C. L. Norman

I just finished reading Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.

I was attracted by the blurb on the cover that mentioned a female mercenary who is left for dead and vows revenge on those who tried to kill her, and that the best killer in the world is sent to finish the job. Mercenaries out for revenge and assassins sounded right up my alley, so I checked the book out.

I have to say up front that I haven’t read any other books by Mr. Abercrombie and this was my first experience with his writing. I adored the level of detail and the characterisations in the book. Almost everyone could be classified as a rogue and I had no problem with that.

The pacing of the story was a little odd for me. It read more as episodic than as one continuous narrative. So there were a lot of ups and downs in the tension through the story. This made for natural places to put the book down for the night. I could get use to that type of pacing but it felt uncomfortable in places.

The ending was a little weird for me and I don’t want to give anything away so I won’t give details. I expected certain things of the story and was surprised often that events didn’t unfold in the way I anticipated or wanted. As I mentioned before I am a sucker for a happy ending and this ending was neither good nor bad. It just was.

I came away feeling like the author set out to make a statement about revenge. I definitely felt “cold” by the process in which revenge was sought and achieved.

The story made me think. I picked up the book for a fun, roguely read. I didn’t get that. I am still thinking about the book and probably will continue to for several more days.

        

1. Having your characters keep secrets should never work out like they want it to.  When they finally reveal or are forced to reveal their Big Secret, unexpected and unwanted results should follow.
2. Killing off your characters doesn’t have to be permanent. But if they are brought back, don’t gloss over how they got back. Have a rock solid explanation or leave them dead.
3. Setting up complex family relationships can really increase the drama or stretch the reader/viewer’s imagination too far. Everyone related means everyone has a stake in the outcome when one of your characters is in trouble. Everyone related shouldn’t be the entire population of a town including that stranger that just moved in last week and is Grandma’s long lost love child.
4. Death bed confessions should only be made by the truly dying. Putting your main character in a hospital bed and then having everyone gather around for a chat is boring and predictable. Use these kinds of scenes very sparingly.
5. Having brothers or comrades-in-arms in love with the same woman creates tension. Having that woman sleeping around with both brothers creates a slut.
6. Lack of research cannot be disguised by a lot of action.
7. Two people repetitively talking about their secrets or problems for hours at a time is boring. Throwing a third person into the room who doesn’t know what is going on or is the object of the problem creates delicious tension.
8. Everyone, no matter how awful their lives are, has time for a holiday or a moment with the family.
9. Bad boy characters are especially appealing to the feminine audience. Keeping their motives a mystery and their looks to-die-for is always a crowd pleaser.
10. Ending on a cliffhanger is a good thing. Everyone comes back for more. Ending on the same cliffhanger over and over is not.

        

So I discovered Supernatural finally. Just a few days ago when my computer went down I ordered an episode on my iPhone and immediately started kicking myself for not watching it earlier. I had good reasons at the time. Like I had enough shows I was following, another show in the same time slot, worried that picking it up after season one would just leave me dazed and confused. None of those reasons are sounding good enough now.

The two brothers in this show are fun and interesting to watch. I look at them and I just want to tear their characters apart and look at them again from the inside out, analyzing everything about them that makes them so much more than the everyday monster hunters.

Dean is the resident rogue of the show. He has the quips and the smart alecky attitude and Jensen Ackles has always appeared to have a bit of the imp in him in every role I have seen him in and it makes him one of my favorites. Sam though is the rebel. Dean listens to no one but his dad and Sam listens to everyone but his dad (keeping in mind I am only half way through season one at the time of this entry). Sam is the rebel or the black sheep of the family and it is neat to see as he would be considered the “good” son from those outside the family group.

This show would be interesting enough watching two ordinary folks fighting the unusual in a semi-ordinary world. But the two characters here have been crafted so wonderfully that I enjoyed learning more about them than about the world they live in. They have all these built in conflicts or layers that make them wonderfully rich, like a triple layer chocolate cherry cake. A person can just dig in and enjoy.

First, they are brothers. Brothers and sisters for that matter have very different kinds of relationships. There is sibling rivalry and sibling protection and love. Second, one witnessed and remembers his mother’s death and the other does not. One stayed home and was the dutiful son and learned all his dad had to teach him while the other left to experience a different kind of life. All of these layers are introduced in the first 15 minutes of the first episode.

If I can learn to create even half of these subtle layers and shadings in my characters I will count myself lucky.

What do you think of these characters?

        

I finished a very good book yesterday. Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara is the fourth book in a series featuring a character who I think can be classified as a rogue. 

Kaylin Neya is part of law enforcement but she wasn’t always. She also performs her duties in a way unique to her and not necessarily by the book. She has a funny way of opening her mouth before she thinks things through. A tendency I can heartily empathize with. Just ask my coworkers, family, and friends.

Kaylin lives in a world that is very different than many other fantasy genre settings. Her world is peopled by races you don’t usually see in other places. No elves or dwarves here.

One thing I particularly admired about this book, now that I can’t help but read with an eye toward writing technique, is the dialogue. In many places the dialogue provided exposition. However instead of explaining every little thing, I noticed that there were “holes” in the exposition. Places where the characters involved had figured out something but didn’t belabor the point or spell it out to the reader. This encouraged me to keep thinking and wondering and brought me deeper into the scene.

I have a terrible and chronic leaning towards overexplaining things. I hope to one day master or least reach journeyman level in holding back from my reader enough to keep them guessing and engaged.

Thank you, Ms. Sagara, for a great read.

        

Mouse. A gnome rogue character from my first D&D game. Of course then it was known as AD&D.

I created her when I was in college just after the invitation to join a game that was run in the student union between classes. I was intimidated by all the language; D20, THAC0, AC, etc. I glanced through the book and reasoned out that a fighter had to know too much of the combat rules, a wizard or a cleric had to know the magic system, but a rogue, a rogue is a free spirt and not constrained by the roles the others were crowded into.

Then it became time to choose a race and I saw the line in the gnome’s description that stated they were curious, their noses led them into trouble more often than not. I was attracted to this idea. This meant my character could poke around as much as I want to and it would be “in character.”

Next lets throw a little personality into this character. Yes, I am one of those gamers. One of those who state things like “My character wouldn’t do that.” I decided that in addition to being curious she was cowardly when it came to physical confrontations. She also loved the shiny stones and disdained those flat dull metal coins. Now I had a hook into how she would react in any situation she could possibly get herself into.

And she got herself into a lot of “situations.”

Mouse was named for one of my most favorite rogues, Phillippe the Mouse from Ladyhawke. And like a mouse she poked her nose in anything that crossed her path: doors with “Do Not Enter” signs posted on them, unexplored caves, and most importantly unemptied pockets.

Those pockets were never left empty for long though. Once emptied of the shiny rocks, those dull coins her adventuring companions kept sharing with her were distributed in those convenient spaces.

If a fight resulted from her explorations then she didn’t stick around to trade blows with the foe. That task fell to her bigger and bulkier companions. She ran and sometimes hid but more often than not found more trouble to bring back to her friends.

She remains my most favorite character in my entire career of gaming. What is your favorite character?

        

Greetings.

Rogues. Scoundrels. Scalawags. Hustlers. Rascals. Thieves. Bandits. Pirates. Pickpockets.  These are the kinds of characters I love reading about the most or seeing up on the big or little screens.

These men and women are occasionally the hero of the tale but more often reside in a grey area between the two sides. Three qualities I have noticed in these characters include:

• Don’t live by the rules. These folks make up their own rules. Sometimes they pretend to the follow along for their own ends but if a rule gets in their way they are very quick and willing to ignore it to get their desired results.
• Always have a snarky comeback. These are the one liners that everyone remembers and more often than not cause their audience to laugh out loud. Or have a milk out the nose moment.
• Fun. These folks are fun. They may be in the deepest of dangers with no hope of rescue, death riding on their shoulders, but they remain fun. They laugh in the face of danger. They crack jokes as they skewer their enemies with a dagger. They are always fun.

I will be writing about these guys when I am not writing about my own writing. Yes, I am a writer. Or rather a wannabe writer. I write primarily sword and sorcery fantasy though I have recently delved into the urban fantasy genre. The short story is not your typical urban fantasy. It involves a semi-retired dragon-slayer called into action once again in the Pacific Northwest. John St. George is a rogue at heart. Not many take up the call to slay dragons but he does it anyway, despite the dangers, despite his bad knees.