Writing question...

[Samandiriel]

Well Cloudy, I really think this can be something less than brilliant.

 

[cloudy]

Well Cloudy, I really think this can be something less than brilliant.

"something less" is about right, I think, if it isn't handled right. Big ideas, and no idea of how to get a grasp on them.

 

[Samandiriel]

"something less" is about right, I think, if it isn't handled right. Big ideas, and no idea of how to get a grasp on them.

Don't overthink it, do a rough outline, draw a map, meditate on it...it will come.

 

[Recidiva]

"something less" is about right, I think, if it isn't handled right. Big ideas, and no idea of how to get a grasp on them.

Did you ever read Christopher Moore and the way he writes? He always has a myth in his novels, even Coyote in "Coyote Blue" and he handles this sort of stuff beautifully. "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove" and "Bloodsucking Fiends"

I love his bad guys. He's got a demon named Catch that just eats people for fun and he's the best ever.

I wouldn't worry too much about evil being a turn off for people, I don't think people are allowed to think that way much without guilt of being bad, bad, people. Sometimes an artist to put it in perspective so it can be beheld in context is not a disservice, it's a gift.

 

[neonlyte]

Cloudy I'm sure you know more about this than you can convey here. The question is 'Why baby bones?'

We shy away from the idea as repulsive, abhorent but, I'm guessing here, I'm willing to bet there was originally a good reason to use baby bones, youth, vitality, innocence. Might be worth exploring from that angle, possibly have a character versed in the origins of the use of baby bones before they became the 'tool' of the skinwalker.

 

[cloudy]

Cloudy I'm sure you know more about this than you can convey here. The question is 'Why baby bones?'

We shy away from the idea as repulsive, abhorent but, I'm guessing here, I'm willing to bet there was originally a good reason to use baby bones, youth, vitality, innocence. Might be worth exploring from that angle, possibly have a character versed in the origins of the use of baby bones before they became the 'tool' of the skinwalker.

If I'm not mistaken, it's the very abhorrence of using them that makes them the tool.

 

[Guest]

 

[Samandiriel]

Pretty much, and because they're already dead. You dig up the body of a child and de-flesh them and use the bones.

and then you become a lawyer.

 

[Recidiva]

If I'm not mistaken, it's the very abhorrence of using them that makes them the tool.

Well, you can also think of "Warlock" when he needed the rendered fat from an unbaptized child to fly. Julian Sands is sitting on the swings with a kid asking him questions calmy and with humor and interest. "So, why aren't you in church?" Or Christopher Walken as Gabriel holding out a little trumpet to the school kids in "Prophecy" Some bad guys just have disarming and frightening panache.

Having certain symbols brought down to a human level from mythic and forced into a smaller and more practical viewpoint "Holy crap, that's the trumpet that calls the Rapture, damn!" makes it even scarier than it was when it was just ethereal and not really a practical threat.

 

[Bacigalupo]

Well, since the bones don't need to be fresh, you have the angle of graverobbing. With that comes the taboo of touching the dead. Part of this fellow's belief in what she's doing is the proper course of action, and perhaps in most who become skinwalkers, or necromancers, or whathaveyou, is the idea that they are breaking shackles that hold people back. Not rules to protect, but to stifle and limit. Right there, she finds justification to do what she does, which also means she doesn't see herself as evil. Freed might be the word.

To make her less of a monster, she wouldn't cackle and play with the bones while squatting the graveyard at midnight, but may feel a measure of remorse and regret at her actions. She may try cleansing rituals, anything to balance what she's doing. She may feel freed, but it might not take long for signs of her jaunt over to the Dark Side begin to affect her. There may be several wake-up calls before she gets the hint. Now for a skinwalker, cleansing rituals may only be partially effective, in fact, most of them don't bother, seeing them as a sign of weakness, and uncertainty that the path they have chosen (or has been chosen for them) is really the right one.

There may be sacrifices she is not willing to make, live victims perhaps, or, even if she picks someone bad, there is still a gnawing guilt, she stuggles to maintain her balance by telling herself whatever she needs to to keep going.

I suppose you could go full-tilt with the evil, but then is the evil being fought a worse evil? It would have to justify breaking all those taboos, and certainly, if there was someone being fought for, what would their reaction be to the new skinwalker? Horror most likely.

 

[SeaCat]

PM on it's way.

Cat

 

[elsol]

Try just writing it in it's full darkness...

Comment for a reader for The Gray Shades of Evil


What sort of a mind....
07/07/05 By: Anonymous
...can even imagine a man like that? And how amazing is it that you can also convey that imagination to us so clearly?

Please tell me it was only imagination...

Ian Flemming has nothing on you.


A strong reaction does not have to be completely positive; you also get a lot of the 'bad things' out

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Stella_Omega]

I thought about using them, but have them as supplies that were passed down, or inherited (sort of), so the character, herself, doesn't have to do anything like that. Just to keep from making her over the top evil.

or, you don't say what the bones are. You just "assume" that everyone reading will know. The few that do, will understand. the ones that don't will draw on their own lore to fill in the details.

Are you born a skinwalker, or can you become one? backstory is always useful. Especially with an over-the top bad character- when the details tell the reader that... uh-oh... They might only be a few steps away from sharing that same evil nature!

 

[cloudy]

or, you don't say what the bones are. You just "assume" that everyone reading will know. The few that do, will understand. the ones that don't will draw on their own lore to fill in the details.

Are you born a skinwalker, or can you become one? backstory is always useful. Especially with an over-the top bad character- when the details tell the reader that... uh-oh... They might only be a few steps away from sharing that same evil nature!

You learn to become one. It's the Dineh version of a witch, only MUCH, much worse.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You learn to become one. It's the Dineh version of a witch, only MUCH, much worse.

then back-story might be the scariest way to go...

 

[togitc]

Well, the thing is that skinwalkers are, in everything I've read and according to everyone I've talked to, completely evil with no redeeming qualities. According to the Navajo, anyway.

I live very close to the Navajo Nation. A girl I dated in high school had a grandfather who was a skin-walker. Couldn't get her to talk about it much, he was killed when someone found him sunning himself on a rock.

What I did learn was that in some cases being a skin-walker was actually a great honor. The ceremony was very holy and supposed to pick the best of the tribe.

There are plenty of stories that have taken the 'bad' guys and made them good or not-so-bad. Sometimes just getting in the head of a bad guy makes him not a bad guy.

Help?

 

[The_Fool]

I've read several stories that use evil to fight eviler. They also use good matched with evil to fight eviler, which makes things interesting because you've got the natural conflict of good versus evil that has to be overcome by the need to take on even greater evil.

Did I sound as foolish as I think I sounded?

 

[elsol]

I've read several stories that use evil to fight eviler. They also use good matched with evil to fight eviler, which makes things interesting because you've got the natural conflict of good versus evil that has to be overcome by the need to take on even greater evil.

Did I sound as foolish as I think I sounded?

good, evil, eviler...

I prefer ethical sociopaths.

Sincerely,
ElSol