Anachronism: the Good, the Bad, and the WTF

 Dear Reader,

Anachronism is a tricky thing to work with. Some authors wield it like a surgeon's scalpel and others are more ham fisted about it. If it is done well, anachronism can enhance your story and add some interesting nuances that one doesn't typically encounter in the genre. If it is done poorly, it breaks the suspension of disbelief and can devastate your story's continuity. (Perhaps some day, I will share the tale of the romance novel with modern clocks in a medieval setting. It was bad. At least the cover art was ok.)

Anachronism is placing things or concepts in to the wrong time setting. Like the medieval romance novel with modern clocks is an example of an object in the wrong time period. Now, there are modern anachronism where things of antiquity pop up. You see this happen as a common trope in urban fantasy where some kind of ancient relic is a major plot device. A fine example of this can be seen in Neil Gaiman's short story Chivalry. His handling of both the relic and the knight seeking the relic is excellent. These elements of the story remain true to their time period despite the fact that they are transported to the modern era. (I'd give more details but I wouldn't want to give spoilers.) 

A bad example of this can be seen in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The grail scene is poorly executed and campy at best. The only good version of anachronism that pops up in that movie is the motorcycle jousting scene. (I have more opinions on the Indiana Jones franchise, but I can summarize them by saying it's a pulp series of movies with big name actors that are the only reason why it made it to the box office.) And then you have a series that just throw anachronism and nonsense at the wall to see what sticks and use that as plot fodder. (Xena and Hercules, I'm looking at you.)

Badly done anachronism for the purpose of humor is fine. It is a hallmark of some authors' work. Historical fiction that's slap-dash and full of speculation about alternate timelines that include anachronistic elements can make for a fun read. Terry Prachett's Nation is a great example. The best part of how Sir Pratchett handled it was the fact that he had characters recognize and comment on it. Because Sir Pratchett was the master of breaking the fourth wall intentionally.

Anachronism breaks the fourth wall when done poorly. If you are deft and subtle, however, you can use anachronism to crack that fourth wall a bit to add new dimension to your story.

What is your writing style? Don't know? That's ok.

 Dear Reader,

Before I started writing books, I worried about if my writing style would appeal to the masses. I worried that I wouldn't find my 'voice' and that my work would be confined to the perpetual slush pile of shame. I spent a lot of time in college working on academic papers along side working on my first book. (Well, revision two of my first book, because revision one got destroyed. I'll get to that in a minute.) Some of my academic writing leaked into my fiction work. Some of my fiction work leaked into my academic work. It was a weird period in my writing life.

The thing I learned from that period was that it didn't matter what my style was like or what my 'voice' was. The thing that mattered was to be precise in what I was conveying. I had to demonstrate conclusions in a manner that was clearly understood by someone who wasn't an expert on the topic. When I did use jargon, I did so in a manner that allowed my reader to figure out its meaning through context cues. In some situations, I gave definitions with the first time I introduced a term that I expected would be unfamiliar to my reader. My work had to have a logical progression, something that tied the narrative together in a fashion that made sense.

The biggest lesson that I carried away from that mixed up writing period of my life was that I had to support what I was presenting with the strongest arguments I could give. One may wonder what these practices that are more typically applied to writing non-fiction have to do with writing fiction. The ability to suspend reality is necessary for good fiction. If you can present your work in a way that holds together with an internal logic that isn't too far beyond the scope of reality, that helps suspend reality and gives you the opportunity to do some pretty nifty things in your fiction. If you have invented terms, you need to make them accessible to your reader. This will give depth to your writing and will work to draw your readers deeper into your created world. Action in a story must follow a logical progression that comes to a clearly illustrated conclusion - even if that conclusion is a cliff hanger - that would make sense to someone who hadn't read any of your work before.

I still don't know how to describe my writing style. I don't know how to describe my writing voice. It's alright, though, because I am focusing on my content. Focusing on your content and your work, the rest will fall into place.

Craft of Writing: Grind your way through or not?

 Dear Reader,

It's a tough question when you are just burned out and you have a project sitting on your workbench. Do you grind your way through the writing process to get at least something down on paper or do you stop and take a rest? There's merits to both approaches. It gets complicated, however, when funky brain chemistry gets added to the mix. You may be the sort of writer who gets a dopamine hit when they reach word count or plot related goals. You may be the sort of writer who finds writing an escape from their stress and anxiety.  Regardless of the type of writer you are, depression sucks a lot of the joy out of the task of writing and turns it into an exercise in endurance.

Grinding your way through a project when you are depressed is a heroic accomplishment that feels like it is just not good enough to see daylight. Setting the project aside when you are depressed feels like further evidence that the lies of depression are accurate (i.e. you're not a real writer, your work isn't worth the time you put into it, etc.) and that can make your depression worse. There are times, however, that it is wise to put aside a project. If grinding your way through the project is making your depression worse, set it aside. If grinding your way through the project is making your anxiety spike, set it aside. If grinding your way through the project in anyway negatively impacts your mental or emotional health, set it aside until you are well enough to work on it again.

This is not a defeat. Your project will be there waiting for you to return to it with fresh ideas, fresh eyes, and a renewed sense of purpose. This is a tactical withdrawal from a struggle that you are heavily burdened by. This is you taking a breather so that you can come back to the project with more energy and focus. If you need to step away, do so with no shame. Shift focus to something that is restorative and spend time refilling your reserves so that you have it in you to continue to fight the good fight of writing or creating art.

NaBloPoMo 13? I surrender.

  There's no way that I am going to make up the missing posts for the remainder of this month. Being sick for two weeks with that sinus infection threw everything off. Then I got hyper-focused on writing books. Add to that the chaos of a few days of distance learning, the kids being off from school for a few days, and the typical afternoon/evening chaos when they get home from school ... Well, you can see why I made it to thirteen posts before I hung up my hat on this front.

NaBloPoMo 12: Two fisting coffee and water, come at me, bro!

 I've a full night of sleep. I'm on my second gigantic mug of coffee. I feel like I'm warmed up for working on my novel. Now I have epic music playing on my play list. Seriously, listening to this makes me feel like I've got a horde of vikings at my back cheering me on. If I get organized enough, I may take a break from the novel to write something for my pulpy scifi. I'm leaving my options open for the next blog post for today. But, if you're writing fantasy or urban fantasy, I highly recommend epic music to play in the background. It can make the scene gel in your head as you're working.

NaBloPoMo 11: Music.

 I've been playing this song on repeat since the election. It just feels appropriate. It's also been useful inspirational music for scenes that I've been writing. I have it on my NaNo2020 playlist on Spotify. The biggest scene that Dear God inspired was a massive fight scene where my characters chewed through a stronghold that was lit on fire. It was inspired by a LARP scene that my character was part of a team that did that. It was brutal and chaotic. And it seemed like all the other PCs and NPCs were just throwing everything at the big bad guy and his minions to no effect. Then my PC got the drop on him and put him out of commission. It was a fun game. It's been fun writing in this universe and recreating the LARP scenes out of memory from a different perspective. If I could share excerpts, I would. I'm doing the next best thing by sharing music that I'm writing by.

NaBloPoMo 10: Behind again, but not on word count.

 Dear Reader,

I accidentally sacrificed my blog writing time to the nap gods over the last few days. It's this lingering cold that's sucking the energy out of me. I think my fever finally broke. I'm no longer feeling dizzy and as though the world is spinning about me at a 45 degree angle at a rate of about five feet per hour. Since I was too ill to wander around the apartment doing housework, I was parked in my chair in front of the keyboard when I was awake to be writing. I'm now at 41k words on this NaNoWriMo project. My plot hasn't gone off the rails yet. I consider that a pretty big accomplishment for writing while sick.

I seem to be more prolific with something to track my word count and a goal. I'm thinking that I have to get to work on re-doing my writing bullet journal so that it is more oriented towards tracking word count for my manuscripts. I've got two book series that I'm working on now. Book one of the second series (yet to be named on both accounts) is getting close to done. I am also seriously considering gathering up all of my pulpy scifi and republishing it as a single e-book. 

I have found my notes for the backstory on the pulpy scifi. I am debating if I'm going to take them and work them up into a book and release that before the compilation of what I have up here as random shorts. I'm still at the decision making stage. But I have at least found my notes. I am highly annoyed with Eleon Musk for naming his thingy 'neuralink' because that was in the earlier versions of this thing that I had published on a web forum about ten years ago. That pulpy scifi has some history to it. 

I'm still thinking about sacrificing time to the nap gods. I am not feeling completely well right now. Still, I have stuff to get done. So, I'm going to two fist coffee and water and power through. Relive college for a day or something. Wish me luck?