PROJECT SERAPHIM: RELEASE DATE

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

Everyone has their writing weaknesses.  Mine has always been the beginning.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times SERAPHIM ASCENT in particular has been written, rewritten, and ultimately gutted. Needless to say it’s gone through quite a monstrous transformation over the years, with a rather challenging opening to boot.

Fortunately, I am feeling confident enough to share my prologue over in my author blog in celebration of having the necessary to publish this damn book.

Yaaay!

P.S. No you are not going insane. I have, in fact, changed the URL for my blog today, for professional reasons and not just to mess with you and/or ruin all of my links now. Oops!

The Good, the Bad, and Their Life Expectancy

Over the years, I’ve come to notice certain character traits that are prevalent in many of our modern stories, be they books, TV shows, movies, or video games. More often than not, they take place in nitty gritty worlds with dystopian elements, be it zombies or war or pandemics. Upon noticing these traits, it’s also come to my attention the flaws and contradictions that tend to accompany them.

Does this mean they’re bad stories? Not at all! In fact, I love things like The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, and A Song of Ice and Fire. But each of these manner of stories share a very common theme that’s been preached throughout, and that’s that the good guys die, and the bad guys survive.

Except that bad guys tend to die, too, and that seems to be something that a lot of stories these days neglect to really explore — or even acknowledge. Unfortunately, we’ve become so obsessed with antiheroes that we fail to really appreciate the goodness in individuals as well. That we’ll all destined to turn on each other if we are to last in a harsh world. Which is ironic because, in a lot of the stories that seem to advocate becoming a bad person, it also shows that being a bad person will just as likely get you killed. Yet they continue to insist that you can’t be a decent person, even though they’ve proven themselves that their own philosophy is wrong.

At this point it’s not even just me complaining about the good guys not always winning, it’s about the message that modern stories seem to be trying to tell us. And that’s not a kind of story that I want to tell, or even relish in.

One for the LGBTeam

Let me tell you something.

I think the whole “scoring points for LGBT” thing I see people say so often these days is stupid. Yes, this is a thing that exists. I’ve seen people use this term quite often, in fact.

By LGBT points I mean: When characters in media are portrayed as gay, lesbian, bi, or trans, it’s obviously just a half-assed attempt of the creator(s) to garner an audience or ratings - or all of the above. That it’s often seen as “unnecessary” for a character to be gay and there’s no way that they’re doing it for any reason than to get attention because that’s totally how the creative process works.

And I hate it when people act like a scorecard is necessary for any of these less-than-often portrayed characters in media, because all the same it discourages creators from portraying these types of characters. Writers shouldn’t feel remiss about including a gay or lesbian character in their story because they’re worried people might accuse them of trying to connect with the LGBT crowd.

All I have to say is: Why does this have to be seen as such a negative thing? When straight characters are portrayed in media, no one accuses the writers of trying to score any points with the “heterosexual crowd”, so why should it be any different for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender? Or any of the minority for that matter. No one should feel pressured to avoid risks or following their creative path simply because people will judge them for “not understanding” what it feels to be that minority, or whatever.

Here’s a secret, and it might come off as a total shock to people, but hear me out.

ENOUGH With The Comedic Relief!

Please... no more...

The other day I finally ripped off the Frozen band-aid, so to speak. I know you’re probably not here to read my opinions on Disney movies, but rest assured this isn’t some kind of review. It’s just that certain things grated my nerves. Something that extends far beyond whatever beef I had with this particular movie. It wasn’t even a matter of trying to pinpoint what it was, because it became blatantly obvious the moment it reared its ugly bucktoothed head into the story.

Since Frozen was out all I kept hearing from friends was how Olaf, this goofy-looking snowman character, was not as “annoying as I thought he’d be”. Once I finally decided to give the film a chance, I wondered “What if I actually wind up liking Olaf?”

Spoilers: It didn’t happen. Here’s why.

Nothing pisses me off more than comedic relief characters. Characters that serve no other purpose other than to bounce around the screen making humorless jokes. Characters that could simply be written out of the script and nothing would change. Throughout the movie I was thinking to myself just how much these scenes would’ve been impacted had Olaf not been written into the script, and here’s the thing – I got nothing. Literally nothing would’ve changed, save for the removal of an obnoxious musical number and maybe a scene towards the end that could’ve been easily altered without his presence.

What's Up With Villain's Names?

Writers. Friends. We sometimes like having villains in our stories, yes? Or antagonists who are driving forces that propel our plot, stand in the way of our protagonists, and more often than not we wish them to be evil and villainous to justify the actions of our main characters. Yes?

Which begs to question... what’s up with villain names?

No, really. What kind of mother gives birth to her child and says, “Yes, my darling baby will henceforth be named Darko Beelzebub and golly he will grow up to achieve great things!”

Although I find this to be a more common theme with high fantasy novels, something which is a little out of my element. But every now and then I will pick one up and go, “Well, what did they expect?” Like who names their son Galbatorix (Eragon) or Darken-freaking-Rahl (Wizard’s First Rule) and not expect that they’re going to turn out to be nasty people? I’ll at least try to give Lord Voldemort some credit, as maybe he found that the name Tom Riddle wouldn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of the wizarding community. But still. Can I just say that Tom Riddle is actually a pretty cool name?

It genuinely makes me curious as to what creative process goes through writer’s heads when coming up with names for their antagonists (assuming they have one at all). For me and the horror genre in general, most of the time an antagonist’s name can be anybody’s, and that’s what I love about it. It’s perfectly realistic to imagine a parent naming their child Joe or Sally and not expect them to grow up to become a bloodthirsty psychopath. It’s not like they’re damning them to a life of socipathy. And when they are given really evil names, it’s usually given to them by either themselves or people who decided to call them Belphegor the Butcher.

For me, as far as the Seraphim books are concerned, I like to think that names such as “Gregory” and “Rhea” and “Jonah” are more liable to initially inspire trust and confidence than fear — and that’s how I think a good opposite force should be. Someone who you can think and trust to do good, but have more selfish ulterior motives in mind. Not some moustache-twirling man wearing spikes and a dark cloak, sitting behind his desk, petting his lapdog while trying to assure you that his name is Dark Lord Astaroth of the Shadow Realm, and he is absolutely not a villain.

...

Huh. Kind of makes me actually want to write a Darko Beelzebub as a protagonist now.

Hush Redux

A few years ago, I wrote a short story. Several years later, I tweaked and rambled about it a little. The other night, I started expanding on it a little bit more. I have posted an excerpt of the short story over here.

Like the other characters from this particular project of mine, Hannah Vallejo's story is one I've been wanting to tell for a long time, as she was created during my late night/early morning drives through dark country roads. To this day she holds a very near and dear place in my heart.

(Also Hannah just happens to be my favorite girl name. When I was a kid and hated my name like most kids usually do, I wanted to change my it to "Hannah" when I was old enough to. Of course my adult sentiments have changed since then. This absolutely has no bearing on the story or the character, other than the fact that I was able to fulfill my childhood wish via my literary child owning my favorite name.)

Anyway, I have other plans for Hush to be part of a potential short story anthology involving two other characters from the same storyline, if my current plans for it fall through. Either way, I have some big things in store for poor Hannah Vallejo.