Category Archives: Mary Pletsch

When Life is Larger than Life

Character Mary Pletsch The Writing Life Tropes & Archetypes No Comments

A writer friend of mine has cautioned me about borrowing storylines too faithfully from real life.  Her words of caution read as follows:  “Fiction has to make sense; reality doesn’t.”

If a story doesn’t hold together–if information is missing so that readers don’t understand why or how important events happened, if characters undergo situations without learning or growing or changing in any meaningful way, if the conclusion doesn’t leave readers with a sense of satisfaction–it’s considered a failure on behalf of the writer.  But these sort of things happen in real life all the time.

Readers who pick up a murder mystery story can rest assured that by the end of the book, they’re going to know whodunnit (and usually how and why).  Real life, on the other hand, is filled with examples of murders that were never solved, missing persons that were never found, and criminals who were never brought to justice.  These situations, while realistic (indeed, real), don’t make for satisfying murder mystery stories.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to write a successful story in which a mystery remains unsolved – I think of Minority Report, where the hero’s missing (and never found) child provides motivation for his decisions – but the plot of Minority Report is not centered on the missing son.

Another important factor to consider in fiction is suspension of disbelief.  If a character or plot point is too outrageous or implausible, it can shock readers out of the story.  It can make a serious story unintentionally humorous, ruining the tone and the mood, or it can leave the reader feeling frustrated and disappointed if they thought they were beginning one kind of story and ended up with another.  (No spoilers here, but I recently read a book which began as a realistic-seeming crime story and, in a daring move halfway through, a supernatural element was revealed.  I thought it was great, but afterwards I found mixed reviews, depending on the willingness of the readers to shelve their disbelief, accept the unexpected supernatural premise, and continue reading.)

So what do you do when your real-life example is so much larger than life that it stretches plausibility–even though it really happened?

Audie Murphy – the most decorated American soldier of the Second World War – later became an actor and played himself in a movie based on his autobiography, To Hell and Back.  Murphy himself was not the typical action-hero–he was shorter and skinnier than the archetypal figure–and though he filmed the movie as an adult, he fought when he was still a teenager.  Many of us are used to movies “based on a true story” containing gross exaggerations for dramatic effect.  In this cas,e though, comparison between historical accounts and the movie suggests that the film understated Murphy’s heroic deeds.  In a world where the usual formula is to overstate the fictional version to make a more dramatic story, To Hell and Back is an example of where real life has been toned down to make the story seem plausible to an audience unfamiliar with the actual history.

My writer friend, who is English, has been following with great amusement the saga of Rob Ford (the mayor of Toronto) over the past year.  From conflict of interest trials to admitted public intoxication and crack cocaine use, from lewd comments to investigation by police, and with videos of the mayor drunk, swearing and threatening people posted on Youtube, Mayor Ford is like a reality TV show playing out on the nightly news.  He’s real.  He’s all too real.  And he still intends to run for office again.

But my writer friend says, “You couldn’t make him up.”

You couldn’t make him up, because who would believe in him?  Who would believe that the mayor of a provincial capital would conduct himself in this fashion?  Try swapping Rob Ford for the leader in a military thriller or political drama.  How many readers would be able to suspend their disbelief?

Maybe you could get away with him in a screwball comedy or cheesy cartoon–the genres where viewers aren’t supposed to take anything seriously.

“But he’s real,” you say.  “It really happened.”

Now that it’s happened, while he’s still public knowledge, a writer could get away with a serious story involving a crackhead mayor.  Before the scandal broke–or in ten or twenty years when Ford is forgotten–not a chance.

Fiction is a craft.  By all means, borrow ideas or plot points or character concepts from real life, but be ready to revise them to suit the needs of the story.  In the end, the goal of fiction isn’t to provide an accurate historical account, but to tell a coherent and engaging story.  Sometimes that means simplifying events, adding explanations, and ramping up drama.  And sometimes…just sometimes…that means toning characters down, when real life is just too much “larger than life.”

Warrior. Iconoclast. Unicorn.

Character Mary Pletsch Narrative Voice POV Reading The Writing Life 3 Comments

botfUnicorn stories.  The topic seems geared towards wish-fulfillment for little girls, a more fantastical rendition of the “horsey” books so popular in the 1980s.  As a child I consumed mountains of these books, about both horses and unicorns, until I stumbled across a completely different animal:  Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce.

This is not a story about what it’s like to ride a unicorn.  This is a story about what it’s like to be one.

From the first page I was catapulted into a world unlike any I’d ever imagined.  There are no human characters in this book.  The unicorns of the Vale are a people, a culture unto themselves (though notably not the only unicorn culture), and the narration is sprinkled with examples of their religion, their storytelling, their singing.  The main character, Jan, is torn between a desperate desire to win the good regard of his father the prince, and to follow his own heart, even when it conflicted with his people’s traditions and teachings.  This conflict leads him to question everything he was raised to believe:  about his faith, his people’s history, and his destiny.

These unicorns don’t lounge about in meadows waiting for beautiful maidens to happen by.  Their story is one of struggle:  driven from their homeland by the wyverns, they settled in a Vale across the Great Grass Plain.  As Birth of the Firebringer opens, their numbers have grown and they await the coming of the prophesized Firebringer, who will lead an army back to their ancestral lands to reclaim what is theirs.

Pierce layers the narrative with hints that the unicorns’ version of history might not be as true as Jan has been taught to believe.  The legends, for example, always describe the Vale as “empty” when the unicorns arrived.  Later, Jan will realize that the Vale was a hunting ground for the gryphon clans, and when the unicorns invaded and drove out the native game, the gryphons, as a people, suffered.  I still remember the shock of realizing, along with Jan, that the antagonistic gryphons might actually have a legitimate reason for the attacks they launched against the Vale–something beyond a thirst for cruelty.

firebringer1I was thunderstruck.  And I wanted to tell stories like that.  My play with My Little Ponies changed from saddles and bridles and combing hair into epic quests and wars against dragons, incorporating world-building, history and mythology, involving prophecy and politics and revelations.  Unicorns were serious business.  I no longer wanted to be a princess mounted on a unicorn.  I wanted to see a world through a unicorn’s eyes.

I was an adult before I realized that Birth of the Firebringer was in fact the first in a trilogy.  Dark Moon addresses the question of humanity, previously only hinted at in Firebringer — an alien and powerful species that sees the unicorns as fabulous beasts.  The Son of Summer Stars brings prophecies to fulfillment in a way no one imagined, and takes Jan from youth into adulthood.

The Firebringer Trilogy is classed as young adult fantasy, but reading the last two books as an adult, I have no reservations about recommending them to other adults.  The story remains powerful, and the language beautiful.  Pierce chooses words to enhance the conceit that the reader, along with Jan, is listening to a unicorn storyteller’s tale; and yet the tale remains easy-to-follow rather than getting bogged down by its own description.

If you’re ready to leave your humanity behind and take a look at the world from the point of view of a creature who is utterly unlike you – if you are ready to question your leaders, your faith, and your role in the world – if you are prepared to set aside the preconception that unicorns are fluff for little girls – then enter the world of Meredith Ann Pierce’s Firebringer Trilogy.

Writing Who You’re Not

Character Craft & Skills Mary Pletsch The Writing Life World-building Writing Tools 1 Comment

                Two aliens walked into a bar.  “Greetings, Earthling,” they said to the bartender.  “Take us to your leader!”

                That was the point where Dar’xyl threw the book across the room.  “Human authors can’t write us worth scrap!”
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While I was studying for my Master’s degree in English, I sat through several classroom arguments to the effect of, “This (male) author can’t write realistic female characters;  this (female) author fetishizes gay men when she writes; this (Black) author shouldn’t write a book about Native Americans; no, wait, it’s okay when this Black author writes about Native Americans, but not when these White authors do.”  I left these classes wondering if I dared ever write about anyone who came from a culture, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation or any background and experience different from my own.

If I only wrote characters rooted in my own personal experience, all the people in my stories would be female, white, under 40, Canadian, and of German, English or Jewish heritage.  There would be no Asian people, no transgender people, no Muslim people, no elderly people, and no men.  The setting would always be late-twentieth or early-twenty-first century, Planet Earth.

I wouldn’t want to write in this world.  It’s got no relation to the world around me—it doesn’t feel real—and I’ve yet to think of a compelling and logical reason why it would be peopled only with characters whose experiences parallel my own.  In order to write a realistic, compelling world, you’ll probably have to create at least a few characters whose experiences are rooted in backgrounds you don’t share (unless you’re writing about, for example, an isolated village in China where everyone is probably Chinese; or a colony where a plague has killed all the men; or another scenario where minimal diversity is a critical component of the setting).

On the other hand, it’s one thing to make your character a different faith, gender, age or ethnicity, but another thing to write such a person realistically.  Oftentimes authors, sometimes unconsciously, fall into stereotypes when they try to write from a different point of view.  Take some time to do some research and understand what experiences, attitudes, and cultural values might shape such a person’s thinking and worldview.  Choose carefully what story you want to tell – is it a story best told by someone with personal experience?  For example, I’m comfortable writing a story with a gay male lead, but I’m not comfortable writing  a story about what it’s like to be a gay man in modern Canada.

Also understand that just because two characters come from the same religion/ethnic background/culture/etc., doesn’t mean their worldviews are going to be the same.  Losing an arm, for example, will be a different experience for the rich person who buys a cutting-edge prosthetic limb than it will be for the poor thief who now has to make a living with just one hand.  Being Black is going to be a different experience for the Black kid who’s the only Black person in her entire high school than it is for the Black kid who grows up surrounded by a community – and that community’s experience will differ depending on if it’s in 1990s Nova Scotia or 1960s Alabama.  Being Christian can run the gamut from Mother Teresa to the Westboro Baptist Church, and so on.

The best weapon in the writer’s arsenal is the ability to imagine and empathize with another’s point of view.  This was a challenge to me in a recent short story in which the main character is a religious leader, but his own belief is best described as agnostic.  I was tired of – yes, a stereotype, in which every character who is a religious leader is always either highly devout, or else utterly corrupt.  I wanted to create a character who wrestles with his faith, who tries to fulfill the duties of his job despite deep personal misgivings.

I’ve always been a strongly religious person, so I had to imagine:  what experiences made this person an atheist in his youth?  What experiences made him suspect that there might be a God after all?  Why did he choose his current faith over all the others?  Why is he still unsure that his God is real?  Writing this character helped me imagine an experience different from any I’ve ever had myself.

This is one of the great powers of fiction:  the ability to make the reader understand, empathize, and see the world through different eyes—to experience what it’s like to be someone else.  Sometimes that “someone else” is a person of a different gender, ethnicity, faith, age…the list goes on.  This power challenges the writer to provide a view that doesn’t simply reinforce cultural stereotypes.   And even though the story might be fiction, the understanding of how that point of view feels from inside, can linger long after the story is over.

*If you’re curious – you can meet Shaman Pasharan, Sigil of the Silver Future, in the upcoming EDGE anthology Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods, in a story entitled “Burnt Offerings.”

The Tax Man for Canadians, Part Two

Business Mary Pletsch Taxes No Comments

 

When you’re doing your taxes, you’ll need receipts for your expenses  for the previous calendar year (for example, in April 2014, I’ll be claiming expenses I incurred between January 2013 and December 2013).  The receipt for the computer I bought five years ago isn’t claimable, even though I used it this year to write stories.  I also can’t claim gifts, like my desk chair.

 

Saving your receipts is critical.  Without receipts, you have no proof of the expenditures you made.  Always assume you’re going to get audited; receipts are required to show that your claims are legitimate!  Here are some examples of expenses which you can claim on your taxes.  Some of them may surprise you…

 

–          If you write at home, you can claim a portion of your living space as a workspace.  Travelling through the house on your laptop doesn’t count!  This would be the portion of your living area where you have your desk and do most of your administration and writing.

 

–          You may be able to claim certain portions of bills for communication tools.  In my case, I use the Internet to submit stories, learn about calls for submissions, publicize my writing, and research for stories.  I’m not going to be able to claim a portion of my telephone expenses, because I do all my writing business via the internet.  If that changes in the future – if I have an editor or agent who regularly contacts me by telephone – then I may start claiming phone expenses as well.  This claim is based on a percentage – how much of the total use is used for business purposes – and an accountant can help you figure out this calculation.

 

–          Tools and equipment for writing, which may include a lap top or desktop computer, word processing software, desk, chair, and data backup.

 

–          When you buy a book, save the receipt – it counts as “research material,” since by reading, you’re learning the techniques of effective storytelling and staying current on what’s being published in your field.  But be judicious.  If you’re selling your work as a short story writer or novelist, you’ll have trouble justifying  the purchase of screenplays or graphic novels as “research materials”.

 

–          Courses, seminars and conventions to improve your craft and/or network with others in the writing field.  Marie advises she can claim travel to two conventions a year, and receives credit for approximately 50% of her expenditures.  This includes registration, travel costs, and hotel fees if applicable.  Note that these cons are for business purposes.  I’ll be claiming Ad Astra, where I met with an editor, and Can-Con, where I presented panels to promote my writing.  I won’t be claiming TFCon, which I attended for pleasure, not writing-related business.

 

–          And while you’re travelling, save your receipts from meals.  You will need to write on the receipt itself how the meal related to your business, ie, breakfast at a convention, lunch with an editor.  Don’t claim alcohol.  Incidentals, such as coffee or tea,  are questionable.  Also, keep in mind that if you’re part of a writer’s group that likes to get together over dinner to edit each other’s work, that will likely not count as a professional expense.  It’s the difference between a bunch of co-workers getting together, and a working lunch with a potential client.

 

Marie Bilodeau, who’s been claiming her writing income for the past five years, strongly recommends the services of an accountant, preferably an accountant who will represent you if you are audited.  This service is a bit more expensive but will be worth the peace of mind knowing that if your taxes must be justified, the person who did them will be responsible for performing the justification.  The figures to claim the correct percentages for small business income can be quite complex for someone unfamiliar with tax preparation.  If you’d like to save money, Marie recommends creating an Excel spreadsheet tracking your revenue (income) and expenses, with the receipts to justify your entries.  Having this information organized (rather than making the accountant do it) may entitle you to a discount.  Always speak to your accountant to clarify the fees and the services you will receive for that money.

 



 


Here are some more links that may be of help:


Mystery Writers Ink’s Tax Tips for (Canadian) Writers:  http://mysterywritersink.blogspot.ca/2011/01/tax-tips-for-writers.html?m=1


Canada Revenue Agency:  Visual Artists and Writers:  http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it504r2-consolid/it504r2-consolid-e.html