My name is Eben Mishkin. I'm an author. You can read the first 70% of my book, The Hidden and the Maiden, free at Smashwords. I am in no way apolitical. If you want ONLY writing content, follow EmptyCounsel instead. Other blogs: adittyofdittos for quotes. gifnomer for random gifs I think I'll somehow use someday.
To pass the time on long rides, Bilbo starts absent-mindedly braiding Myrtles mane. He does it almost subconsciously and is completely unaware of all the dwarf eyes keenly watching him.
Because they're good braids, some of them quite complicated and no one can understand just how he knows how to do that.
The only conclusion they could come to is that the hobbit must have a paramour back in The Shire, some long-haired lass who he spoils with pretty love-braids.
Thorins temper had been truly foul after Balin has proposed the theory out loud.
After weeks of Thorin sulking, it was ever curious: Ori, who finally asked where Bilbo had learned such intrecate braid work.
Bilbo then flushed and embaressedly explained that he'd learned it from competitive pie decorating.
TL;DR: You're better off believing in your Theme, it makes your work much easier. So, it's worth really pondering even those very simple aphorisms.
Hmmmm... this is a bit of me thinking out loud, so there may not be any (re)solution. But one of my deep problems for Book 2 has always been the theme. I know the Theme of Knights of Day. But that isn't the same as any individual book.
"Family is Worth Dying For," doesn't really work as an emotional lesson when your Protagonist necessarily has to survive through the whole series in order to learn the series Theme. At minimum, the surety of death has to be experienced. The MC must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that their sacrifice will be terminal. And that has to be over and above the normal death/rebirth cycle that is so common in fiction. I'm almost certainly low-balling it, if I claim it's a quarter of US fiction books that do it. I just don't think I can claim a full half.
And while you can play the death/rebirth cycle ad infinitum because it is as literal about death as the Death card is in Tarot, you can't do it with the surety of death much before it loses its teeth and becomes a purely metaphorical trope. See: Death is Cheap. It CAN work and not be a cliche but it takes a lot of work AND it will almost certainly kill death as a thematic element. At dead minimum (heh, comedy gold), I can't do it because I can't think of a single example of someone pulling it off, let alone pulling it off in a way that resonated with me positively or negatively. So it's off the table for me.
So, I keep looking for the Theme to unlock for Book 2. Because once you know the Theme, everything else becomes a few steps easier. But the obvious ones are not working.
However, I just stumbled upon a possible Theme for Book 2: "You can't cancel out one sin with another."
The immediate issue, though, is that I'm not sure I believe that.
It is a BAD idea to use a Theme you don't agree with. Unless you're way better than me or any advice I've ever heard from people who are - having a Theme you disagree with will do the opposite of what a Theme should do for you. Because your natural instincts will cause you to write crosswise to it. You're essentially dismantling both the power of Theme AND the primary value of what you bring to fiction: yourself and your own sensibilities.
Anyone CAN write a proof of any aphorism. Which is almost always what a Theme, at least as a statement, is. No one is going to write the proof of an aphorism you believe in the same way that you'll do it. Because the way you've come to believe it enough that you'll use it is almost certainly unique. There are simply too many variables to create an identical voice between two authors writing what they believe. The combinations are NOT going to be identical.
You can COUNTER a Thematic Statement. Voltaire's Candide is a vastly successful counter to Leibniz'es Theodicy. It takes the idea of "this is the best of all possible worlds," flips it on its head, and spanks it every which way Voltaire can think of. It is the disproof of that Theme.
So I could write it as a counter, I'd probably change it to avoid the double negative, "You can cancel out one sin with another," in which case every scene would have to counter that idea. Might be better with, "You can redeem one sin with another."
And now that i've written that, it's original negative statement - "You can't redeem one sin with another" - that I might actually believe.
Cancelling and Redeeming are strongly different concepts for me, even in this specific instance. Cancelling I would see here as a physical or worldly effect, while I see Redemption as emotional/spiritual.
As a political example, I think it is nothing short of a sin to give the President of the United States carte blanche while acting in the capacity of that position. I think that's antithetical to every aspiration that the US has. However, as repugnant as I find the idea, I think that kind of power could be used to nullify itself. A President could decide to use that evil to eliminate its supporters and elevate those who would rescind that principle. That would be a good effect drawn from a bad policy. It would also be a horrifically slippery slope. You would necessarily have to depend on someone who was willing to use that power at all, to use it with the utmost clarity of judgement, and never overstep the necessary when their very willingness to use said power means you can't trust them in that way because its use is an overstep. The only way to win is not to play the game BUT the game is already in play. So it CAN cancel itself out but probably WON'T.
On the same example though, redemption would have to be both the drive to destroy that reprehensible principle AND the absolute refusal to indulge in it. Because I see renunciation as part of redemption. You have to have learned from the mistake. Not just that an action was wrong but that you recognize it as fundamentally so.
I think a better example for redemption would be drunk driving. Yes, some kind of restitution is required for whatever damage was caused, even if that restitution can't annul the damage - for instance, the guy that killed my Grandmother could never have restored her to life - but even more importantly is the realization that neither any amount of drunk driving nor any way one could drive drunk could be a solution to the problem. Redemption requires the lesson that this activity is bad must be learned and embraced. Different people can exercise that rejection in different ways. AA will say that the renunciation must be of drink all together. The 'sinner' must accept that they are such - an alcoholic - and learn a new way to live their life without alcohol so as to fight that 'sinfulness.' Meanwhile, others would argue that the 'sin' is the lack of care and responsibility. The drunk driver is not a 'sinner' because they were drinking but because they were careless with the safety of others for their own pleasures and convenience. The renunciation is therefore the acceptance of responsibility. One can drink, so long as one takes the responsibility and inconvenience of proactively protecting others from any negative results of their drinking. Such as giving their keys away at the first intent to drink, so that drunk driving is not a possibility, even when their thinking is impaired.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
And... yeah... that might work. I'll have to think about it some more but that may indeed be the right track. So, thanks for thinking along with me.
This one is fun to draw on tarot noobs because they instantly think it means literal death, for them specifically, right this instant. I will never forget when my girlfriend did readings at a college June event and drew Death for one of our friends who was soon to graduate, and he turned the precise colour of porridge. My girlfriend was quick to reassure him.
Death is an ecstatic change of state. Where Mercedes is from, to become a werewolf is to let yourself be fatally injured by another werewolf, and then coalesce into your new non-human state alone. He cavorts in the red desert of Sutekh, a landscape of sterile fertility, of absolute inhumanity and of revealed knowledge, allowing his body to experience the full extent of his voluntary transfiguration, from which there is no return. The desert sands reveal the skeletons of fish, in accordance with the card’s associated Hebrew letter. What lay here before the desert? A great ocean, perhaps, or rivers and lakes. Everything changes. The fish are crowned with the crowns of the material and spiritual worlds, and their skulls are marked with Isa, the rune of ice, with its implications of natural transformative state changes. Mercedes’s halo reveals Salt and Semen, and the shadow of his dancing legs reveals a Perthrow - a magical secret and the unknown void. Mercedes is confident that his transformation will regenerate him.
This one is fun to draw on tarot noobs because they instantly think it means literal death, for them specifically, right this instant. I will never forget when my girlfriend did readings at a college June event and drew Death for one of our friends who was soon to graduate, and he turned the precise colour of porridge. My girlfriend was quick to reassure him.
Death is an ecstatic change of state. Where Mercedes is from, to become a werewolf is to let yourself be fatally injured by another werewolf, and then coalesce into your new non-human state alone. He cavorts in the red desert of Sutekh, a landscape of sterile fertility, of absolute inhumanity and of revealed knowledge, allowing his body to experience the full extent of his voluntary transfiguration, from which there is no return. The desert sands reveal the skeletons of fish, in accordance with the card’s associated Hebrew letter. What lay here before the desert? A great ocean, perhaps, or rivers and lakes. Everything changes. The fish are crowned with the crowns of the material and spiritual worlds, and their skulls are marked with Isa, the rune of ice, with its implications of natural transformative state changes. Mercedes’s halo reveals Salt and Semen, and the shadow of his dancing legs reveals a Perthrow - a magical secret and the unknown void. Mercedes is confident that his transformation will regenerate him.
