Writing :: Prose

The magic will kill you every time

[The Tower’s marble floors and gilded ceilings] reek of “I have so much money that I have nothing better to do with it than melt it down and spread it across my ceiling so that, as you go to sleep, you can contemplate just how much more money I have than you do. And, while I know you are contemplating ways to capture my lovely gilded home and fabulous wealth, I’d like to also draw your attention to the very large and open windows in this room. Isn’t the Magic Man-Eating Forest lovely this time of year?”

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

Introduction to Bombs, 101

Or Lochim and Laiven might be busy sabotaging a mill, as you do on a Sunday afternoon when no other diversion presents itself. “Quick, drop some bags of flour from the loft!” he’d cry. “It’ll create an explosive dust that we can use to blow this building right out of the water!”

“How do you know?” Laiven would ask.

“Because it’s one of the stock how-to-create-an-explosion-without-explosives plot tropes in fantasy novels,” Lochim would reply. “And, also, because I worked in a mill one summer and the miller told me about his uncle’s friend’s neighbor’s sister, who had a cousin who once died tragically in a flour-dust explosion.”

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

The B-52 Clause

“You know you tried to drown me once?” I offered over a beer.

“I did?” he asked, surprised–perhaps because I had actually bought a round of drinks.

“In Texas. You held me underwater right by the lifeguard’s chair, so the lifeguard wouldn’t see.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said. “I just remember that you could swim the whole length of the pool and back underwater. No one else could. Remember that?”

“Sure,” I said, and paused. “I taught myself to do that after you tried to drown me. I wanted better lung capacity in case you tried it again.”

“Oh.” He looked guilty. “But something good came out of it, right? Everyone thought you were so cool for swimming underwater like that.”

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

Details are Dangerous

Oh, all right. I’ll admit one small detail about That Guy. He may be the descendent of the dead gyppa king. He happens to carry an heirloom that was lost at the same time as the last heir. Laiven, with all the knowledge of the elves behind her, thinks he is, in fact, the king’s descendent. Lochim, with all the knowledge of the gyppa behind him, is certain the king’s son died in the aftermath of the invasion.

The plot of the novel, quite obviously, is a Quest To See Who’s Right.

That Guy is never asked how he feels about all this. That Guy happens to be insanely loyal to the descendent of the invading king; he’d be horrified at the thought that he could be a claimant to the throne. He’d probably attempt to assassinate himself. Since he is That Guy, he’d assassinate the wrong guy.

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

I am not from your country

There’s also the issue of poetry in fantasy novels. Or, rather, the lack of poetry in fantasy novels. Good poetry is hard to write. Bad poetry is very easy to write. The problem is that many people write Very Bad Poetry Indeed, and because it was hard for them to write, they assume it must be Good Poetry.

This assumption is wrong, but you can’t tell poets (even self-proclaimed poets) that their poetry is bad. They’ll say you don’t understand them.

Being misunderstood is one of the burdens of being a poet, you see.

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

It’s getting a little mythical

When the two finally met again, they shared their stories. And then, shyly, Woman led Man to the part of the riverbank where she had tried to make a baby. She showed him the crumbled mud shapes, the bundled roots, the animal pelts sewn into human shapes. Man told Woman about the fawn he’d tried to raise, and a baby he’d carved out of wood.

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

I dream in architecture

I know the castle was built in the Gothic style, because during college I was required to take an architecture class. Although… my aunt and I once toured a church together in France. As we went through, I pointed out various architectural elements and their significance. When we finished, I confidently announced the church was built “in the 18th century.” The plaque on the wall read “1956.”

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

Where there’s smoke, I’ll be running the other way

“This is a special situation, because as you know blah blahblah blah…” It’s not that I stopped paying attention, exactly–as every student knows, you have to keep at least one ear on the teacher so you can hear certain keywords, like your name or “recess”–it’s that I didn’t particularly care what the reason for the field trip was. I mean: it was a field trip. Who needs a reason?

At one point in Teacher’s speech, she did in fact mention a keyword. Not my name, but she nevertheless had my full attention.

“Fire?!” I screamed.

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006

So there we were…

So there we were, twenty feet from the riverbank, creeping up on an oblivious squadron of ducks, surrounded by daffodils and weeping willows, when my father turned me into a chronic liar.

It started earlier that day, at the post office. Or it started years before, when he enlisted in the Air Force. Or centuries before, when two cavemen met midway between their respective caves and brandished clubs at each other, creating the first impromptu defense services. Later, the winner went home to his family, sat down by the fire, and grunted “So there we were, face to face in the open plain, when…”

Categories: Prose, NaNoWriMo 2006