5 posts tagged “fantasy”
Yes, I asked for help thinking of a proffession for my main character. We got rather distracted. I give you, the seni-corrupted list of insane occupations for fantasy characters:
Scribe cartographer food taster
Servant serf slave
Doormat torturer executioner
Spy merchant banker roadmaker
Scullerymaid hostler moose trapper
dog boy weremoose shaman
milk pasteuriser toblerone surgeon
sackmaker ipod salesman treefellers
psychiatrist gardeners elves
pit toilet cleaners beastspeakers odoureaters
archaeologist amateur photographer
golfer tortoise cleaner milkman
peacock fluffer gambling watchdog Imaginary Panther hunter
dicemaker hairdresser tavern wench
bobbypin collector street sweeper tapestryist
debt collector busybody end-of-world preventer
academic mage palm reader
masseuse moose masseuse ditchdigger
chaingang member hired assassin fashion police
unemployed student (same dif)
door to door salesman door to door door salesman avon lady
door to door moose salesman moose to moose door salesman accountant
door to door accountant the giver of poetic licences beggar
Cat cutter shoeshiner revoker of licenses
Locksmith tax collector door to door tax collector
lemon juicer tax collector's enforcer cook
moose cooker rat pie maker plumber
door to door lemon enforcer Mario elvis
drop bear weredropbear penguin
interpreter stick picker upper dog trainer
goatherd Mime mooseherd
Weredropbearherd executioner jester
Jouster bastard inkmaker
mother of bastard apocithary seamstress
emu herder "seamstress" your mum
pickpocketer con artist soldier
Locke Lamora poet octopus tamer
Gladiator mason weaver
Bellringer tiller tanner
Thatcher welldigger herald
Charcoal maker Archbishop professional nosepicker
royal bottom wiper quiz host embosser
jewler foothill guide abatoir worker
tourist trapper rapist postman
jolly old man with a pipe dwarf turkish delight
bard cocolatier director
Director of life bop Director of movies
director of weredropbear herders guild director moose driver
foreign devil real devil turnip carver
wheelbarrow pusher city guard ball boy
Bower pyromaniac fletcher
dyer bird watcher Timelord
Hatter cuneiformist bus driver
miner potter punk
shoemaker contortionist telephone book maker
gnomish pictsie princeling miller hunter
Womaniser Cartwright curmudgeon
pigwidgeon murderer saint
God Jesus noble
Jebuz King architect
The king’s mistress Diplomat jack of all trades
translator Tavern owner lacemaker
genie Episcopalian Brewer
time consuming hydroponic farmer (organic) drug lord
cannibal furrier farrier
falconer genius idiot
nemesis bowyer anti-hero
door to door protagonist financial analyst bricklayer
renascence fair goer zookeeper peddler
fat bottomed girl hippie token gay guy
antichrist token lesbian racial minority
anarchist token weredropbear town planner
repressed peasant Individual peasant pheasant plucker
playwright Shakespere Reactionary
Imaginative young girl Dead revolutionary pheasant pluckers son
cheese eating surrender monkey seer prophet
liar IT person priest
nun layabout intern
axe murderer work experience kid satirist
political activist Sugar glider trainer painter
fortune teller admiral carver
otter witch cartographer
heretic repeat muse
Forensic toxicologist Entomologist detective goren
colonic irrigation specialist bibliophile tambourine player
novelist acrobat journalist
invisible friend jodie the pig clothier
dictator valet invisible cloth weaver
chauffeur leech Boy
Girl helicopter pilot armourer
chewing gum manufacturer car thief toboggan chief
fluorescent hexagonal pattern inserter second story job man weevil
ferryman cordon bleu whale ridder
person to watch the grass grow cheese emporium owner ice-creamier
bomber descriptive linguist dragon
Icelandic prescriptive linguist terracotta warrior
Kayak soft-shoe-shuffler Old man
memory keeper insect-eater dust collector
door opener gold digger peacock guardian
cock and bull story creator radiologist peacock tongue collector
creator of lists of absurd occupations beater of dead horses local drunk
impeached fornicator thumb-twiddler dishwater women
moonface enid blyton backstreet boy
party pooper number 42 crow kicker
auditor destructive cliché rebellious princess
Blogger Conversationalist con man
con woman fall guy con weredropbear
cockney nutjob workaholic procrastinationist
horn tooter clob hopper eater of worlds
undertaker overtaker gravedigger
graverobber horse overgiver
moose elk fromagerieist
veal steak rehasher of old ideas
vince noir rock and roll star out-of-work mathematician hungry orphan
obstetrician liar post-colonialist
train driver cherry-picker guy toothpick sorter
drunkard in the gutter munchkin measurer lawyer
conductor conductrice decision maker
cockatrice tamer chocolate mouseier pastry chef
turpentine sniffer florist disenchanted painter
enchanted painter long suffering adviser careers adviser
careers adviser adviser teacher messenger of the gods
black market goods pirate orchid polleniser moose poliniser
friar deep fryer gatecrasher
wet blanket slate wiper graffitiist
town councillor doomsayer eternal optimist
hem-measurer Thinktan megalomaniac
hustler ostler bronchial investigator
fumigator actuary madrigal
mariachi disco bandit social worker
mad scientist hellraiser goody two shoes
goody two shoes shiner sharpshooter do gooder
shapeshifter changeling indian shopkeeper
polka queen band leader ROADIE
film projector beautician bikini waxer
cucumber slicer brazilian waxer cucumber waxer
groupie smooth operator telemarketer
acid-in-the-face thrower pencil sharpener electrician
witty retort hurler treespeaker barrel maker
staple-your-facer target practice professional showerer
barrel-scraper paint peeler explorer
policeman superhero uvular tract
velvet farmer pig whistler weary traveller
quest giver wise bearded stranger mook
trainspotter HORNED mook timetabler
disenchanted princess hotelier merchant
candlemaker book binder book
weaving tapestries button makers pencil sharpeners
chancellor of the exchequer
person who knows what you're thinking
the person who goes around and paints all the leaves pretty colours so that it will be autumn
director of moose enterprises international inc
woman who curses out second storey windows
person who gets given all the shit jobs no-one else wants to do
the person in the corner who no-one notices
cotton-picking finger-licking chicken plucker
As you may know I went to Marysville on the weekend. It was very relaxing, and I can't be bothered posting about the whole thing, but I will talk about Bruno's Art and Sculprure Garden, because seriouly I think for any fantasy fan, this place was paradise. It was a beautiful garden filled with beautiful sculptures, mostly fantasy themed, life size and placed beautifuly in the garden. Many of them where hidden, there was a trolls nest (the kind of pudgy small troll) and their house was built with sticks and very small so you had to crouch down to find them. There where blossoms and lizards and fawns. There was a lady in a boat that reminded me of Galladriel, then I realised that she reminded me alot of the lady of shallot. There where men trying to talk to ravens, and frogs everywhere (real frogs, not sculptures) next time I have writers block (mostly impossible) I think I'm going up to Marysville. Here are some of the highlights.
Yesterday was dads 50th birthday party, he let me invite one friend, and I chose to bring Marie, who I thought would at least get her moneys worth out of the free alchohol. It was at the Geebung Polo Club in Hawthorne, which is actualy a pretty popular spot with young people from around here.
Before leaving I decided to wear my rainbow psyco scarf, just because it is so incredibly me. I think if I had to describe my personality, presenting that thing to someone with a smile on my face would be pretty effective. Anyway...
Before leaving, mum started to go through the list of guests, "Oh they arn't coming? Shame. Wait Paul... Wayne? Is Trudi coming?" Marie and I look at each other with complete evil glint. Oh the plans. Several jokes followed about Marie finding a knife and killing her, but yeah.
We left and got there, then went and had dips. Marie was making plans with mum to force me to drink alchohol. One of them involved finding a cute guy and getting them to buy me a drink without asking me what I wanted.
"Marie, your idea of what is attractive and my idea of what is attractive differ by about twenty years."
We finaly went upstairs to where we had booked the rooms. We both got a drink, and explored the maze. There were two rooms with fireplaces and the bar room. We then decorated the place with toy cars and road signs. We also placed the red car napkins stratigicly then grabed ourselves a sear on the couch and waited for people to arrive. Some people turned up and dad walks in "Do you want me to introduce you to Trudi." we said no and started 'stalking' her, me demonstrating my stalker skills by trying to take a photo of her in a mirror. Eventualy he did introduce us as her "Two biggest fans" much to our embarrisment. We ran to the loos and then went down stairs and sat around for a while.
Shortly after this we went back up stairs and found callifornian rolls. "Ooh, prawn!" I said, grabbed one and ate it. Marie says "Oh ok, prawn." grabs one, takes a bite and starts making some very, very funny faces, and running around. Turns out that wasn't avacado. I quickly took a picture while she was still making 'Wasabi faces' and then showed it to anyone I could find.
We then retreated to the stir case, where clair came over and chatted. And then she came over. Trudi. (She is REALY tall) and sat down between marie and I. "Hello, I thought I'd come over and do some reasearch."
Marie got in first, and asked if Dannyl and Tayend where in it. I couldn't hear what she said. Claire was starting to look confused, so I explained. "Trudi just happens to be our favourite author." Claire was stunned, and started asking her lots of questions about how you write a book. Trudi's answers were pretty intresting. She talked about not understanding fan reactions, saying "Well there is this one character, Akkarin and I killed him off at the end of the last book, I had no Idea fans were going to react like that. I find the dark silent ones the most annoying." Marie and I both squealed. "Oh girls, this is not a spoiler, he's not coming back. Unless it's as a zombie. BRAAIIINS BRAIINS!" she did a great zombie Akkarin voice. She then told us this story about how in the original draft Rothen had taken Sonea to his ranch in the county, and they had both gone rinding and "..it was all very jane austen." she told us that instead of doing the whole comming into her room and "I know everything, you must be my novice!" thing (she said this in an Akkarin voice) he had ridden up on a black stallion. Marie and I were absolutly cacking myself, and all I could think of was what it would be like to have Colin Firth play Akkarin. Not Good.
She then told us about Sonea in the next book being around fourty and getting very grumpy. "The problem with that is that grumpy and a black magician are not a good mix." we laughed. "There's a problem with there whole system. What if the black magician goes bad? What if they get killed? The guild wouldn't be able to defend themselves, so they need a second magician to keep an eye on the other one. And he happens to be a very upright, moral individual, and Sonea hates him. 'Why can't I go outside the walls?'" trudi crosses her arms and sits up strait "It is against the rules!' the intresting thing is that in the secong book he is hunting someone down and is very scary. He's not bad though."
"Tell me who you think sonea will end up with?" she looks at us, "Oh and it's not him."
Marie asks "Is it someone we know?"
Trudi pauses..."Yes...oh I hope I didn't give too much away."
She started telling us about the underworld in the sequle and how it's alot darker and very gangland, shes been reading gangland biographys and stuff as reasearch and is no longer sure it can remain a young adult novel. She then told us about wondering how far she could go with Cery and about the less icky trades like "Smuggler, or a running a realy clean brothel."
"I can't imagine Cery running a brothel!"
We asked about the blood ring and she didn't tell us annything except that she might not include it in the sequle it might remain a mystery. We talked about the audi books, she couldn't listen to the Aussie one because apparently it made her feel like a kid being read to in the school library, and I told her about Cery and the Blood leaches being cut out of the british ones. She was like... well i can take that as a complement, if they had to take out a whole character then that means my writing was pretty clean. No Savarra!"
We switched to chatting about the prequle and I predicted that fans would be trying to work out who is related to present day characters, and she indicated that that it is possible to work some of them out based on the names.
She told us that the first chapter of the prequle will be up in the next 6 weeks (Squeal) and that the book would be around the same size as priestess.
Theres so much to try and remember! I'm done for now I'll post the second half of the night later on, although I'm sure marie will post and fill you in before I get around to it.
"But how do you come up with Iideas? You must be so creative."
"Not realy, Ideas are deffinitly not the problem. I have more problems not coming up with ideas."
Marie and I are looking at eachother grinning.
Claire left and trudi asked us what we would like to know. She had this thing where she looked at each of us turning her head from side to side, which I found very intimidating.
"To tell you the truth my brain walked out the door when you came up, this is rather intimidating."
"Don't worry, I find talking to fans intimidating."
Ok I think, "Sea leeches."
Her eyes brightened. "Sea leeches!"
"Yeah I adore them, that was an awesome scene. Possibly my favourite."
So she explains about how her editor had told her to have travel, and she had thought, ok who isn't doing much? Dannyl! and to make the journey more intrsting she needed a sea monster, but instead of having one big sea monster, she thought how can I subvert this? So she made them leeches and about this long, the idea being that in mating season they all grab onto you and sink you under their weight, then suck the life out of you.
After my post about Petrador Marie and I started talking about the characteristics of Mary Sue, and I decided to do a Mary Sue test on Sasha. Reading the criteria, I started to think that maybe, just maybe Mary Sue isn't that bad. Or at least she is misunderstood.
Part of the reason for this was Marie's comment in the post "Jess, you realise that "sexual humour, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing" *are* Mary Sue qualities?" I found this comment rather hilarious. So I decided to whip out the Mary Sue test again as a bit of an experiment.
As I thought. Marie, despite not being a book character scores 47 on the mary sue test. I must point out that Sasha only scored 43. Marie, real, living breathing marie. Marie who "...at this point...[is] likely to provoke eye-rolling and exclaimations of "yeah, right!" from your readers." Sounds about right doesn't it? I also have to point out that if she had scored just three more points on the test I would have been obliged to "Kill it dead." Ok, so I was being a bit tough on her, but the majority of the test answers where 100% true. Why don't you try it yourself? I used Elise, Skye or Mrs Gramaticus as the Villain just for reference.
Whats my point? If characters didn't have at least some of these characteristics they just wouldn't intresting enough to make a story about. That, or they wouldn't survive past the second chapter. There is a reason why authors make characters royalty, it leads to pollitical intruige. There is a reason they are good with either a sword or magic, it's because if they wern't the dark lord would just blast them to smitherenes. The problem with both Marie and Sasha is that alot of their faults happen to be seen as Mary Sue qualities themselves, and I think here, it realy depende on how the Author uses them. If their anger, foul mouths and sexual insinuations are seen as something to be admired, we are crossing into Mary Sue territory. If they get the character into trouble, make people in the story world not like them, and they fit the character then not so much.
I also tend to think that a character like Auraya, and to a lesser extent Sonea is more of a Mary Sue than Sasha. They don't have any faults and they are rediculusly powerfull. They don't even have Mary Sueish faults unless you count falling in love with the 'bad guy'. It doesn't mean I love them any less though. On the opposite scale, Emma from Kylie Chan's books is, in personality at least rather a lot less of a Mary Sue (That whole, I can't work it out thing) and yet she spends at least half of her time driving me absolutly nuts. I also think that in Sasha's case, it's not necersarily being a Mary Sue that makes her cliched but a rather serious case of rebellious princess syndrome, and the thing is, I don't necersarily mind. The author has used a character that is a fantasy classic and put her in a setting where she would usualy be out of place, then created a pretty damn good plot around her. What's wrong with that?
What am I saying here? Well, basicly, Mary Sue shouldn't be applied to orriginal fantasy. It's a term that came from fanfic where adolecent girls suddenly introduce a non cannon character that then goes and fulfills their fantasys while defying the rules of the story universe. In original fantasy, well pretty much any main character is going to be a Mary Sue to some extent. It just makes things so much more intresting.
Well I'm done, I'm going to start work on my bomb shelter now, and just so that you don't think you can kill me before I finish, I've hired a few Mary Sues from various fan fics, and you know, they are more than able to defend me.
Got this a couple of days ago and wow. I have to say, yet another aussie fantasy book that I can add to my awesomeness list. I know their are a couple of series I realy love from brittish and american authors, but seriously, Australian Fantasy writers have their own spiecial flare. I am so glad I am Australian. (Isn't it funny? Books make me more patriotic than gold medals.)
WOW this book is good. I don't think I could compare it to Trudi Canavan, just because it is so amazingly different, but I think I could safely say I liked it better than Kylie Chan books, it has many of the same elements (A romance, something that Sasha was missing) and better writing. Don't get me wrong though, Kylie Chan still rocks my romance world. He he... gods.
Petrador has the amazing detail that I loved Sasha for, not the iritatingly detailed descriptions of Allison Croggon (they are good, but seriously I skip most of it) but the beautiful tactical believable descriptions of battles and fights that bring the action alive. It has the added bonus that Sasha loses some of her Mary Sue qualities, adding sexual humor, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing (She particularly likes to use Cock and Fuck) and her angry, bitchy arrogance to her previously bland personality. It was always their, it just didn't get enough screen time. Their is also another weakness that I liked the use of. Trust.
Ahh Joel Shepherd. I admire you. When you can write a serious, philisophical debate, with one person seriously ingured, humiliated and at the other persons mercy, battle is raging around them and still center the whole thing around cheese, you have won my heart. When you can use a sex scene to reveal a major plot point without making the thing seem forced, you have shown rather ingenoius ways of giving the thing a purpous (For reference, his sex scene description surparces Kylie Chans in detail by rather a lot. It might even come close to his battle descriptions, yet it's not pornographic at all, I don't feel embaresed reading it, which I think deserves extra kudos. It also involves a LOT of talking (as I said, plot points) which is probably the reason it works.)
It is a realy good read. Better than Sasha, and you can proabably get away with reading Petrodor without the first book, although I realy did enjoy Sasha, and some of the stuff about Serrin the meaning of certain Sallshen words and the interrelation of Nazi Keth, Verathain and Goren Yai might be lost on you. Yeah. read them. If you can't read Sasha at least give Petrodor a try. If you can't read Petrodor, well Page 421 is a good starting point if you want to get to the cheese bit. But then again, you won't get the start of the chapter... maybe 402? I don't know. Just read the whole book. It's realy good.
CHEESE!
