Welcome to Myth & Legend month at the Fictorian Era!

This month you’ll hear about why we feel drawn to myths and legends, how they are alive and well even in a modern world ruled by science, and how they can and are used to create a more vibrant and realistic world in which our characters live. From ancient Greece to modern conspiracy to vampires, zombies and true love, we Fictorians will be delving into the stories that we grew up on, the stories that keep coming back again and again, the stories that impact our lives even when we don’t know it.

But before we dive into the whys and wherefores, I wanted to spare a moment to talk about something that has always rather bugged me–the importance placed on the truth or falsity of the stories we tell.

myth noun

1 a: a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon

b : PARABLE, ALLEGORY

2 a: a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society

b : an unfounded or false notion

3 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

The above definition comes from the Meriam-Webster online dictionary. Now, the first definition is fairly typical of what most of us view as myth. Yet, look at the second definition. For some reason this expresses myth as being a “popular belief or tradition…embodying the ideals and institutions of a society…” but associates that idea with “an unfounded or false notion”.

For some reason I have yet to figure out, there are people who think that just because something is made up, it is false and therefore has less value (an idea that should be anathema to every fiction writer). There are, for instance, many people who take offense when the idea of “Christian mythology” is brought up. To them, the religious stories of the past are truth.

Legend, on the other hand, has a slightly different perception.

leg·end noun

1 a : a story coming down from the past; especially: one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable

b : a body of such stories <a place in the legend of the frontier>

c : a popular myth of recent origin

d : a person or thing that inspires legends

e : the subject of a legend

In the above definition from Meriam-Webster, a legend is really not much different than a myth. In fact, as the above states, a legend comes from the past, which is fairly equivalent to saying it’s traditional, and like the “unfounded or false notion”, a legend is “not verifiable”. So, really, a legend is a type of myth.

Yet, for many people a line is drawn between myth and legend because while a myth is accepted as complete fiction, a legend has some root in real history. For instance, there is historical evidence that there was a real King Arthur running around Britain in the years after the Romans left and the start of the Middle Ages.

But would it really matter if that were true? If there really was a Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest at some point in history, would it make his legend any more powerful a tale? I think everyone pretty much knows the fallacy of “Honest” Abe Lincoln, but does it make him any less a seminal figure in American history that he wasn’t averse to the occasional lie?

The purpose of both myth and legend is to bring sanity to an insane universe, to explain the unexplainable, to give hope to the hopeless, to highlight the best and worst of humanity in order to teach us what it means to be human. This, I think, is why we hold onto them so tightly as to never let them fall into obscurity.

If you think about it, isn’t that the point of all fiction? Aren’t we, as writers, creators of myth and the occasional legend? Yes, our stories may not be carried down through the ages as of yet, but they could be. Heck, I’m sure Shakespeare never thought his plays would still be performed almost half a millennia after he wrote them, but the imaginary lives of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet have just as much impact as King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Not So Final, After All

May 31, 2013

Brandon M Lindsay

For those of us who had video game controllers in our hands at the time, the year 1997 will forever live in infamy. While nary a year goes by that doesn’t make a gamer go squee, that year was significant in that it made gamers feel so much more than mere excitement. They felt anger, sorrow, surprise, frustration, hate, love, and loss-all in the same moment. That moment can be encapsulated in two words.

Aeris Gainsborough.

For the uninitiated, Aeris (or Aerith in the Japanese version) was one of the playable characters in Final Fantasy VII, one who *SPOILER ALERT* met her tragic end *END SPOILER* in one of the most pivotal moments of gaming history. The reverberations of that scene can still be felt today. The reason it-and the rest of the game-was so significant was because it showed us the storytelling capabilities of video games in spectacular, blindsiding fashion.

Of course, games had stories before then. Earlier entries in the Final Fantasy series, especially VI, are known for depth of characters, but not to the level seen in VII. Until then, game stories for the most part seemed to be little more than window dressing, or at least a well-kept secret. FFVII made storytelling a mainstream expectation.

The impact on me was deep. I was astounded that the state of gaming proceeded from the emotionless and abstract intellectual challenges of games like Tetris to experiences that could move you. Not only had Final Fantasy VII taken me to a world where magic was possible, but a world where the depths of human emotion were plumbed. I have no problem invoking a cliche, because there is no other way to say it: that game was life-changing.

I remember watching the credits roll at the end of that game and setting down my controller, and when I recovered from my several-minutes-long daze, I thought, “Gee whiz, I should write a video game script!”

So that’s exactly what I did.

I knew, then and there, that I would be a video game writer. I was resolved, even as I researched the job and discovered how difficult it was to break in as games became more cinematic. After finishing what I then deemed my masterpiece, the fabled “Final Fantasy-killer” that gamers have been waiting for without even knowing it, I realized I needed a game plan (sorry – I had to). After all, the game industry doesn’t work quite like movies-writers do not submit scripts that then get turned into games. More often, all the writing gets done while the game is in development by writers who have already proven their mettle. I had to gain some sort of writing credit that would elevate my name into consideration for that unicorn of a job, called game writer.

Hey, why not write a novel?

That was years ago, and prose has since stolen my heart-most of it, anyway. Part of me still yearns to get involved with the medium that set me down this path in the first place. Indeed, I recently signed on to an indie game startup as the writer, though that project has since been put on hiatus. For now, I’ll have to satisfy my creative impulses with writing novels and stories, even though I’ll never forget the love of writing that the Final Fantasy series instilled in me, nor will I forget the flower girl named Aeris who lived in a abandoned church.

Coming Late to Wonder.

May 30, 2013

Nancy

Nancy Greene The Writing Life 2 Comments

I “discovered” Science Fiction and Fantasy later than you might think. Sure, I read all the Dr. Seuss books, Magic Elizabeth that included a doll who may or may not be magic, and The Bridge To Terabithia, and loved its magic. I read the Lord of the Rings series and The Hobbit as a hand-me-down book from my brother. I read Vonnegut as a hand-me-down book from my father. In fact, I still have most of those early Kurt Vonnegut books on my shelf.

But when high school rolled around, I fell out of love with fantasy. Why? Well, my brother is six years older than I am, and I definitely had younger sibling syndrome. Paul read Stephen King so in sixth grade I picked up my first Stephen King novel – Carrie. I read almost exclusively horror (I made exceptions for the Star Wars books – little knowing that I would one day be friends with a number of those writers) until my sophomore year of college. I think I read every vampire story published at the time, and those vampires weren’t ones you wanted to take home and cuddle.

I wrote until my sophomore year in high school. By then I had written a novel to help me move beyond some bad things in my life., and four fan fiction – Battlestar Galactica and A-Team – romance novels. Yes. Dirk Benedict was dreamy. Le sigh!

Anyway . . . Campfire of America had published one of my short stories. Writing and drawing was part of who I was. But after a bad experience with my then English teacher (which is a topic for another day), I gave up writing. After all, an adult – my English teacher even – had told me that I couldn’t do this.

So, fast forward four years. That college summer I was fortunate enough to work at Bush Gardens, Williamsburg in its Live Entertainment Department. What does that mean? I worked in the theatre running a spot light. One of my friends there was an avid fantasy reader. There’s a lot of downtime between shows. So, he started lending me books. The first one was The River of The Dancing Gods by Jack L. Chalker. If you don’t know the series, it’s well worth checking out. In brief though, Joe, a truck driver, picks up Marge, a hitchhiker. Throckmorton P. Ruddygore–a stranger who met them on a road that wasn’t there–tells them they have 19 minutes before they die in a car accident or, they can come with him to another world over the Sea of Dreams. They chose to go with Throckmorton and get to chose their new forms from, essentially, the Dungeons and Dragon class list. Then things get interesting. From there I dove into Terry Pratchett’s DiskWorld – The Light Fantastic and The Color of Magic.

The other thing that happened that year to reintroduce me to the fantasy genre was I watched The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle on VHS. For lots of reasons that story became very important to me. When I was checking out the fantasy novels from the Williamsburg, VA public library, I found The Last Unicorn as well. While it’s not my favorite Peter Beagle book – that distinction goes to A Fine and Private Place-, it and River of the Dancing Gods were the one changed how I thought about fantasy novels. Not only could these novels entertain, but they had meaning outside the pages. They could touch the heart and change lives.

I was lucky enough to purchase some of the original animation cels from the movie version of The Last Unicorn from Ebay and other sites. When we moved into our current house almost 13 years ago, I used those cells to paint a mural from the cel of the unicorns running on my sons’ bedroom wall. It was a bit heart breaking when they were no longer “babies” and we had to paint over the unicorns.

Still, it took me some time before I started thinking, “I can do that” again. But the desire to write again took root. I’d find myself day dreaming about worlds that didn’t exist anywhere except my head. While I had a job offer from Bush Gardens for the next summer, I had to turn it down because Mom had moved to Florida for a job needed surgery which would render her somewhat helpless for a few weeks, and Dad’s job kept him in Massachusetts. As life worked out, Dad quit his job and moved to Florida so my help became unnecessary. Dad’s move did let me take the evening shift at Universal Studios, which had just opened. I think I read every science fiction and fantasy book in the Dr. Phillips branch of the Orlando public libraries that summer. Slowly, I was putting together my fantasy world from bits I liked in this story or that one and what I didn’t without even knowing it. To write in any genre, you have to read extensively. Both inside your genre and outside it. I was doing my research.

It would take years after that summer of Dancing Gods and Last Unicorns before the seeds planted burst into a riot of colors, and I would start writing again. My first magician born a strong resemblance to Schmendrick. My first heroine confronted the same lies to herself that Marge did – what you said you wanted to be versus what you knew in your heart you were.

When I look back and ask myself why I’m a writer, I always come back to that summer in Williamsburg. The epiphany from it was slow in coming, but it did come.

Lovin’ Every Minute of it

May 29, 2013

Frank Morin

Frank Morin The Writing Life No Comments

I’ve really enjoyed the posts this month – the insights into the history and motivation behind why we’ve all chosen such a difficult, time-consuming, and not-yet lucrative focus for our time. This month provided a rare opportunity for self-reflection, for looking back, and for reminding myself why I enjoy writing so much.

I love a good story.

It all boils down to that. As early as third grade, I began devouring books way above my grade level in search for great stories. I read widely, but gravitated toward science fiction and fantasy, reveling in foreign worlds, alien technology, and boundless magic. Many of the great stories mentioned this month are ones I enjoyed too, but I thought I’d mention a couple of other favorites from my early days as an avid reader.

First there’s the classic Sword of Shannara, epic fantasy from before it was clear what made classic epic fantasy. It’s one of the early greats ones. It had everything: the mysterious, powerful mentor; the young hero hopelessly in over his head; the faithful sidekick; the experienced fighter friend; and an ancient evil no one really expected anyone could defeat. It also included spectacular battle sequences, terrifying monsters, magical talismans, and memorable moments of wonder and horror. What’s not to love? Many of the sequels were good, but for me, none of them surpassed the parent story.

Another of my all-time favorite series was The Mallorean by David Eddings. The magic system was fairly simple, yet consistent, and the world well-developed. Most importantly, the characters were awesome. I loved how they interacted, how they each had a distinct voice, how even the minor characters had some interesting arcs, and important roles to play. For me, this was a series that showed how to manage and utilize a big cast of characters.

There are many other stories I still cherish to this day, but these are a couple of classics that helped cement my love of fantasy. I read so much, it became a problem in school and at home. However, it wasn’t until I started role-playing games that I really started recognizing I had a talent for spinning my own tales.

As a youth, I played a spin-off version of D&D with brothers and friends that minimized the use of dice (everything was done with a single die), and focused more on the crafting of great adventures. Through that effort, I soon discovered I had a flair for inventing great stories, for adapting quickly on the fly, and holding a group’s interest.

It was about that time that I started writing my own stories in earnest. In high school, I plotted out a couple of complete novels, although I never finished writing any of those ginormous epics. I wrote many short stories, some of which were actually pretty good. At that time, I knew I wanted to be a writer, to craft long, epic tales that would thrill me, and hopefully a few readers too.

Unfortunately, I went to college and fell in love with computers, which were just becoming mainstream, and shifted focus to become a computer programmer. That’s what became my career, what supported my family for over a decade until the desire, the need, to write began consuming me again.

Now I write as much as I can, and I’ve arranged my schedule to allow more time to write. I’ve written and thrown away well over half a million words, and have completed three novels and a novella that are viable properties. It’s a long road to become a competent writer, but it’s a road I’ve loved. Soon I hope to reach the next big milestone: publishing something, but that’s a different topic.

And I still play role-playing games, now with my kids and their friends. I still find it one of the best ways to exercise my creative muscles, to keep my mind sharp, nimble, and focused on what’s important in stories. It helps me stay in tune with what makes stories fun.

Because a fun story is a good story.