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 |  This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| My Most Hated Tropes So, last time I looked at the Chosen One Trope ("20250115 Current Writing Trend Issue (The Chosen One Trope)" ), a trope that is over-used and can be really tedious. But considering it stretches back to ancient mythologies, and I like me some good mythology, it is not a trope I hate. Nope.These are the three tropes I really do not like. 1) The Bad Guy Who Is Just Bad This is one I have always disliked – the bad guy who is just evil. Even in mythology, that is rarely the case (Abrahamic mythology is the worst for this). But it was not until I read the infamous Peter’s Evil Overlord list that I realised just how stupid this whole evil overlord thing really is.Even if the person does evil things, in the real world, every evil person thinks they are doing the right thing. In a story, this will make the bad guy characters more human and add an extra dimension. The only people who just want to be evil are sociopaths, and even then, for them, it is a matter of dominance because sociopaths gotta sociopath. People don’t like to hear this, but Hitler thought he was doing the right thing at first. He went about it all wrong, and he did many, many truly horrendous things, but at the start, his reasons were understandable. It is why so many Germans followed him. So, yeah, bad guys who are bad for the sake of bad are boring and unrealistic. 2) Communication Issues This is just insane. People hear part of a conversation and leap to a bad conclusion. People think they are talking about something but it is something else. People assume knowledge and talk as if that assumption is valid. Yes, they make for alleged comedy and are the bricks upon which many a rom-com is built, but as a trope, it is annoying. Why can’t characters just talk it over? In the real world, a relationship that is healthy will involve communication. Real people ask questions to clarify. Real people will not just accept a one-sided conversation as they hear it. A real relationship will not fall apart at the drop of a mis-heard conversation fragment. Truth be told, the misunderstanding comedy trope is one I find about as funny as an ingrown toenail. It is part of the humour of cringe. It is just awful. I know soap operas wouldn’t exist without it, but can’t it just stay there – in the soaps and bad romantic comedies? 3) The Special Stereotype This is when the “magical Negro”, “manic pixie dream girl”, “fabulous gay best friend”, “super-deep in-tune-with-nature Indigenous person”, “hyper-intelligent neurodivergent” (“next stage of evolution” trope), or even “martial arts master Asian” comes in. To avoid making the minority character be just a stereotypical minority character, they are made into something special, almost magical or mystical. And this just reinforced the stereotypes in the first place! Want to know how to write these characters? As people. That’s all. Just as people. I have mentioned in the past I use beta readers who match the people in my stories. This is so they come across as people. Yes, the “Special” person is a positive depiction, but they are not real people, and so come across as just another form of stereotype… and they are nearly always in a position below the protagonist anyway. If they are the main protagonist, then it can come across as pandering. Want to know how to make them people? Don’t have them be the first one killed. Don’t have them say constantly, “I’m gay/black/ Indigenous/ not like other girls.” In the real world, people don’t do that; why should characters? Have their “differences” not matter a whole lot. How others react to them might be different, but that is others, not the character themselves. And, yes, people who are constantly harassed will have some additional behaviours, as will those who are neurodivergent, but that is not their personality. That is just a behaviour. Anyway, those are the three writing tropes I really struggle with as a reader. You might disagree and find them all perfectly fine. Great. But, to me, these do tend to harm a story. |
| Current Writing Trend Issue (The Chosen One Trope) This came up in a discussion about films and books with my daughter. Not many of her friends go to the movies – statistics indicate that in Australia less and less younger people are going to the movies all up – and the books she and her friends have started reading are older, not as many new releases. Which made me ask the question: Why? She struggled to put it into words, but then she sent me a copy of a message from Instagram she found. YA Book Premise: I used to be a no-friends loser dork, until I discovered I had a sixth finger on my foot and that gave me the power to be the coolest person ever! What this means is that recently every single YA – and nearly every single fantasy – hero/heroine is a ‘chosen one’ who is a special snowflake who the world revolves around. They have special powers, a special destiny, and are “not like other girls/boys.” My daughter said she asked her friends and the wider social media circle, and, yes, that is why they are sick of it. She says it was fine with Harry Potter because he might have been special, but he was also not the only powerful one, and he had to learn how to use his power, but now every single character is powerful from birth and that separates them from normal people. So, after some discussion, I saw where she was coming from, and, I have to say, I agree. Let me explain. Lord Of the Rings by Tolkien has spoken to readers (and latterly, movie go-ers) for a few generations. The main character, the one who destroys the ring and really brings an end to the evil, is a hobbit, an ordinary being, nothing special. No Chosen One. He just destroys the ring because it is the right thing to do. It was not his “destiny”. It was not foretold that a hobbit would do it. He had no special hobbit-magic. One ordinary being going against the odds and succeeding. The ‘Everyman’ character. Why did Batman resonate with readers and continue to do so? Because he is an ordinary man. Yes, he’s rich, but he has no super-powers. He is just really smart – he is the modern day version of Sherlock Holmes. People got bored with Superman because he just felt over-powered, and so they had to kill him and then bring him back, and then split him in two (the 1990s were weird); Batman was a rich guy who got trained and decided to dress as a bat and belt the bejeezus out of bad guys. No magic rings, no super-strength, nothing else. In the Justice League film, Flash asks him what his super-power is. “I’m rich,” he replies. That’s it. That whole thing can be translated to Iron Man. It was why that character managed to strike a chord with viewers, and was an ideal first MCU hero – he was just a rich, smart guy. He was one of us. And then we have The Hunger Games. Katniss was not a Chosen One. In fact, she volunteered to enter the Games in order to save her sister. Yes, she had some skill, but was not destined to bring down the government or anything else. Right person, right time, and a character that readers could relate to. In other cases, the main character had to learn what to do, by reading or learning, and not just have these powers bestowed upon them. This is where Harry Potter comes in – he might have been the Chosen One, but he had to learn, and we, the reader, watched him learn and get his powers. And what do we have now? The Fourth Wing, Lightlark, Rey PalpatineSkywalker… Modern popular media is populated by main characters who are born special and the stories revolve around them being special snowflakes. There are very few stakes because the main character is Chosen and special. Even the MCU. Captain Marvel is over-powered to a Superman level, but without the humanity; she was given her power, and didn’t have to work for it at all. The Eternals are OP, born with magic earth-changing power. Echo might have some disabilities, but she was born with powers that make her disabilities a moot point. It is boring and it is tedious and it seems younger media consumers are moving away from these characters. Readers, it seems, just want characters who are ordinary, but then find a strange book in a library and read it and learn some powers that they cannot automatically control and master, or who are put in a situation that they are not really ready to cope with, but have to. Picking up a sword and becoming the greatest swords-person as a teenager is the sort of thing being rejected by YA readers (not adults who read YA, who are a different kettle of fish); kids understand how much b/s that is. And too many people do not write children realistically as it is ("20241218 Children Characters" ).A lot of this is down to more and more Mary Sue("20240215 Mary Sue/Marty Stu (Gary Stu)" ) and self-insert ("20241009 Self-Insert Characters" ) characters appearing. It is now regarded that Rey PalpatineSkywalker is a Mary Sue for Kathleen Kennedy, who is in charge of the Lucasfilm division, imposing her will upon those beneath her. A woman greater than the men, and especially the men who came before her (Luke Skywalker/ George Lucas). Why is it happening? It depends on who you ask. Some say it is DEI gone mad, some say it is because of a lack of representation, some say it is because fan-fiction is becoming mainstream, and some say it is because of lazy writing (I am more inclined towards that last one).The Chosen One trope is over-used and is being more and more over-used. Give the hero a book or a magic amulet or something to give them power, and then it would only be temporary. Or, better yet, just make them have to use their own resources to cope and survive. Write interesting characters! It seems to be what readers/viewers want. |
| Vocabulary Matters A few people on WdC will know of my love for weird and rare words and etymology. This has resulted in my having a slightly larger vocabulary than many people, and also an understanding of when a word is being used incorrectly. Sometimes there is a subtle difference. A thesaurus will tell you arid and parched are synonyms, but, if we’re being technical, arid means something has no water, whereas parched means something has no water, but it used to have water. Little things like that. But that is not what this post is about. I recently wrote about the rare words I have been regaling WdC with this year and if they are any use to a writer ("20240826 Using Rare Words" ). Can a writer realistically use these words? Well, there is an issue – most people do not know what these words mean. That means, unless the context is clear, the word is going to bring the story to a halt. Having said that… in a novel I try to use one or two little-used words. That is in a whole novel. Just because I can. But that is not why we’re here today.This post is about using words properly. I could say, “His mouth was arid,” or, “His mouth was parched.” The second is more correct and I would think most writers would recognise that even if they didn’t completely understand why. And when it comes to our vocabulary, we need to make sure that the words we are using mean what we think they mean. If in doubt, use a dictionary. I would recommend one of those paper ones; while there are some online that are reasonable, I am a stickler for using the OED. Still the best. So, feel free to pop in random long words, but do make sure they mean the right thing for your story. Then we have random foreign words. You need to make sure that they mean exactly what you think they mean. And, more to the point, you need to ensure grammar is correct. Here’s an example from a work I read here at WdC. “Ego occidere meus filius.” Latin. Sort of. It means, “I my son to be killed.” I think the writer was going for “I killed my son.” That would be, “Ego filium meum necavi.” What the writer did was plug each word into a translator. But Latin is declined and conjugated, and the writer had no idea how that worked. If you are having a supposedly native speaker make such fundamental errors, it just feels pedestrian at best. It is worse with Japanese. We see a lot of Japanese and unless you speak the language and know the difference between idiomatic Japanese and formal Japanese, you could well make some huge errors. Do not trust online translators; ask someone who speaks the language. They are easy enough to find in this day and age. “But no-one speaks Latin!” you cry. Wrong! I do! And I am not the only one – Latin is still the official language of Vatican City, for example. Vatican radio is broadcast in Latin. If it’s a language, there is a speaker. Except ancient Egyptian. We don’t know how that sounds… but we do know how to write in it. And remember, just because a word is spelt correctly, it does not mean it is the right word. Or is that write word? Maybe rite word? Beak oars… or because. Dessert or desert. Homophones are the bane of many a writer. Make sure you use the right one! The homophones most commonly messed up that I see are: to, too, two there, their, they’re weather, whether, wether right, rite, write course, coarse your, you’re by, buy, bye stationary, stationery compliment, complement brake, break here, hear peace, piece whole, hole stare, stair know, no higher, hire then, than its, it’s There are many more, but these seem to be the ones I have seen mixed up the most often. So when using any word, foreign or English, make sure you know that what you are writing is correct in context, meaning and situation. Ask people. Read a dictionary. Make sure you know what is going on. It will make your story the best it can be. |
| What Of What? On Naming This is a thing that you see a lot in fantasy or science fiction, though it does occur in demonic horror as well. It is when the name of someone or something is an “Of” name. This is something becoming increasingly common, thanks in no small part to Game Of Thrones, but it traces its lineage back to Norse sagas, so much so that the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV show even made fun of it in the early 1970s, in the little-known 'Njorl's Saga' sketch (the only link I found to it was not available outside Australia... sorry!). This when every single thing is “of” every single other thing! It appears in names, in titles and even in passing. So, first we have Name Of Place. This is normally used as a name in its own right. And it has real-life precedents, like Joan of Arc, Catherine of Aragon, etc. Some surnames started as this. Simon Beaumont means Simon Of The Beautiful Hill, for example. Next, we have Person of Place. This when a name isn’t used, but the occupation or something else about the person of a place is used. The Phantom Of The Opera is a classic example here, as is A Princess Of Mars. This leads to relationships, as made fun of so sharply in the Monty Python sketch. Arthur, King Of The Britons, or Elizabeth, Mother of Elizabeth (the Queen Mother for those of a certain vintage). Again, some surnames show this. Dermott O’Brien is Dermott, Son Of Brien; John McTavish is John, Son Of Tavish. There is object of place, like Sword Of Shannara, Colossus of Rhodes and the like. There is object of person, The Picture Of Dorian Gray being the most obvious example. Title of something is next; think Lord Of The Rings, Prince Of Pop, that sort of thing. And finally we have Thing Of Thing, like Attack Of The Clones. And then there are adjectives thrown in (The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and the use of articles {the, a, an) can also add to the complexity. It is something that is not going to go away, but it is becoming more and more difficult to take such naming conventions seriously. And it persists, especially in the titles of sequels (think The Rise Of Skywalker here). While it still works in parody pieces, elsewhere it is really starting to become cringy. So it might be something to be aware of when naming your characters or objects, or else you might make your readers roll their eyes. Or… The Readers Of Works will have the Rolling Of Eyes at the Strategy Of Possessive Naming in the Writing Of Speculative Fiction for the Amusement Of Media Users. |
| Naming Characters I was asked this question the other day by someone who recently finished one of my books. Apparently she felt the names I chose suited the characters. So… how do I choose the names of characters? Okay, ignoring alternate world/ reality fantasy, when I start a story, I use the following names: FXX, FYY, FZZ for women and MXX, MYY, MZZ for men. This is for main characters only. Minor characters get given names that just “feel right”… but the “search and replace” function in MS Word means I can easily change those names later on if one doesn’t seem right any longer as the story progresses. So, the more major characters. I have four methods of choosing their names: - I use the meaning of the name and relate it to a dominant trait of the character; - they remind me of someone I know in real life; - they remind me of a character from a film or TV show (not book); &/or - I use the inverse of any of these. And that is first names. When it comes to surnames which I tend not to place too great an emphasis on (and that is just a personal thing; some of my novels have characters without a single surname between them!), there are only two methods I use: - the meaning of the surname and cultural background; &/or - a name that just sounds good in conjunction with the first name. But, again, surnames are not the biggest thing I worry about. So… fantasy. The names all mean something. All of them. I take Latin, Greek, Italian, Germanic, Norse, Celtic, Old English, French, or (lately) ancient Egyptian words and turn them into names. In the world most of my fantasy is set in, there are certain name endings based on the part of the world the people would come from. In other cases, I make decisions on endings based on the language I use most of all to create the names. I also collated a list of the names of deities from cultures. Some readers may be aware that I have spent over a decade writing a book about the monsters of myth, legend and folklore. Well, in high school, I spent 6 years doing the same thing with deities. But I gave that up because of “reasons”; the monsters thing now has taken over. Anywho, I still have that list of around 3000 gods, goddesses and androgynous beings, plus their spheres of influence and their culture, including an index. And all this hand-written… I was such a weirdo. Anyway, I will sometimes choose the name of a deity that suits the character’s personality or job or something, change it a little (sometimes, but especially if Greek, Roman, Norse or Egyptian) and use that. I find that names are important for my characters. However, I also keep tabs of the names I use. I have a spreadsheet of every single name I have used in a completed story, and how many times I have used them – male, female and surname. This way I can make sure I don’t use the same names too often. This hasn’t stopped me overusing some names, but I try not to. When it comes to fantasy names, I also keep tabs of where those names come from to ensure I do not overuse the base word too often. Some writers feel little about names, and that is fine. I’m not saying every name should mean something or be a character hint or have deeper meaning. What I am saying is this is how I do it. Oh, and where do I find the meanings? When we had kids, we got a baby book, one which was organised in two ways – meaning and name. It’s that simple. |
| Using Holidays In Writing We have just finished the Christmas holiday break, or Hanukkah or whatever other celebration there is. You could also add Easter, then the country-specific celebrations – July 4, ANZAC Day, bank holidays, etc. – and you have quite the list of different holidays. So, let’s use them in our writing! That is perfectly fine, but the writer must be aware of a few things… One – cultural elements If you are writing for a very niche market, this can be ignored. But, more and more, the world is becoming interconnected, and so my talking about ANZAC day will confuse USians, and people like my son’s friends have no idea why USians celebrate July 4 (at least one thinks it’s just your equivalent of Guy Fawkes and think someone blew up your government or something). Even a universal celebration like Easter has cultural differences. Australians have an Easter bilby, and we tend not to go to church, for example. Christmas for Australians is about heat and sport. What this means for a writer is that you may have to put in some notes of explanation so that every reader knows where you are coming from. Two – expectations Readers will have some sort of expectations if a holiday features prominently. This means Christmas has presents and an element of family, Easter has some form of chocolate or spring/autumn. Shops will be closed on a lot of holidays; emergency services will be stretched. The elements of a lot of these holidays are almost universal, and that expectation will be there in a reader straight away. For example, Die Hard is the source of argument over whether it’s a Christmas film. It is. Why? Because it could only happen at Christmas. There is an element of a man and a strained family life. There is a party where the employees gather near the end of the year. The streets are quiet because nothing else is open. The emergency services are struggling to cope. No-one is available to help. For all of this to be happening and it to make sense – Christmas time is the only time it could be happening. Therefore – Christmas movie! Three – time setting The joy of a holiday is that it can set the time of the year without having to be explicit about it. Even mentioning at some point that “Christmas was two weeks ago,” or, “They were getting ready for the next week’s Thanksgiving gathering,” gives a reason for things to be happening and sets a time in the year without having to say, “It was January the seventh.” And presents they get can even tell the reader the year. “We got a tamagotchi,” says mid-1990s. “We got a Playstation 3,” says mid-2000s. “We got a Nintendo Switch,” says last year. Four – selling work This is a little bit away from the content of a story, but the sheer volume of anthologies asking for Christmas, Easter, July 4 and Thanksgiving stories every year has not diminished in over a decade. I’ve been in 3 Christmas anthologies, for example. So having an overt setting of a specific holiday could well increase your chance of a sale, especially short story or poem. So, utilising holidays can be fraught with danger, but can also be quite rewarding and give your story a unique sort of element. Good luck! |
| Balance of too much and not enough Question from a regular blog reader (yes, I do so have regular readers!): I tend to write short. I like writing short stuff. But I'm in this writing class and they want a lot of what they seem to think of as details, but what seems to me to be endless descriptions. And a story I'd normally have at 1,000 – 2,000 words, they want made into 7,000 – 8,000 words. They say that's what readers want, and especially to be sure to use all the senses in every single scene. I think they even gave a rule of thumb to make sure you do all five senses every five hundred words, at a minimum. I do think it's important to use all the senses, but every five hundred words seems excessive… How do you determine the balance between enough detail to bring a reader into your scene and not too much to bore them? What a great question! First, I don’t know these people, but that sort of dictum seems to be very gatekeeper-ish of them. And saying “it’s what readers want” is patently false. I am a reader and it is certainly not what I want. The sweet spot for selling short stories is 3k-6k words, with 4k-5k generally a good length, though more and more publications have a 3k word maximum. 7k-8k is proving a hard sell in today’s markets. Next, the using of all five senses in every single scene. Do I be nitpicky and say there are actually anywhere from 8 to 20 senses, depending on who you listen to or read? Okay, I am a horror writer, and in horror writing you want to use all five of the main senses plus balance and time (so, 7 senses), but not all the time. It over-describes and takes away from the feel of horror. It can destroy the pacing. I have mentioned before that I am not a fan of rules in writing, especially something as prescriptive as “all five senses every five hundred words.” I have no issue with using the five-plus senses, but that much? The pace of the tale would be so slow. And there would be a lot of repetition. Does taste change that much? Smell? And, truth be told, I have never heard this “rule of thumb.” Finally, how do I determine the balance between too much and too little? I can’t say. It is just how it feels. Reading back, if it feels like I have not painted enough of a picture, then I need to add more. If I feel like I (the writer) want to skip bits, then I’ve put in too much. But the best way to work out if it works or not is simple: I trust my beta readers. I cannot stress how important they are for a writer, and this is just another example of that. So, thanks for the question, and I think this sort of writer gatekeeping is something that does no-one any service. In. My. Opinion. |
| External Writerings XII It's been a while, but the blog has just taken a back seat. I have a few more posts ready to go, but to start the year, let's finish last year! Here's the columns I wrote in December! Very local, about the markets in my area. Christmas movies people consider terrible but I think are fun... and the worst movie ever made. Review of the biggest selling Christmas album ever. Review of the Psychic Fair. Take a Christmas carol and turn it into a modern piece of music. Here's some examples. And some songs about a certain fellow in red with a slight weight issue. And, finally, the good albums from the last quarter of 2024. Clicking on these does help me. One click per IP address is accepted, no ad-blockers, and I get paid per click per article! And, you never know, you might even find some music or stuff you like! Or don't click. I'm not your dad. |
| 7 Factual Assumptions Debunked When it comes to knowledge, there are many things that we know from school, hearing it often enough in the media, even hearing it from experts. Well, I am here to crap all over some of these beliefs. The Food Pyramid The food pyramid was created in the USA by pressure from food companies and certain interested groups. For example, dairy is actually not needed; calcium can be gained from meats and vegetables. Something being more important than something else was purely down to who had the money and influence. Make sure you get a good amount of vitamins and minerals (following the WHO guidelines, not those of the USFDA), have equal amounts of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, and do moderate exercise 3-4 times a week is all you need to be healthy. Here is an example of some of the issues. Unfortunately, the man who went through this (Keys) cherry-picked data and sources of data to “prove” that saturated fat caused heart disease. He had studies from 22 countries, but only used the data from 7 of them, he ignored smoking, sedentary lifestyles and sugar consumption. This myth persists. Saturated fat in excess is not good, don’t get me wrong… but so is everything in excess. Even the new My Plate has issues (dairy is still there instead of calcium foods, and the idea of protein foods is confused), but at least they’re trying. Negative Reinforcement Negative reinforcement is not punishing someone who does something wrong. It is the removal of a stimulus, particularly an undesirable stimulus. So, a teacher giving everyone a lollypop for doing well on a test is positive reinforcement, as you are adding a desired stimulus; a teacher telling the class they have no homework for doing well on a test is a negative reinforcement. If the children were given electric shocks for doing badly on a test, that would be punishment, and is something entirely different. Lie Detectors Polygraphs are not accurate. Sorry. In fact, law enforcement knows this, as they are not admissible in many courts. In Australia, they are simply not used or regarded. The problem is that when faced with a random polygraph test, a person can enter a panic state that makes them fail. See, polygraphs measure anxiety and the alleged science behind them is that lies make people anxious. But these people are not lying – they are just anxious. Yes, telling a lie makes someone anxious, but so does being accused of something they have not done. And especially being strapped into a bloody great machine! Caffeine, illness, tiredness and withdrawal symptoms all cause false positives on a polygraph test as well. People who claim they can tell if someone is lying through a polygraph are, well, lying. Law Of Averages We all know that flipping an evenly weighted coin should come up 50% heads and 50% tails, with each result a 1 in 2 chance. However, this also means that there is a 1 in 16 chance of four heads in a row. So, if we toss a coin and get 3 heads, then there should be a 15 in 16 chance of the next being a tail. Right? Well, no. It is still 1 in 2. This is because each coin toss is independent of the others. Independent events do not change their chance of happening because they are grouped in with other independent events. So, yes, while 4 heads in a row is improbable, each independent coin toss still has a 1 in 2 chance of producing a head. The results of the previous coin tosses do not change that simple fact. Here’s another example – a roulette wheel has 40 or so (I don’t gamble, I don’t know for sure, but I watch TV) slots. That means that every number should come up every 40 spins, right? And the idea that the same number comes up twice just cannot happen, right? Well, no on both. Each spin, each number has the same 1 in 40 chance of being landed on. Just because it landed on 25 on one spin does not mean it cannot land on 25 on the next. The chance is still 1 in 40. Relying on the law of averages is called The Gambler’s Fallacy… and looking for patterns like that leads to big losses. Evolution I do understand that some people refuse to accept this as a concept, and that’s fine. Ignoring and rejecting science is something people have always done, and I will just refuse to accept they are thinking properly. Evolution is the development of new traits in a creature that are passed down to subsequent generations if that trait turns out to be useful. Evolution does not have an end-goal of striving for something that is the best – evolution is a process by which organisms adapt to their environment. For example, flowers became colourful because the brighter ones originally gained the attention of the pollen-spreaders, and this brightness, over millions of years, became colour. That is simplified (evolution is very complex), but that’s the idea. And just because some members of a species develop a trait does not mean those that do not die out. Some finches have developed large bills to crack through seeds, but the original finches that eat other parts of a plant still exist. That small group had their trait and it worked for them, but the original group did not die out. The successful traits being passed on is the basis for natural selection. That is like me saying, “Well, me and my family exist, why do I still have fourth cousins?” Unless something happened to wipe them out, they will still be there. Yes, many original species do die off, but so do species without evolutionary successors. Nothing followed the Triceratops, for example. And I’ll add this here: “If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” is something people who have no understanding ask. First, read the previous paragraph. Second, man didn’t evolve from monkeys. Man and monkeys share a common proto-primate ancestor. Man and chimpanzees were the last to break apart, and the creature before them broke away from what became the great apes before that… and so on. Ancestors, not animals we see today. Theory A theory in science is an explanation that is based on evidence, both empirical and/or experimental, can be observed, and stands up to constant testing. A theory in science is something that is accepted and leads to the laws of science. A theory in philosophy is a rational look at an abstract concept with the hopes that this will explain it or offer an explanation. They are different. The confusion comes when things are called “sciences” that are not. Pseudoscience has the prefix “pseudo-“ (false) for a reason. They are baloney. You might believe in them. That’s great. But it is belief, not fact. And, no, anecdotal “evidence” is not factual evidence. There are a number of psychological phenomena to explain the vast majority of these happenings. But, still, confusing theory with guess leads to my theory that the person doing that needs to be better educated. We Use 10% Of Our Brains So, apparently, humans use only 10% of our brains. If we use it all, then we can get psychic powers! Only vegans can do this! Honestly! Not true. It has been disproved over and over again. Simply put, if we only used 10% of our brain, then brain injury would not create that great an issue. And why would evolution allow this? Brains use a lot of energy – if we only used 10% of them, we would have been over-run by chimpanzees ages ago. Or penguins. MRI scans have proved that most of our brains are in use all the time. Even when asleep, over half (that is more than 50%) of our brains are working. The human body is a stupidly complex machine. The brain is its CPU. Not using most of it makes no sense. I think 7 is enough. And I think this is another example of the Internet not being the be-all and end-all of everything. You will find all of these espoused online. That does not mean they are correct. Like every user-curated thing, the Internet is full of rubbish, especially where science is concerned. You need to do your research in actual places where the knowledge is tested, studied and curated properly by people who know, not your aunty who read it on Facebook. And, yes, I am fully aware that most of these things predate the Internet, and that brings me to my second point – don’t trust the media, like newspapers, either. Money talks and stupidity reigns, and the Internet is the latest bastion of both. |
| When Authors Demand To Be Heard Sometimes an author has something to say, something they think is vital and important. They have very strong views and feelings about a topic. But what can they do? Hang on! That’s it! They are a writer! They’ll write it down! I am going to guess that a lot of writers have felt this way. I mean, writing is what we do, so why not use it? And so we write an essay, a “letter to the editor”, a blog post, an article, a poem, even a social media post, something like that. All good. And with our skill as writers, we can probably put forth a compelling case to an audience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However! Sometimes an author really does seem to have a barrow to push, and a simple op-ed piece in whatever format is not going to be enough. This is when the author resorts to brow-beating a reader with what is on their mind in the course of a work of fiction. Yes, the theme can be whatever the author wants, and an entire story can push that along, and that is perfectly fine. But then there is the thinly-veiled author-insert character. This character has one purpose in a work and one purpose only – to espouse the beliefs of the author. In extremes, this can result in a series of scenes where the character gives speeches about whatever it is the author has their bugbear about. Or, in some cases, give one long, long, lo-o-o-ong speech spanning pages of a work. But it can be worse. Oh, yes, it most definitely can. This is when the author just dumps a diatribe in the middle of the story as part of the narrative prose. Not a character speaking, just some vague connection to the topic, and the author goes off on a rant. Again, pages can be wasted on this, and it really does break a reader’s immersion. When an author does this with a short story, it can kill any flow the work might have had. In a novel or longer work, it can result in skipping pages or readers giving up. And you would be surprised how often this happens. I have read a book where the author avatar character suddenly goes off for over a page on why Christianity is the only true religion. Fine, sure… if this was a religious book. It was science fiction, and religion only came up because they rescued a Muslim! And religion played no part in the rest of the book. At all. If the character had put it forth that was his view, that could have been fine, though, again, it had no impact on the story nor even on the character’s being. He certainly didn’t do things in a particularly Christian way. It was just the author throwing it in to show everyone what he felt. Look, as writers we can put whatever we want into a work. That is our right and that is perfectly fine. But if you want an audience to read your work and not be put off, these sorts of author diatribes should be avoided in an inappropriate setting. Use your skill as a writer and craft an entire story around your belief or the cause for you to rant. Don’t just blurt it out all at once in one long passage of you telling the reader what to think. In my opinion. |
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