Wednesday 29 February 2012

Mythological fiction has to be 100% accurate?!

I got some work back today and I’m both very angry and upset. There are some comments I agree with, others I disagree with but can at least see where the teacher was coming from. For the most part I feel it is because they did not understand the character, or the meaning, well enough. That’s just my opinion, and perhaps I’m wrong, but if you read on I would like to explain, in as few words as I can, my biggest disagreements and the reason for them.

The first piece of work, for the most part I don’t have a problem with. I can understand the reasoning to what she has said should be done differently, and most I actually agree with. The main thing I don’t like is a complaint that at one point a character’s voice changes. While normally this would be a bad thing, just before this the character, out with the young girl he teaches, witnesses two policewomen shooting some men just a few feet away. The way he was speaking before was mostly for the girl, only eight years old. After the shooting he swears and complains quietly to himself, momentarily forgetting the child next to him. I believe in a situation like this, many people would react like that. But I suppose it’s open to interpretation.

This other piece of work though, I’ll admit, annoys me most of the way through. It actually offends me to read the comments, mostly because he seems to say I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Let me begin by saying, this story is about an interpretation of the devil, wherein he is a fallen angel who was imprisoned in hell until finally being free to walk the earth again in a body almost human except that he is immortal, heals quickly, feels no pain and has almost no emotion, specifically toward humans. The exception is a young woman whom he has fallen in love with. I know that’s probably a cliché idea but that’s beside the point.

He begins by cutting out almost all of the main character’s thoughts throughout the story. While I agree that in some places it was too much or may have interfered with the storyline, I do not agree that it was entirely unnecessary. Telling the story is one thing, the thing he insists is all I do, but I don’t think it’s wrong, especially in a story such as the one I was trying to write, to have a paragraph or two explaining the way the character feels. I don’t think this is treating the audience like idiots who can’t understand the story if it’s put simply, as he says it is, and I don’t think it’s spelling everything out. I personally, enjoy reading sections that show the characters true emotions that do not come across in the events that happen, and I am sure I am not the only one.

I also understand the complaint that ‘it doesn’t feel ‘felt’’ when the character is shot in the arm. However, a fallen angel or demon, in my stories at least, does not feel pain from a bullet as strongly as a human does, so he would not have a big reaction to it. Although I do agree that usually it should come across more that a character truly does feel a bullet or experiences pain.
He also points out that the idea of the girl’s mother being ‘splattered beneath a truck’ is seems comical. The good thing is it was phrased as a question because yes I suppose it was. Originally I was going to write it more seriously. But again, the girl in the story is the only human he cares about. At the beginning of the story he smiled as he passed a woman dying from being in a fire. I wanted to make it clear that the life and death of humans means little to him.
He then complains at the end because I quote Mark Twain. Fair enough on that point though I have seen several short stories use a quote relevant to the story either at the beginning or the end because it give the story more meaning.

Finally, and what I believe is the worst of the comments. He says several times that I need to research mythology rather than assume things. Aside from the fact that I have spent hours on end researching mythology, angels and demons, over the last few years because I’ve been using them so much in the story, I think the suggestion that I haven’t is wrong for a couple of reasons.
At one point he tells me ‘Lucifer and Gabriel are not sons of God’. As someone who grew up Christian, attending church and Christian schools, of course I knew that. I never actually said that. My main character called God ‘my father’ and Gabriel ‘brother’ and that is the extent of it. Personally, I don’t think it is such an absurd idea that angels might call God ‘father’ and refer to each other as ‘brothers and sisters’.
Furthermore he tells me that angels are gender neutral and sex with an angel as such would not be like human intercourse. This is true, in the bible. But how many fictional stories have given angels genders?
Typically in my stories, when an angel falls their angelic qualities are stripped away from them and their bodies become almost that of a human. This of course is a fictional story and I never thought I was doing anything wrong by creating my own interpretation of an angel.
After all, many stories feature interpretations of gods, angels, demons and other creatures of myth in a way that is not accurate to the original text. But since when did fiction have to be completely accurate? Isn’t that the point of fiction? As I said before, I’ll admit I used to take criticism of my writing badly. I still do. But now when I receive it even if I don’t agree with it, even if it makes me angry, I will try to calm myself and understand and accept what they are saying. However, I cannot do that here. Not for this point. This is supposed to be a creative writing class but right now I feel like my creativity has been attacked. I also find the constant comments that I haven’t done research and don’t know what I’m talking about to be demeaning. This is also the person who after my first assignment, simply for a few layout mistakes, told me it looks like I’ve never read a book. I wonder what I spent my whole childhood doing now…

So that’s it. Thank you if you managed to read all the way through my rant and I’m sorry for bringing it here, but I don’t like constantly complaining on facebook, I clearly can’t speak to the teachers about it and there’s no one here I can talk to right now. It’s been building up inside me and if I didn’t get it out somewhere I doubt I could properly finish the other things I have to do tonight.

If you want, feel free to leave a comment telling me what you think of this, I would love to hear other people’s opinions on it, whether you agree or disagree with me.

Monday 27 February 2012

27-02-12: A Very Happy Update

Okay, after nearly a month of not writing anything (on here anyway… and little elsewhere) I am happy to say that I’ve found myself becoming obsessive over writing again. Wonderful. Oh, if you’ve read my blog before you may notice I’ve changed my name to my real name and not my umm… ‘online name’? Well that’s because I’ve finally decided I’ll set up an extra blog specifically for my writing and I want my real name on it… while at the same time not having to set up a whole new account (especially since this one has my main email too).

I’ve started planning my novel again, the one I was supposed to be doing for NaNoWriMo last year. The thing is the story has gone so many places in my head but the only thing that really changes is character relationships without much other plot, and a lot of things generally might need to change for this thing to be better. I’m keeping all the parts I got from my dreams, those are the really good parts. Anyway, for fun I recreated six of my main characters on Sims 3, and here they are:





Right, now they don’t all look completely accurate so I just want to add where they are different. Erin, Azrael and Cercey look fine, as much like themselves as a Sims replica could be. Naomi pretty much is too but she should be slightly darker in skin tone. Kadria should be quite a bit more pale, her hair is a bit lighter and her ponytail is a lot thicker and longer while the front is styled slightly differently. Sarin I will say does not look so much like himself. His hair is actually supposed to be a sort of dark blonde/very light brown and I don’t think that shade is accurate enough. His hair is also not that flat, it’s meant to be a lot messier. I don’t know how to explain it but his face shape isn’t quite right either. Not good since he was originally meant to be the main character, before Azzie and Kadria started taking over… I also don’t know why so many of them have green eyes. Also Azrael and Naomi are supposed to be twins but other than eyes they look nothing alike… although I suppose that can happen.

On a non-writing note, I can’t wait for the weekend, going back to London to have fun with my Kingdom Hearts roleplay group. It’s only been around for a month or so but it’s so amazing. And I’m Zexion so yeah, more happiness for me. It made sense since I already cosplayed him so yeah… speaking of cosplay, I gotta get my stuff for May Expo together. The more I talk with my group members the more I just wanna be Zexion again… but this one will be lots of fun too. I should actually be buying my ticket right about now… and the ticket for my coach home for summer – April 24th! Of course I’m a lucky b**** and uni for me finishes at the end of March.

Well… that’s pretty good for an update for now, Stacey out!