First Draft Woes

 For this week's blog post, I'm going to talk about something that I've only just confronted full force, something that I didn't expect to happen but knew might happen at some point. The woes of the first draft.

Here's a quick breakdown of how I tend to write. First, I create the foundational idea, the main story points, the characters, if necessary the terminology, and a rough chronology. Then I write it down in e-manuscript form, drafting some scenes or sections beforehand but otherwise letting everything flow freely and naturally. Usually I have to rewrite something within that, but it doesn't need a massive ground-up rewrite. After that comes the proofing and editing stage, where I pick up continuity errors, grammar errors, spelling errors, terminology errors, gender errors, the usual.

My current project with my publisher did need a top-down rewrite for style and to improve some atrocious story decisions made during an angrier time in my life. Even then, the characters, major story beats, and even a good section of the dialogue didn't change, so I was able to get the rewrite done in a month flat. But this time, for this side project that's been slowly cooking away since January 2020, I need to do more than that. It needs some basic elements that formed the core of the project...changing.

There's good reasons for this. The concept behind this project was a fantasy world with an unexpected thematic and tonal shift at its halfway point, and a style of storytelling that both delineated times and locations for a solid continuity, and deconstructed some of the established tropes of the chosen one archetype and surrounding story beats. The problem is that, looking back, some good ideas I had during the early planning stage were thrown under the bus, the tonal shift became far too extreme for people not to see the second half as gratuitous and illogical, and my wish for a meta narrative rode rough-shod over the rules of enjoyable and logical storytelling. Also there were too many throwaway concepts, and above all there were...too...many...characters.

Now, to put it as simply as possible, I wrote this book for two reasons; not to get bored with the two series I'm working on for my publisher, and to vent my frustration at the criminal mangling of characters and thematic progression present in Final Fantasy XV. You know, that oh-so-realistic game that saw a wimpy "lead heroine" with two hours screen time spread across a confusing mess of multimedia shanked without warning or context, companion characters that ranged from boring to outright abusive towards the lead, a lead that wasn't allowed to grow in any meaningful way, and a storyline that rammed you over the head with needing to obey duty at all costs regardless of what sane thought dictates. Yes, I don't mind admitting feeling cheated by its story, and it's left me wary of anything from that series going forward for fear they'd follow that trend of cookie-cutter "do your duty or else" leads, toxic relationships among their companions, and female characters either as thin as paper or relegated to background/fatal roles in favour of an all-male cast, all-male villains, and all-male supporting characters helping the very male hero on his journey. (Apologies for the rant, needed to get it out somewhere.)

Yeah, a lot of frustration there, and while that's still fuelling some of the project, I let that irritation get the better of me and override my natural instincts when writing a story. So I've decided to cut the cast down by half, and rewrite the narrative to better fit with the themes I wanted to examine, and most importantly trim the meta stuff down to something a little less...convoluted. Which entails an over 50% rewrite of the first half, and near-total redo of the second half. Irritating? Absolutely, it's a pain. Worth doing? Yes, since this book has potential. Also, there's series potential if I play it right.

So, wish me luck, y'all!

The Truly Alien

 How can you portray an alien people? Whether it be a fantasy society, or a sentient kind from another world in some universe or other? It's something that's been around since people were making up stories of otherness. From the tales of fae and deities, to modern twists on other peoples and cultures in science fiction narratives, it's difficult to find any kind of approach that can really be called 'alien'.

The most basic problem is that many can't easily see outside their preconceptions of what is a sentient being. Our only examples are Earth-based fauna, specifically a certain hybrid bipedal primate which has reached every continent on Earth, is now one of the most populous mammals on the planet, and has an unusually complex society which splinters across abstract boundaries and esoteric concepts. I mean humans, of course. Some are more obvious than others, like octopuses which have proven problem-solving abilities, or dogs and cats which can understand elements of speech and even hold conversations to a degree. But others like just fish, or insects, or rodents, when used it's almost like a conscious subversion of the norm. It's easier with fantasies, as there's a greater level of fantastical license to draw on, but science fiction's always quite tricky. See any episode of Star Trek or Star Wars to see how difficult it is to break away from the humanoid norm.

The second problem, which is often both encountered and worked around in fantasy, is how much of real-world developments to incorporate into the fiction. Of course, nothing's entirely new in fiction, just a rearrangement of what's already happened. But if you want to create something about a large pantheon, do you mix and match or mimic a specific religion from the ancient past? When you create something about a spirit or fairy, do you risk accusations of cultural appropriation, or change enough that it's more of a homage than direct use? This issue particularly arises with both living religions such as Christianity or Hinduism, and still-living folklore traditions such as those of the Native American nations. The same problem applies to social structure, living conditions, and any kind of interpersonal culture. And that's before you get to reproduction!

There is a third, more insidious problem that's been pointed out in stories such as Avatar and Bright, which had respective alien and fantasy peoples based very explicitly on ethnic minorities. Minorities, what's more, that have deeply engrained but also deeply harmful social stereotypes that these stories encouraged rather than downplayed. While many stories show the normal encountering the unusual, leading to a natural feeling of otherness, many stories have an outward sense of integration, or at least coexistence. So when stories use real-world parallels, they can encourage the kind of behaviour that is supposed to be wrong in reality, simply through reinforcement of a toxic image. Racism is senseless, meaningless, and based on a groundless prejudice. By creating specific others based on these groups, we don't break down barriers, we reinforce them.

Now, I'm not above these problems. I've had to face them, succumbed to them, and had to rethink a story to get round them. But at least I recognise them, where many other authors might not even realise it. For all those who read Tolkien's Middle Earth only for its surface narrative without seeing the deeper cultural mingling and openness he demonstrates, who were bamboozled by Ursula le Guin's approach to science fiction. I ask this. Next time you read a book, look at the story and think; "I wonder where I could find a parallel to this?" And if you can't find it, that's the mark of a true author.