can't post the video directly here, but scroll down until you see 'The Artist' in the title and that's her review.

She gave it a perfect 10, her first, and proceeded to spend about a minute telling me how much she loves my book. She loves Ollie, she loves Collins, and she's apparently a new fan of mine.

I HAVE A FANDOM GUYS :D

Flailing and screaming with joy,
Brie

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...

When I first told one of my friends that I write, and plan to publish novels, the first thing she asked me was what I wrote about. When I told her my favorite genre was sci-fi, she looked a little confused. And I can understand. I don't exactly look like the kind of person to be sitting on the edge of my seat watching Star Trek or running around wielding a plastic light saber. When I explained it to her, it got me thinking how I'd wound up in this genre, a typically small one.

How, out of the dozens of genre choices, did I choose sci-fi and dystopian as my two go-tos?

copyright 2009

The answer is how I was raised. I think each writer (and to an extent, each reader) is influenced in their genre by what they read, watched, and experienced as kids. I'm the proud daughter of two 'Trekkies'; my mom even has a Starfleet communicator pin. I grew up watching Captain Jean Luc Picard and Captain Kathryn Janeway command their ships and always end up saving another planet or, as in Janeway's case, make the agonizingly long trek home from the Delta Quadrant. (If you don't know, that's at least a twenty-year journey.) But I wasn't just into those shows. I watched cartoons like Jonny Quest (a little before my time, but still pretty great classic sci-fi) and I still watch Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Falling Skies. I would recommend them to all of you, they're awesome.

And as I grew up, I fell in love with the dystopian genre reading books like Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, and Anthem. Dystopian generally meshes with sci-fi, and I think that when you're in the future it won't always be better. Enter my genre of favor.

The same applies with readers. Like many people my age, I grew up reading Harry Potter. People who read and loved Harry Potter would grow up to read similar books: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles. Once we hit the Young Adult and Adult genres, we've decided what we like in books and what we don't, and that further guides us. We love the mystery, the romance, the twisting plots, the characters.

So how did you come across your genre, reader or writer? Read a book in it you fell in love with? Had to do a class assignment and realized you liked it? Let me know!

Space ships and totalitarian governments,
Brie

I Have Three Rules in Life. 1) Look Good. 2) Don't Die. 3) If You Have to Die, Make Sure You Look Good While Doing it.

Although that pretty much is my list of rules in life, this post is less about rules and more about...helpful hints.

Think of them as sort of pro tips.

I was on yet another college visit today and I was listening to the president of the College of Arts and Sciences talk about all the sorts of programs they offer and internships and whatnot, and I heard that most people, unlike me, were Premed, Allied Sciences, or other sorts of applied science fields. I didn't meet another person who was interested in the Liberal Arts there. I was the only English/Linguistics focus, and I got some weird looks from others.

So I guess when they were giving tips and tricks around the campus tour, I thought up some of my own. Not for success in college, of course, but in life in general. This goes for writers, athletes, musicians, anyone.

1. Don't walk the path everyone else does.

I'm serious, not everyone needs to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a business executive. You have your talents, and not using them is like using a manual can opener when you have an electric one next to you. Figure out what you're good at, and run the course that suits those talents. I mean, I can't do math to save my life, becoming a math major is probably not a good idea for me.

But an English major, Linguistics major, a minor in Creative Writing or Spanish? That's all for me. I'm one of those people who can sit and read for hours and not notice the time pass. Language makes sense to me. Why waste my natural strengths in that field just because it's not the most popular major? Do what makes you happy. It just makes it better for the rest of us.

2. The world is run by those who show up.

I was told this in my freshman Honors English class and I've learned it always proves true. I mean, Bill Gates showed up to create the first Macintosh computer, and look where he is now. Nelson Mandela showed up to end apartheid, Martin Luther King, Jr. showed up to a integrated racial relations rally. If you want to make a difference, show up. To class, to work, to whatever your responsibilities are. You never know when life throws you a day that will always stick with you, that will change you. Figure out what you love, and chase it.

And finally,

3. Do YOU.

Whether you love to read and write books like I do, or you'd rather go out for a run or paint a picture or lie around and watch television, do it. Don't look at others and try to emulate them because they're what's 'normal'. You've probably heard it before, but there's no such thing as normal. Trying to fit in only causes you to fall where everyone else falls, and do things you'd never do otherwise. Be yourself. Those who stand behind you will always stand behind you because they know who you are. When I decided I wasn't going to hide my writing anymore, my friends accepted it because they knew that that was me. (Not to mention I'm now their go-to editor for all their English papers). Just decide what you love, chase it, and define yourself.

And now I'm off to go write more dystopian chaos.

Regulations and riots,
Brie

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

And before you try and finish that line, no, chains and whips do not excite me. Ask someone who's read Fifty Shades of Grey if you wanna know more about that. (Raven quote) Ya nasty.

No, no, this writing gripe is about the overabundance of certain character flaws, namely in a character's family. More specifically, abused characters. Because, apparently, almost everyone who's anyone in popular YA literature gets beat behind closed doors at their home.

Is anyone else noticing this?

Tobias from Divergent, Peeta from The Hunger Games, you can infer many more characters that aren't specifically stated to be knocked around. And half the time, the abuse they're receiving doesn't make any sense.

Case in point: Tobias. Trying not to spoil anything for those who haven't read (if you haven't, I recommend it), Tobias' father 'does it for his own good'. But abuse is a selfish action, believing that someone else has wronged the abuser and must be punished for it. So would an Abnegation man beat his son, when he so prudently swore that his life would be one of selflessness? And what would a beating achieve? Pain is a selfish thing; is it selfless to inflict that upon another? It doesn't make sense to me. Does it characterize Tobias, yes, but it doesn't really serve a purpose other than a sort of guilt trip for us to like him more. I didn't need the guilt trip, Tobias is my favorite character.

Not to mention that there are so many other ways to give a character a bad home life or bad childhood without requiring belts, small rooms, bruises, or cuts. Not everyone has a nuclear family: mom, dad, children. There are stepparents, stepsiblings, half-siblings, love children, single parents, no parents, negligent parents. Perhaps even, like in Harry Potter, guardian relatives. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, godparents. These combinations don't appear often in popular literature to pose a problem, except perhaps for the cliche 'evil stepmother'.

I mean, Collins (of The Artist) has no parents, but has three older brothers. They've taken care of her as her parents, but now that she's older, her independence is causing a rift between her and her oldest brother and father figure, Rowe. Brigham (also TA) has a nuclear family, but with the amount of people in it, he's stressed by having to work long hours to feed them all.

You don't need to have an abusive parent or sibling to have family tension, it can come from even the most wholesome-looking group of relatives. So please, dear readers, by all means, take a look at the character's family the next time you read, or the next time you write. There are opportunities for tension everywhere, there doesn't need to be hurt and pain in every character's past. Can we resolve to find a more realistic form of characterization? Where we don't have to beat the living crap out of our characters to show that their lives are as flawed as ours are? I'd appreciate it, and I'm sure our characters would, too.

Band-aids and Neosporin,
Brie

So, Happy Belated New Year, Everyone!

Yes, I've noticed, my blog hasn't been updated since NaNoWriMo was still in full swing in mid-November. The good news is, all this time away from the blogosphere has given me ample time to work on The Artist, and that yesterday I literally spent seven hours doing nothing but writing. Oliver and Collins thank me dearly.

However, unfortunately, I've been away for far too long! It's been almost five months, which is a lot of time in any person's perspective, but definitely a long time for a writer. Usually, most blogs are updated weekly, and I'm hoping to finally get into the swing of that, save perhaps finals week in May. But that's hopefully as far away as I think it is.

Anyways, dear followers, I thought I'd make an annoucement:

I have been accepted to two very prestigious writing programs at Denison University and at Kenyon College in Gambier. You may receive the college's Kenyon Review. They're both intense summer programs, not very cheap, and an opportunity to go out there and meet more writers. We writers are like birds, we flock together when we can. So the chance to meet thirty others? More? That's like a dream come true.

Alas, I must choose only one, and hope that next year when I apply I can attend the other. Or perhaps I might even get into the one offered for rising college freshmen at Yale. That would be fantastic.

So thank you to those who have stuck with me, or perhaps just forgotten to stop following my blog, and I hope to appease you with more posts to come! I hope everyone's Spring Break, whether it's ended, ending, or just begun, was wonderful, and a happy Easter to those who celebrate!

Spring weather and chocolate bunnies,
Brie

Letters from the Front Line

I know it's been quite a while since I posted...more than two weeks, I think, but those days fly by when you're in the trenches, trying to crawl your way to the neutral zone and maybe take a rest after spending your days pushing the front lines.

By trenches, I mean the couch where I sit with my laptop to write. And by the neutral zone, I mean the point in NaNoWriMo where you can finish the 50,000 words required within the span of the month. I was doing pretty well at first, but after a week of air raids in Precalculus and other belligerent forces I had to take a few days and deal with the fighters.

So, World War II references aside and long story short, I'm behind in NaNo.

Again.

But not all of this madness and chaos is bad. Bn the plus side, this is one of the first times that I've been able to proudly say that I am in love with being this busy. Because now that I have the NaNo project (Pulse) to work on, it becomes that much more pertinent that I do my homework, eat, take a shower, do everything in a more efficient way. I'm forcing myself to get organized so I can write.

For those of you who are doing NaNo, what has changed in your lives for this crazy month where you try and squeeze 1,667 words into a document in a day? Positive, negative, neither?

And for everyone who isn't doing NaNo, what do you think about the idea as someone who isn't participating. Are we all just crazy? (Probably.) Does this sound like a fun idea? (That's iffy.) Do you think we're all sleep-deprived and running on fumes? (Most definitely.)

I hope everyone's projects, literary or otherwise, are doing well!

Finger cramps and ink smudges,
Brie