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Ask Me Anything: A LitLib Q&A – Answers!

September 11, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I got so many good questions that I can’t focus on anything but answering them.

ro of FarOVale asks: “Do you read blogs written in other languages?”

I would love to read blogs in other languages. The problem is that, outside of some broken French and a few lines of Latin, I don’t speak anything but English. I’ve spent the better part of my adult life studying and trying to master my mother tongue, which didn’t leave me much mental space for the beauty and lilting grace of the myriad other languages out there. I know that I could use something like Google Translate, but then I’d lose all the nuance of the writing, which is just sad.

Melody of Melody and Words asks: “How do you use non-writing activities (such as photography) to jump-start the creative process?”

I think there are two ways, psychologically, to stir your brain into creative motion: sensory deprivation and sensory overload. It’s the difference between seeing the future in a crystal ball or seeing it in the colorful ornate drawings of Tarot cards. My brain likes overload; the more colors and textures and mental speed bumps for me to crawl over, the more stuff I have to hold onto and build from. I think that’s why I love Lego so much.

Using something like photography to jump-start the process is easy, because you’re forced to spend more time with whatever you’re taking pictures of, and as a result, building a mental relationship with that object. I’ll often get an idea for a beer short story just based on how I position a beer for a picture, or how the colors contrast between glass and background. I also then have this vivid reminder of all those ideas in the form of a picture, which almost always helps fuel the creative process down the line.

Josh of ShortOnBeer asks: “When was the first time you were proud of your writing?”

No one has ever asked me this before. I’m not sure I can find the GPS coordinates in my brain for that exact moment where I was first proud of my grammatical creations, but it was probably sometime around December 2011, when I got accepted into the Masters of Writing program at Johns Hopkins. I suddenly felt like real writers thought my writing was good enough to be compared to theirs. I’m proud of my words whenever someone says they’ve helped them or taught them something. That, to me, is the whole reason I type, to understand or help others understand.

Melanie of melanielynngriffin asks: “What is the best argument, in your mind, for each side of the question about bombing Syria in response to chemical weapons use?”

As a general rule, I remain as politically neutral as possible. I don’t like the conflict that comes with choosing a side, especially when neither side really reflects how I feel. That said, I see no best arguments for either side of this situation. It sucks, and will continue to suck, for pretty much everyone involved. While I appreciate the US trying to help out those countries who seem to desperately need it, I think the “chemical weapon” line is arbitrary, and if we really meant to help in a humanitarian way, we’d have intervened a long time ago when people were being beaten and shot to death. I’d be more inclined to support helping out the oppressed citizenry of another nation if our own country was a bliss-filled utopia, but obviously, we’ve got some serious problems of our own without sailing ships into the Mediterranean. If my vote mattered (which I’m more and more convinced it doesn’t) I’d suggest we stay home and put the money and energy towards fixing our own issues.

I’m going to lump two similar questions together here. Ryan of mouldsbeerblog, and Ginny ask: “Who is your favorite author/writer? -and- What is your favourite book/author’s work that you’ve ever read?”

This is like asking me to pick my favorite beer. There are so many options available, so many styles, so many writers who’ve written heartrendingly gorgeous prose, that it becomes nearly impossible to narrow it down to just one. So instead of picking a favorite, I’ll list some of those authors that have influenced me the most (in no particular order): Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Alan Poe, John Donne, Alexander Pope, Alice McDermott, Michael Pollan, Jennifer Egan, and, as much as I hate to admit it, Shakespeare. As far as the single piece that influenced me the most, I’ll have to go with “Walden” by Thoreau.

TheMadHopper of The Mad Hopper’s Blog asks: “When writing about beer and beer culture do you have a certain format you follow?”

Not really, but I may be a terrible person to ask, since I rarely follow any kind of format for anything. I think the most important thing, in general, is to do in-depth research on your topic (beyond a few Google searches, I mean) and make sure you’re respectful of the writers and people who came before you. Know what you’re talking about, and give credit where credit is due. Also, have fun. You’re writing about beer after all. As Scott at beerbecue said recently, “One can only read so many serious dissertations on beer.”

Penney of My Journey to Live an Authentic Life asks (slightly paraphrased): “How do you write about someone who has created conflict and drama (like a divorce or a bad breakup), without sounding whiny, when the experience made you become a better person?”

There is a fine line between bitter resentment and teary-eyed sentimentality, and it’s the writer’s job to walk it, carefully. I think it’s hard to approach something so raw and close to you directly. I almost always try to find some other vehicle to get into the story; something tangentially related or coming from a different perspective. By not having to just flat out tell the story and details of what happened, you can get the best ideas and insights into the piece without any of the personal baggage. The essay I wrote about my father’s passing is a good example of this “redirection.” I know I couldn’t have written that just about him and his death, so I used the star and his energy as the vehicle for something that would otherwise be far too emotional for me.

One half of Tammy and CJ of The Great Jollyhoombah asks: “What are the greatest craft beer US cities you’ve been to or know of?”

I’ve really just started my Homeric journey into the travel side of craft beer, but I’ve certainly been to enough cities to answer this question. I’m going to go with Boulder, Colorado (or really, just anywhere in Colorado) because of Boulevard Brewing, Great Divide Brewing, New Belgium, Oskar Blues, and Avery Brewing. I mean, that’s an incredible line up, and you can’t go wrong when choosing from any of these guys. Colorado is a veritable Mecca for craft beer people, so make sure you all face towards the Rockies when lifting your next pint.

Phillip McCollum asks: “If fear had a flavor, what would it taste like?”

Have you ever put a 9-volt battery on your tongue? Ever tasted that mix of metal and acid and energy that can only come from completing a circuit, using your body as the ground? Fear tastes like that.

theclocktowersunset asks: “If you ruled the world, what would you change and how would that playout?”

I would refuse to let anyone take life too seriously. It would be punishable by tickles. I’d like to think that a bit of enforced, widespread levity would make the planet much easier to live with, and on.

JHMae of byjhmae asks: “Who is your favorite Game of Thrones character?”

Beric Dondarrion closely followed by Sandor Clegane.

Thanks to everyone who asked a question. I hope I answered them to your satisfaction 🙂

Maybe ask me why I used a picture of a “No Surfing” flag in this post?

Valar Morghulis – Death in Game of Thrones

June 4, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I don’t normally write about pop-culture or TV or movies, and that’s mainly because I’m terrible at following trends. But Game of Thrones (or more accurately A Song of Ice and Fire) tickles my love for medieval fantasy, warfare, swords, and magic in all the right spots. I read the books in a post-injury literary-fever several years ago, and George R. R. Martin’s Westeros lore has been a stowaway on the ship of my brain ever since.

Spoiler Alert: The below has some spoilers, but it’s not exactly running for mayor of Spoilertown. If you haven’t read through at least A Storm of Swords or seen last Sunday’s episode of the HBO show, go read/watch, then come back. I don’t want to be that guy.

I think everyone who flipped/is flipping out about The Red Wedding missed the point. Yes, it was shocking. Yes, favorite characters died in horrible, sort of disgusting ways. Yes, it was all very unfair and how dare a major TV network and a famous author do this to poor, unsuspecting viewers. All that.

But why did we all react so viscerally? Why did a single scene – a minute or two out of an entire season – cause a social media explosion and such anguished outcry from fans?

Because we’ve been trained to expect immortality in our protagonists.

Think about it. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas kill what, nine thousand orcs each? And hardly even get a scratch? Aragorn falls off a massive cliff and then basically leads the battle of Helms Deep about 8 hours later. I don’t even think he took a nap in between. The trio fight in some of the largest, deadliest conflicts of the entire series where countless non-character humans and orcs and horses and trolls die, waltzing around all invincible, like they’ve been dipped in the River Styx. Frodo has a few too many dates with blades and giant spider stingers, but ultimately, we know he’s not going to die when things are at their most dire, because he’s still got a ring to destroy.

It’s not just a fantasy trope either. Luke and Han stroll casually through volley after volley of woefully badly stormtrooper aim, countless red-shirts are sacrificed to the Shatnerian gods so that Kirk and Spock can escaped uninjured, and James Bond always manages to roll free from that meticulously designed death-trap just before the laser burns off his crotch. Writers use this near-death tension to further the plot, and our mind fills in the details of the story, letting us pretend the hero is in life threatening peril, even when we know it’s just a surface level conflict. But we know, from all our collective viewing and reading experience, that the hero will get out of the perilous situation, somehow emerge from the underworld, unscathed.

We’ve been taught that if our heroes die, the story will die. It’s hardwired into our brains that we need the protagonists to live. When such an inborn rule is violated, and violated so dramatically, we react badly, because it shakes out entire view of the world.

Traditionally, death in literature is a major plot mover. Major characters are killed with significant purpose, to show the pain of true personal sacrifice or to provide a martyr for other characters to avenge. The placement of death is crucial to the narrative structure, either serving as the vehicle for the story (like The Lovely Bones) or a major turning point/start of a final quest for the protagonist (Obi-wan’s death/Dumbledore’s death). Authors traditionally respect the power of death, the weight and solemnity and gravity it brings to the page.

But not George R. R. Martin. He writes with a bladed pen, killing who you least expect, when you least expect it. His deaths are random, senseless, and often don’t support any blatantly obvious plot point. They are brutal and cruel and make you question everything you know about how stories are told. He doesn’t kill the people who seem to deserve death, and has no problem killing characters his readers are rooting for.

Martin understands non-romanticized death. Understands that death has no morality, no ethical base. It doesn’t choose to kill bad people because they are bad, and spare good people because they are good. Death is the natural end of life, the unplanned yang to our daily yin, and as a result, completely random. How many great people have died young from cancer or car accidents or at the hands of some psychopath with a gun, while evil, cruel people lurch around the Earth until they are old, causing pain and suffering for years and years?

The Red Wedding wasn’t written to simply to shock readers, and HBO didn’t make it so horrendously violent just because they’re into that kind of gore. It was done to support an existential theme, to show what life is like during wartime in a country where even a king, his mother, and his retinue aren’t safe. It was done to show that the main GoT characters are all still human, and can die just as easily and pointlessly as anyone else. Martin slams tradition in the face with a warhammer, forcing the speed and finality of death onto readers without any pomp or flashy shows of mourning. His scenes are so painful because they’re so real.

And that’s why everyone lost their collective shit when Robb hugged some crossbow bolts and Catelyn sang the Rains of Castamere with throat-blood accompaniment. Because the scene was so unsentimental, so honest. Because, extrapolated, it reminds us that all the money and fame and power in the world can’t save you from the grave. Because it was a perfect microcosm of what life – and death – really are.

Remember what Valar Morghulis translates to:

“All men must die.”

Craft and Draft: Character Counts

August 3, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I’m starting a new series on LitLib called, “Craft and Draft.” It’s going to be an out-loud, unfiltered learning experience for me that I hope others can benefit from as well. It’ll be focused on the drafting and revision process and all the crazy magic-voodoo shit I’m learning in grad school!

The great thing about the contextual ambiguity and synonymous nature of the words in the title is that I can use them interchangeably to talk about writing or beer. I am so clever.

Hope you enjoy. These posts will be filed under the “Literature” and “Writing” categories for future reference.

Disclaimer: I am a 26 year old male and still have a childlike infatuation with Lego. I also take bubbles baths when I’ve had a rough day, almost cried when Will Smith (Dr. Robert Neville) had to kill his dog after it got infected, think hydrangeas are pretty flowers, and know all the lyrics to That’s What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick and Friends.

Deal with it.

Character Counts:

As happy productive authors, we all want to be parents to our characters, raise them up right, and teach them to hate the things we hate. But characters (and to a lesser extent personal voice in nonfiction) aren’t our children. They are our creations.

Authors don’t birth them and then guide them through life, letting them form their own theories and build an understanding of the universe through empirical trial and error. Hell no. We force their beliefs onto them without even asking, telling them what they’re passionate about, what they think about certain philosophical quandaries, and how they ultimately view the world.

We’re like Christianity, but with even crazier stories.

Therein lies a problem. We have to make these characters, and for them (and by extension our stories) to be good, they have to be believable. It is surprisingly difficult to completely flesh out a character, and new writers (like me) will often create Frankenstinian abominations where we meant to create maidens fair.

Stage 1: A Hero is born, sort of

In your planning phase, you might make a character biography. At this point, your character sounds awesome. He’s got a dark, messed up past, his beard is just the right length to be manly without being crazy, and his story arc makes Luke Skywalker’s seem like a lazy Sunday afternoon cruising around in an X-wing.

You imagine your characters looking and acting like this:

This is a rare deleted scene from the ill-fated Game of Thrones vs. Pirates of the Caribbean crossover.

But when you re-read your scene/chapter/short story/cocktail napkin notes, your protagonist seems more like this:

I say there, Monstrosity! Do you know the times?

I mean, it is kind of identifiable as some sort of humanoid, but there are some major problems here. One: his period-inappropriate tricorn hat is on fire. Two: He has two heads, one of which is completely black and has no face. Three: He has a sophisticated breathing apparatus on his chest, but also has a wooden leg. Four: His left arm is not attached to his body.

This is an extreme example, but my point remains. It is very difficult to properly build your character the first time around. He’s going to come out with conflicting motivations, bad dialogue, missing limbs, and possibly even a flaming hat.

But that’s OK! Now that you’ve got your scene, and see that your character clearly needs literary medical attention, you can work on fixing him. It is a habit of mine to dump as many details as possible into exposition, trying to give the character a voice and make him seem human. This isn’t a good idea. Learn from my mistake. The more details you have, the more there is to keep straight, and the more likely your character will seem like his brain doesn’t work correctly.

Stage 2: The Hero goes on a really boring journey

The great thing about word processors is that we can erase with reckless abandon. After revising and simplifying, you character might look like this:

Now he looks a little more…is that a lemon meringue pie?

He’s starting to resemble something that could possibly be confused with a human from a considerable distance!

The hat is still wrong, but at least it isn’t on fire. The parrot was inexplicably replaced by a pie. The technology in his chest still doesn’t match his wooden leg, but at least his arm is reattached.

Better. Closer. Warmer.

Still needs work, though. No one wants to read a story about a pirate/robot/pie shop owner. Do they?

Stage 3: The Hero descends into the underworld via a very, very long escalator

As you continue to revise, your character’s personality and thoughts may evolve requiring that you change major plot points or key exchanges with other characters. This sucks, but you have to do it. Trying to mash a scene or piece of backstory into the main narrative just because you like it normally doesn’t turn out very well. Re-write, re-hash, re-calculate, revise.

You’ll probably notice that your entire plot has changed along with your character. This is normal (for me at least). Run with it. Give in to your demons. Let the story do some of the work itself.

Something that often happens when you do a significant amount of rewriting is that completely new elements and characters get added to the story, which is simultaneously great and awful.

By now, your hero might look like this:

A midget alien, a wizard-deckhand, and a pistol wielding monkey walk into a bar…

The good news is that your hero is a believable human at this point! Some of his wardrobe choices are still a bit odd, but at least now his actions are in line with his motivations, and his dialogue is setting appropriate.

The bad news is that you can’t see how sweet he is becoming, because you’ve added vertically challenged aliens and sharpshooter monkeys who distract from your main hero. Supporting characters should do just that: support. They don’t need to be as in-focus as your protagonist, so feel free to cut back on them if they seem to be carrying too much word-weight.

Stage 4: The Hero returns and brought cheap, crappy souvenirs for everyone

By now, you’re sick of revising. But revising is like running; you can’t have ripped, washboard abs if you don’t do the cardio.

As you’ve pared and simplified, your hero becomes someone readers can relate to, because he’s not a bloated ideal or a hollow husk. He’s got skills and flaws, and all kinds of interesting history that lends to his being a character people attach themselves to. He might not be a Jamie Lannister or a Muad’dib, but he’s a certifiable human being.

Well done! You’ve accomplished the hardest part of characterization: making your reader want to read because your hero is innately interesting without being archetypal.

Your finished product may look something like this:

Simple is safe. That pistol doesn’t look very safe though.

He’s not flashy, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s complete, recognizable, relatable, and lovable (or hateable).

Moral of the story: Revise until you want to vomit. Then go vomit and revise some more. It is an idealistic pipe dream to expect your work to come out perfectly in one draft, so expel that from your mind now. Keep rewriting until you understand why your first few attempts at characterization failed so badly, so you can avoid those same mistakes in the future.

Rewriting counts as writing, so don’t feel like you’re not writing just because you’re revising. Yea. That makes sense.