Redemption Arcs

Something I was recently made aware of, and accidentally included in my own book, is the concept of redemption arcs. Redemption arcs are basically what it's called when a bad, or evil, character makes a slow transition into being what we would call a 'good' character (basically, they start to side with the protagonist). 

Here I'd like to pause and emphasize the word 'slow.' Just like with emotions, a good redemption doesn't happen instantly. It's a process in which your character is fighting against what they've always thought was an acceptable way to make themselves heard or to get what they want, be it through violence, manipulation or what have you. Your character will make some progress, then slip back into the habits because it's easier. Sometimes a mentor will call them out on this, sometimes their own conscience will. The point is, IT'S NOT OVERNIGHT!!! The biggest mistake I make when trying to create a redemption arc is having it happen immediately, kind of like a light switch being turned on. True, there will be a moment when they realize what they've been doing wrong and that something needs to change, but the actual process should be hard. Make them suffer. Make those watching them and rooting for them to achieve their goals want to grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them, because that is how life works. Often, we don't see the things we do that hurt others, or that are glaringly obvious to those who love us.

A redemption arc will add depth to a character, will really get your readers invested in their struggle. I have a story that I am currently working on where there is a redemption arc, and you don't necessarily see what's going on (because he isn't the main character and I prefer to write from the first person point of view) but it is happening. First, he's one of the villains, the main villain that a reader would see face to face, but then he changes. We're introduced to his sister, a young girl he's hidden from their madman father ever since their mom died. And then, even though he needed her to give him an edge against said madman father, he lets the main character go, for her own safety.

Now, I realize that this seems like a dramatic switch, but most of it is in the time before the book begins, when he sees what his father is trying to make him into. He realizes that, in order for the country to be strong, he needs to stand against his father, and what his father taught him. The prince has to go against everything that he ever learned from his main role model growing up and forge a new path. And he falls, more than once. He betrays the main character again, gets her younger brother thrown in jail in order to curry favor with his father and to save his own skin, and he has most of the rebels arrested. But that's not because he is a bad person in general. The sister, remember? He also has a sanctuary, where he protects his servants from his father's temper and shelters beggars. 

Everyone is complex. We all wear different masks with different people, and sometimes we let one mask overtake the others. A redemption arc is fighting against this, fighting to take back the good masks from the bad ones, fighting to let our hidden good side come out into the daylight.

I'd like to shout out to the creators of Avatar: the Last Airbender. Zuko, the fire prince, has the best redemption arc I've ever seen, and I wish that I could write something as powerful as that. 

Anyway, write lots!

Onward!

What if I'd never started writing?

What if I'd never started writing? I'd probably have died of boredom or killed someone a long time ago. That, or I would've put all my energy into less constructive pastimes, such as building bombs, or releasing viruses on the world. 

Honestly, though, if I hadn't started writing, I think that I would be a very different person. As a writer, I can look at others and hear what their mouth is saying, but also read what their body language is telling me. Writing opened whole new levels of communication and meaning for me, far beyond what we just say to each other. I watch out for those cues now because I had to in order to make my writing authentic.

I also think that I am more well-rounded as a person. I can understand what it is to be rage-filled (as I've written a character like that and done research into it), but I can also understand the quiet side, the soft touch that can change countries and history.

Writing is both a tool for change and an escape for me. If I didn't write, I would've found something similar. Or I would've become a writer anyway.

Ten things you don't know about my book....

This is a list of ten things that readers don't know about my book.

1. The main character's name.
2. Her brother's name.
3. The plot twist.
4. What the names mean.
5. The reason for the tree on the cover.
6. Why I chose the names I did.
7. How many pages it is.
8. How many chapters there are.
9. Where the story takes place.
10. And, last but not least, where you can buy it.

That's right, my book is now available to purchase. You can find it on Amazon and Friesenpress (my publishing company). If you do buy my book and read it and love it, or don't, please leave a review on either of those sites, or comment on this blog. Now, I'm going to answer most of those things you don't know, so that you do know them when, or if, you read my book.

1. Katelynn
2. Jacob
3. Not telling. You'll have to read the book to find out.
4. Katelynn means 'pure' and Jacob means 'supplanter,' which will make more sense if you read my book.
5. The tree is on the cover because it has a special meaning to Katelynn, as she's been dreaming about climbing a tree her whole life. It symbolizes peace and security for her, and the lighting is coming to destroy that peace.
6. You'll have to read it.
7. 120, so it's technically more of a novella.
8. There are 16 or 17 chapters. I got the numbering wrong on one of my edits and now I can't ever remember which it actually was.
9. The story takes place about 1000 years in the future, when Canada has disintegrated, and mostly been taken over by America. The only real independent part left is located in what used to be BC, which has been renamed Nura.
10. You already know where you can buy it, because I told you.

Ta da! Now you know ten things that you probably didn't. You're welcome.

What if life was like the movies?

What if life was a movie? Depending on the genre, life could be equal parts boring and terrifying. If it was a superhero action movie, the amount of catastrophic world-ending events that were narrowly averted would be dramatically increased. (By my calculations, there’d probably be one every month or so). The world would never actually end.

If life was a romance, the amount of single people would diminish drastically and the amount of epic love stories would skyrocket. Life would probably be incredibly boring, with people like me barfing in corners all the time. Romance is both boring and predictable. Everything would end happily.

If life was a tragedy, no one would have any spouses, and one person out of every family would have some sort of fatal illness. Car crash deaths would rise, as would random shark attacks, vending machines falling and other statistically unlikely but very sad deaths.

If life was a tragic romance, it would be like Romeo and Juliet, with couples dying in each other’s arms after short and unrealistic courtships.

If it was a horror movie, it would be terrifying. Normal wimps like me would never set foot outside, instead choosing to fortify my house to insane levels and become self-sufficient.

Life as a comedy would be a lot funnier. Life as a documentary would be boring and people would sleep all the time, unless it was a history documentary on the Romans or Greeks or Egyptians.

I can’t think of any other genres off the top of my head, but if you can, comment what you think life would be like.

Strong opinions. Good times.

What if Wednesday

So, I've decided that every Wednesday, I'm going to ask a 'what if' question and answer it. These answers may or may not have been researched, and may or may not be relevant to your life. That's not important. I'm just going to write down whatever I think, in under 500 words. 

If you like, you can comment with a question for me to answer, or with answers of your own. This is not a writing advice section, definitely not, but rather a place for me to share my random ideas and opinions.

So click on the link below, and get ready for some craziness!

Something big!!!!

So, I was talking to someone about my book today, and I realized something. Something huge. If I knew how to dance, I'd probably be doing that right now, but I don't, so I'm blogging about it.

Before I share my realization, I just would like to explain a few things. I'm publishing my book through a publishing company, but the way they work is different than what most people think of when they imagine publishing a book.

MOST people, when they think of publishing, think of what's known as traditional publishing. In other words, the big giants of publishing like Random House, or Scholastic (these are just the two I can think of off the top of my head). These are full on companies, with executives and business goals and investors and all the trimmings. They tend to tie authors up in legal tangles and contracts, and give you few rights as an author. The publisher can even change your book's title, if they deem it necessary.

This is not the route I've chosen to go. First, though, there is another aspect you should consider as an aspiring author. This route is called self-publishing. Self-publishing is essentially the complete opposite of traditional publishing. The author keeps all their rights, have complete control over what happens with their book, and are responsible for doing everything. This is a more appealing route from a monetary perspective, because you keep all the profits. Downside: everything is your responsibility. Marketing, editing, cover design, print layout, setting deadlines, arranging signings.... the list seems endless. To an aspiring author, it can be. There are resources for self-publishing authors, and a website I recommend is 'thecreativepenn.com', created and run by Joanna Penn, who is a successful self-published author. Her podcasts are excellent advice on everything from writing to marketing to taking care of yourself as an author. 

But that's not what I do either. I'm publishing with a company called Friesenpress, a branch of Friesens, which my school uses to create our yearbooks. Anyway, Friesenpress is a blend of traditional and self publishing, which means that you pay them and they will help you to publish your book, but also give you the tools you need to navigate the world of publishing. I got to choose my cover, my title and have control over the editing, while not having to do the work of actually creating the cover and organizing the layout. In other words, I got to make the decisions while other people did the boring stuff. It did cost me over $2000 dollars.

Let me explain this cost for a moment. I paid this up front, in order to publish. Many people, or at least me, think that publishing with a traditional publisher is free. It's not. First of all, those publishers don't even accept books unless they come through an agent, which can cost a lot of money. So can editing, as your book needs to have minimal mistakes before an agent will even consider it. There's a lot of rejection, as there are stories upon stories of great authors (*cough cough* JK Rowling *cough*) being rejected over and over and over before finally getting accepted and being a lightning strike. Publishing companies will take the same cost that I paid, but they'll take it off your sales after the book is published.

SO, now that we've got a few things cleared up, things that I am very sick of explaining, I can get to my news.

The price is set for my book, and as I write this the Friesenpress designers (whoever they may be. I still don't know) are preparing the print-ready files for my book. In other words, it is 87% finished, which means that there is only 13% left to go before my book comes out. I can say with 87% confidence that my book will be published and available by the end of the month. Hardcover would be largely online, and paperback would hopefully be in stores. There's also an ebook, which would be available in the Play store and on Amazon. 

That's my news. It might not seem like much, or very important, but I've been writing this book since October of Grade 11 and have edited it what feels like eight thousand times. I'm sick of it.

Time to finish editing the sequel and start the entire thing over again!

Magic and Wizardry

Unsplash user Aditya Saxena

If you are writing a fantasy novel, as many teenagers will, you'll probably have magic at some point in your book. Magic as an entity seems to defy the rules of physics, to defy the rules that things in our world need to abide by. Yet magic itself is not all-powerful, and it certainly won't be convincing if it is. There are rules that even magic should abide by, even if it doesn't follow the same rules as everything else.
Of course, these rules are not going to be officially found anywhere, because they will be unique to your story. These rules need to limit your character, to challenge them. An all-powerful magician who could just snap their fingers and defeat the villain will make for a boring story. You need to give your characters challenges, challenges that either come about through the use of their magic or challenges that need to be overcome without the use of their magic.
In other words, you need to make your all-powerful magician less all powerful. If they have the ability to end the story at any moment with a snap of their fingers, readers will wonder why they don't. What's stopping them from ending the villain before he does any damage? This is the part of magic that will be a cost.
A cost of magic is the toll it will have on the magician. For example, some magic depends on the strength of the magician, and certain spells will require more strength. My personal magic system requires relationships as the cost. Basically, for a mage to gain power, they must sacrifice all knowledge of one person in their life. This person can be an aquaintance, but there must be some sort of relationship. The closer the relationship, the more powerful the spell.
You need to clearly define what your magic can do, and remember that there should be some things that it can't do. Put another way, your magic will have limits. Put obstacles in your character's path that will reveal these limits, that will force the character to rely on something other than magic to overcome. For example, a limit in my magic system is that the mage cannot defeat someone who has equal power of the opposite element. (My magic is elemental magic, so air is the opposite of earth, fire is the opposite of water) In a situation like this, the mage is forced to rely on physical strength or trickery to defeat the opponent.
Magic should be the cause of the problems, not the solution. If the characters are depending on magic to solve all their obstacles, the book will be boring.