Stories for Sendai

Stories for Sendai is a collection of short stories and poems based loosely on the theme ‘strength of the human spirit’. All proceeds (minus the overhead costs as far as I’m aware) go to GlobalGiving, an organisation that has a part in aiding the victims of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan.

In addition to the monetary implications of the anthology, the stories and poems provide a message of strength in adversity. Hopefully, the positive message will help in a time of crisis.

Not only is this a great cause, if you buy it, you will also get a collection of short stories and poems by some great writers (see a complete list of them here). Plus, my story was accepted too, so if you ever wanted to read something I wrote, buy a copy of the anthology.

The Japanese are some pretty awesome folk. Do what you can to help them and buy a copy when it is (scheduled to be) published on 30 June this year. See the website for more information.

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Crafting a Story : Inciting Incident

The inciting incident’s random word is:

Passion, in general, refers to a large amount of emotion about something. Normally positive, as in being devoted to something. Passionate means that you are easily swayed by your emotions and easily swept up into making something bigger than it is, thinking with your emotions instead of your head. Passion also designates desire.

Let’s say for a second that Irwin’s girlfriend is now interested in Henry. And then, when Henry finally caves in and accepts her, Irwin is roused by the event, and angry. Thus, Henry giving in to passion allows Irwin to come back and haunt him.

Now the question is, how did Irwin’s girlfriend fall for Henry? The two men are on opposite ends of a giant spectrum. Let’s say that the person Henry saved in the shop that Irwin was robbing was in fact, Irwin’s girlfriend. Let’s say that she and Irwin were working together with her acting as a hostage to ensure a clean getaway. Maybe she didn’t like the plan much. Or maybe she was swayed by Henry’s sudden courage. Since she was with Irwin, I’m going to assume that she comes from the same kind of life he does; poor, crime-ridden neighbourhood. Struggling to get by, perhaps. Then, Henry symbolically saves her from that life. So, she gets infatuated with him.

So now, Henry accepts the girlfriend’s advances and offers to take her with him to a quiet house in a forest (the one his uncle left to him). By the time they get there, the spirit of Irwin is furious and begins to test out his power and so on.

The inciting incident has not only given us another character – whom we shall call Jasmine Heart for now – but also a note of deception for a large part of the story. Jasmine has been hiding the fact that she had been working with Irwin because she fears of what Henry would think of her if he knew. Obviously, if the spirit can communicate with them in some way, it will become apparent (eventually) that Jasmine and Irwin are connected in some way. Eventually the truth will leak out and Henry will see betrayal everywhere.

The catalyst will tell us more about the way in which Irwin’s ghost was awakened and the sort of powers he possesses. We’ll look at that next week.

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Why I don't need Publishers to Approve my Work

Yesterday, I made a post as to why I need publishers to validate my work. In response to that, I got a whole lot of comments. Firstly, thanks to Michelle, Mood and Chancellor for your comments. It really got me thinking and changed my opinion somewhat. Here is my conclusion.

At first, I had thought that publishers are, as Mood said, arbiters of quality. That they can judge the worth of something better than I can. Therefore, they would tell me when my work has become quality (by publishing my book).

Mood tried to tell me that it was wrong, but I didn’t quite grasp it. Then Michelle made a comment (that got eaten) saying something that switched on a lightbulb. I don’t know if it’s the right one, but here it is:

Do you honestly think a Big 6 publisher would publish some of the experimental classics now if they had never been written and published before? Hell no. That doesn't mean they aren't some of the most amazing things ever written - it means they are basing things on what sells NOW, or what they think will sell now.

Publishers (especially successful ones) will publish what they believe sells. But, as Mood tried to point out, they don’t know what will. They can look into the past and see what sold, but they can’t tell us what will sell. They follow the tried and trusted recipe rather than taking a risk. Therefore, by trying to get validated by publishers (who look at what worked, rather than at what could work) I would be writing backwards instead of forwards. I would be trying to replicate what other authors did instead of doing what could work in the future.

So, with this revelation, I started to wonder, where does my validation come from? If it didn’t come from publishers, would it then come from readers? In a sense, yes. But then I thought, readers are just as biased as publishers. There will be people who will not like what I write and I can’t use them to judge the worth of my work.

The only option that is left (and suggested by everyone else) is myself. Now, the thing here is that I still have the problem that I can’t tell whether I’m good or not. I don’t trust myself to validate my own work, but I’m the only person who can do it (since the other options are already ruled out). That leaves only the option that I need to find a way to trust myself to make judgements about my own work. The general fact is that I don’t. As a person, I’m very fact orientated. Subjectivity seems like a bad way to judge things (it leaves a giant margin of error), but maybe it’s a necessity. Some things can’t be judged objectively (or at least, shouldn’t be).

I have no idea how I’ll manage to do this, but at least it’s a start. I’ll try to wrap my head around subjectively validating my own work and get back to you.

Thanks for all the comments yesterday, and I would appreciate some for my conclusion as well. Just to see that I didn’t miss the boat again.

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