Blog Tour: Meet My Main Character!

Hello and welcome, one and all!! 

I'm participating in a blog tour in which I describe my main character for you all.  I was tagged by the seriously awesome Theodora Ashcraft, the author of Tomorrow's Bones.  

So, without further ado, onto the questions! :D

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person? 

My character’s name is Ellen MacAvoy, and she’s quite fictional. 

 

2) When and where is the story set? 

The story is set in this world, in the Washington DC area, roughly around this time.  (So, I guess 2014/15, thereabouts)

3) What should we know about him/her? 

Ellen is 22 years old, and she’s a college senior majoring in political science and minoring in computer programming.  She’s a shy, quiet girl who’s fascinated by the idea of sacrifice, and stories of people who radically changed the world for the better.  She wants to make that sort of difference in the world, but she’s not really sure how just yet.  She has the idea that she can do it by involving herself in government, so she interns on Capitol Hill, observing everything and learning how things are done, and blogging about her experiences.  

 

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life? 

The main conflict in the story starts when the government picks up information of visitors from outer space wanting to make contact with humans.  Yes: actual aliens, coming from another planet.  The aliens call themselves the Prima, and they initially bring tidings of peace and harmony.  Friendly relations are established between human beings and the Prima, and the Prima soon start settling on Earth and exchanging resources.  However, it isn’t long before the Prima lose their friendliness, and become hostile toward the humans.  Their technology is only slightly superior to ours, so they don’t start an outright war; instead, they infiltrate our governmental systems and begin a process of legally making humans second-class citizens on our own planet.  Once that starts happening, the Prima start targeting anyone who speaks out – including academics, journalists, and bloggers.

5) What is the personal goal of the character? 

Ellen’s personal goal is to do something huge and meaningful for the world, and to help as many people as possible by providing a solution to one of the world’s greatest problems.  She didn’t know exactly how she could accomplish this before, but now she does: she has to fight against the looming takeover by the Prima.  This is her opportunity to be like the great people she’s read about all her life; this is how she can do something grandly beneficial for humanity.   

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it? 

The working title for the novel is “The Shattering Dome,” but that is highly subject to change. xD

7) When can we expect the book to be published? 

Maayyybe the end of 2015? :D

So, now that the questions have been squared away, I have to tag fellow authors.  I was supposed to tag 4-5, but unfortunately I only knew one person working on a novel who also keeps up a blog. :D

Joey Zook is the author of Ronten's Justice, and he's working on more.  He is a hard-working student and an ice cream scooper.  His job, however, is writing, and he posts to his blog.  http://authorjoezook.blogspot.com/

On Readers, Characters, and the Endings of Books: A Short Reflection, Doubling as an Extremely Brief Reaction to Garth Nix's "Abhorsen Trilogy"

I'm fairly certain the majority of book readers would agree with the claim that when one spends a certain amount of time with a character (or characters), one becomes very attached to said character or characters.  After spending hours and days inside these fictional people's minds, feeling their feelings and thinking their thoughts, following them on every step of an arduous journey and every moment of development and personal growth, a reader begins to feel a strong emotional attachment to these characters.  One might say that, depending on the believability of the character's thoughts and actions and overall presentation, a reader begins to feel that the character is someone whom they've grown fond of and connected with, like a traveling companion whom one has gotten to know and become quite close to. 

When we as real life human beings grow attached to someone and form bonds, it matters to us what happens to these people.  We feel their apprehension when swarms of Dead Hands are nearby, acutely experience their terror when confronting a Stilken for the first time, rejoice with them when they're reunited with a loved one (or someone we desperately ship them with xDDD), and suffer the devastating prospect of their imminent demise when they decide to make a grave sacrifice.  We care about what happens to these characters, just as we would care about what happens an old friend.

We especially would like to maintain contact with said friend if s/he had to move away, or depart for a long period of time.  We want to keep up that emotional bond, at least for some sense of closure.  "What's up with you?  Did you get a new job?  A degree?  What's your new place like?  You have a boyfriend/girlfriend now?  You got married????  That's awesome!!! Tell me about it!"  It's something we human beings simply need as communal creatures: we need that sense of completeness, that knowledge that even though the closeness has come to an end, the other person's life goes on - and we can still share some small part of it, and keep some sort of connection.

Well, since we as readers form attachments to the characters we read about, it only stands to reason that we need the same sort of closure when a story ends.  The companionship and the nearness to the character has drawn to an all-too-soon close; now we need that sense of completion, the few scraps of information to remind us that their personal story isn't over yet, that life goes on for them, and that a small connection can still be maintained.  It's the literary equivalent of leaving a close friend with a phone number or email address, or promising that they'll still Skype and chat online every once-in-a-while.  It's only fair - we've been with them so long!

Now, with all that in mind...

Garth Nix, why must you end your story without giving ANY explanation whatsoever as to what happened to the characters afterward?????  I've been with most of them for two whole books, and a few of them for as many as three!  We've grown to know them intimately, feared what they feared, loved what they loved, cared about them as if we knew them in real life!!  Would it really be all that difficult to at least provide a bloody epilogue, so we know what they did with their lives after the battles were fought and won and taken care of?  For goodness' sake - would it cause the heavens to quake and the universe to wink out of existence if you simply told what happened after all the dust settled, instead of leaving us at the scene of the climax immediately after all the action has happened?

Now, I understand that it's the author's prerogative to write whatever s/he deems fit: that ultimately, the writing is a work of art, and a personal expression of the writer's inner thoughts.  The writer has no obligation to alter that expression for anyone, and especially not to satisfy fans who are only participating in the full creation that the writer envisions and experiences in his/her own mind.  To argue otherwise would be a blasphemy against the very practice of writing as an art form.

However, an author conveys a message with his/her words.  Whether it's an observation about humanity and society, or a story about fictional characters, all writers communicate some sort of message; and it's only common courtesy to finish a message once one has begun.  I might be completely mistaken in saying this, but it seemed as though the message conveyed through your trilogy was all about the journey of certain characters in growing in their persons and bringing down the evil which threatens their world.  All well and good - the message was conveyed.  But such a message about these characters can only be properly concluded with an actual conclusion; some assurance that their efforts were lasting, and that battle really did end there and that they didn't collapse and die from exhaustion two minutes afterward. 

When friends or loved ones have to leave, they give us some form of maintaining communication.  It's an unspoken gesture that brings meaning and completion to the message they've been giving us this entire time: "I care about you, and this journey we've been on was worth it to me."  In the same manner, readers need the same conclusion to the message about the characters that they've been invested in for hours, days, and sometimes weeks.

This isn't about me as a fan.  It's about me and all your readers who got to know your characters, and metaphorically want to find them on Facebook after the journey has ended.  It's about all those of us who formed emotional attachments, and need closure.

From one writer to another: I cry FOUL. 

It was a magnificent trilogy - now where's the real ending?

My First Legitimate Post

So, after some reflection, I've chosen a topic for my first real post: a summary of the story I'm currently working on.  Although the story is still in the earliest of developmental stages, I've got a lot of faith in this emerging colony of plot bunnies.  :D 

And now, without further ado: the summary, written in diary form.


Date: November 5, 2015
Setting: Washington, DC. 

They came from a far away planet, bringing tidings of peace, harmony and cooperation.  They sent their finest diplomats and translators, communicating with our leaders in human language.  The message they gave was clear: all they wanted was friendly contact, trade, and alliance with us.  They wanted our natural resources, and we wanted their technology.  Their technology was superior to ours, but they didn't use it to dominate.  Not at first.

At first it was all politics and diplomacy.  They wanted to settle on our planet to solidify peace terms.  Naturally there were some objections, but legislation passed and they got what they wanted.  They started their small colonies wherever they were granted territory.  Everything seemed fine, but it wasn't... it really wasn't.

We noticed things going awry when our own laws started turning strange.  We'd traded with them for their technology; now our own governments were forbidding us to use that technology.  We'd thought they had wanted peaceful coexistence; now we were slowly becoming second-class citizens on our own planet.  They started acting hostile toward us.

Our thinkers and academics noticed it first.  They were the first to go missing.  Then anyone who openly spoke out was taken.

Our militaries have begun to make war against them.  It's become chaos - nowhere is safe anymore.  They wanted our planet for its natural resources; they're taking what they want by force, using us as free labor, destroying any dissenters.  Everything is in ruins now. 

There's no such thing as hiding anymore - now we have to take sides and make hard choices.  Either we let ourselves be used like workhorses, or we fight back against the aliens.  We have to fight back, and we are fighting back....but we're losing. 

We can't lose.  We refuse to lose.  I refuse to lose.

My First Blog Post in Nearly Two Years

This is rather bewildering, to say the least.  Nearly two years have passed: two years, in which I have started college, completed my freshman year, learned the various nuances of Success in the Academic World...and, to be fully honest, two years in which I had largely given up on the idea of blogging.

I think one part of me is desperately trying to convince the other part that it was just a passing adolescent phase, waiting to die the slow, painless death of being forgotten in a flurry of other whimsies and obsessions and activities.  To an extent, this first part of me does have a point.  After all, it's only human to be caught up in the glamorous fantasy of internet fame, and imagine yourself as a wildly popular author with countless followers on one's blog.... right?  Right??

... *crickets*

Okay, then.  Back to business.

The second, more rational part of me is quietly insisting that I gave up because of the adolescent angst and frustration of not having one's "famous writer" dreams come true.  And the third part of me is wailing and gnashing its teeth, and performing something akin to an Edward Elric tantrum.  (And the fourth part now wants to delve into Fullmetal Alchemist for having made that reference. XD)

Regardless, I think I'm going to start up again.  Not for the dreams (although, having lots of followers would certainly be nice in its own way), but simply because I'd like to write in a public setting, receive feedback, and have a good-looking background to accompany my writing.  And because it's fun to write!!!

At least in my own experience, it's undeniably fun to imagine great and terrible and wonderful things and channel them into a written medium; for the excitement to swirl up inside, that mad bubbling volcano of vision frothing in wondrous effervescence and exploding past the barrier of the mind to trickle down the nerve endings and emerge through the fingertips onto one's keyboard.  To write - to wax philosophical simply because one can, no matter what people think, no matter the comments (or lack thereof)!! :D

Wow, the enthusiasm runs strong in this one tonight.....

So in conclusion: here's to an unpredictable journey of writer's block, inevitable confidence issues, mad moments of inspiration at 2 AM, and hopefully some fun along the way :)

Cheers!!!   

(BTW, there's something not quite right about the quotation marks.... Working on it presently.  Inconceivable.)