New Story – Lost Memories

This is a rework of an OLD piece of City of Heroes fan fiction that I wrote.  It stands alone on it’s own now, and I doubt a reader unfamiliar with the game would even recognize it as fan fiction without my confession.

17 year old Nancy Winters, AKA Miss Deadshot was a heroic archer along the lines of Hawkeye or Green Arrow when she was abducted by the sewer dwelling mutates known as The Lost.  In the aftermath of the event, Nancy finds herself developing mental powers, yet is still learning to full control them.  Two weeks after being rescued by her friend and teammate Danger Rose, Nancy finds herself having memory issues along with a strong compulsion to return to the site of her rescue.

Lost Memories

Will she find answers?  Will she regain her badly shaken self-confidence as well?

Be The Light…

I’m sure I’m confusing people on twitter with my moderate’s disdain for the political extremes running amok there.  I’m grateful that some people seem to get it though.

My “No Politics” post didn’t make things as clear as I’d have liked.  I have TWO big problems with politics and the way people talk to others:

 

1) Issues are NEVER as simple as the extremists and demagogues on either side make them out to be.  For example, gangs are just one good reason for a border wall, BUT we have to overhaul our immigration system as well and allow good people a chance at the American Dream, take an honest look at what we may be doing to contribute to problems in Latin America, and see if we can do things to help them help themselves.

2) These extremists not only shut down thinking and discussion, they spread hate and poison.  There’s a principle of metaphysics that says hate only attracts more hate and conflict.  It doesn’t matter how righteous you THINK your cause is, if your answer is trashing and threatening violence against those you disagree with, you are part of the PROBLEM, not the solution.  You are also actively working to make the world a DARKER place.

I keep saying be more like Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Jesus, Buddha, etc…  I have a perfect story that illustrates the point also.  The Christmas Eve service is the one time this heathen is guaranteed to turn up at church.  The closing part of the services; the same every year, are exactly why:

The Pastor talks about the need to carry the Christmas Spirit into and through the new year, and how the world is a dark place if everybody withholds their love, compassion and caring from the world.  To illustrate the point, the lights are turned off in the chapel.

Now, everybody is given a candle entering the service.  They’re all being lit as the Pastor speaks.  He tells everyone to keep the candles low at first also; withhold their light from the world metaphorically.  Then he starts talking about how people can be the light, and make the world a better place.  Then all 3000 people (It’s a big church) hold up their candles.  It’s beautiful and amazing the difference it makes

Bayside Church Candle Lighting & Silent Night

Afterwards everyone sings Silent Night and the service are over.

Watch the YouTube video through to the end and see if it doesn’t have the same impact on you as it did me.  It’s alot of light, and it’s people wanting said light to better the world, NOT burn it down.  THINK about that. Remember the people you disagree with are human beings with legitimate reasons for feeling and thinking the way they do.  If you actually talk to them like human beings, you will PROBABLY find out that you have more in common than you realize once you get past artificial labels.

Think win-win and you can probably also find a solution that’s not perfect, but works for both of you.

BE THE LIGHT

My Take on Writing a Thinking Villain

I’ve been fairly vocal in my criticism of DC and Marvel comics lately, especially on Twitter.  I dislike the way that their movies and comic book stories only introduce yet another, darker overpowered villain with more special effects.  They seemingly don’t know how to write intelligent villains who can out-maneuver heroes.

Over a decade ago, I had a villain character in the game City of Heroes that could do just that.  On top of being strong, a highly skilled combatant, and able to turn invisible, he was a liar and manipulator par excellance.  I typically brought him in to keep heroes off balance via manipulation of public opinion and politicians.  I have to admit, at the time I thought he was a little Marty Stu with what i let him pull off.  I see the media  and government nowadays though and wonder if I went far enough, LOL

Aftermath: Major Arachnos Steps Up

Most of you won’t be familiar with the game or the characters, but that won’t be a problem.  All the other characters had bit parts in this story.  I also added a modest info dump at the top of the page for those who want more info.

I originally had this on my group’s website.  Major A was hated and begrudgingly respected.  When I posted it on the City of Heroes main forums, the story was very well received as the right way to write villains.  One reply called it a Master Class.  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I do think I did a good job.

Writing Rules???

So, this is one I’m actively soliciting feedback (comments) on from fellow writers, particularly if you’ve self published on Amazon or similar, or have been professionally published.

I’ve read the guides about showing not telling, no adverbs, and ideally no or minimal adjectives also, avoid long drawn out descriptions, etc…  I can’t help but wonder how much validity there is to some of it though.  Clearly some, but how much in the modern era?  There are top selling professionally published books out there that seem to break multiple rules.

50 Shades of Grey being my favorite example here.  Plenty of tell instead of show, there are long involved descriptions of things like the wood of the bed frame, which really doesn’t serve to advance the plot or characters in a major way, etc…

Show don’t tell is probably the really tricky one.  Don’t tell us a character is mad, have them show it in their words and actions.  That was one example in a book.  Western culture generally seems so pacified and non-confrontational anymore that I wonder if having a character slam a door and yell at another character can even be taken as plain anger as opposed to the character being wrongly seen as unhinged.  To some, I’m sure that may seem a silly exaggeration, but I live in a very politically correct area.

Plenty of self-published stuff on Amazon and B&N that seems to ignore the rules even further and sells modestly well.  Of course, none of us want tosell only “modestly well”, right? 

Now that I’ve rambled on in my sleep deprived state, how do you all avoid brain lock worrying about the rules?  What are your personal opinions on their level of validity nowadays?

Note here: I DO have comments set up to be screened, but only to filter spam and comments on the level of “you’re a whore for writing smut”.  Anything intelligent and constructive, agreeing or not, gets posted here.