John C. Wright's Journal

My beautiful and talented wife has another post on writing advice from writers to writers. She explains the trick of writing.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/95601.html

There is, when you right down to it, only one trick in writing, which she here calls "the trick." It consists of raising the readers expectations, but satisfying those expectations in a logical yet unexpected way. The trick is that anything has more effect if the reader things the opposite is about to happen.

If you only learn one thing about writing, learning the trick the one thing you should learn.

The trick when applied to plots is called plot twist; when applied to character, is called three-dimensionality; when applied to theme, is called wisdom; when applied to word-choice is called contrast.

Myself, I can only think of one time (her article does not mention this exception) that the trick is not to be used. If you are writing a pagan tragedy of Nordic seriousness, and every line and word of your art is pressed into the service of conveying a mood of inescapable doom—if nothing can avert the Twilight of the Gods, then every omen must morbidly point to it. However, this is a rather rare exception, and applies more toward the kind of mood piece you might find in the horror genre.

However, even there, "the trick" should and could be used to create contrast even in small ways, even if you are writing a mood piece that admits of no mood changes, because even if there is no plot twists, there is still character, theme, and wording.

I am reminded of the heartbreaking line in Disney’s version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Just as the beast lay dying, Belle, holding the wounded monster in her arms chokes back her tears and says, "It’ll be alright!" — much sadder than if she were to say, "Farewell, sweet Prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." (That there is an immediate and magical eucatastrophe the moment the Beast breathes his last is another example of the trick; when in that same moment, Belle stares not in amazement, but with her eyes narrowed at this news and shining man, standing where her beloved beast just stood, is another example of the trick).

Friends, if you want to learn about story-telling, you can do a lot worse than looking at how Walt Disney crafted his work. Those who sit in the seats of the scornful will never understand the enduring and worldwide popularity of Disney characters, until they look at how he did what he did by way of story-telling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYLN7llAFt4
I saw this show when I was in China, and was struck with infatuation for with it even though I could not understand a word. I have since found a subtitled version and am even more infatuated.

The plot concerns a wastrel pawnshop assistant (who, unbeknown to himself is the reincarnation of a god hunted by the dark lord of the demon world seeking to conclude their cosmic duel) which, finding a fragment of jade fallen from heaven is pulled into meeting the willful yet beautiful daughter of the local ruling family (that, unbeknown to herself, is a foundling with magical hair) and in order to defeat an uprising of music-controlled poisoned zombies, have to find the flower-spirit who turns into a potato when she is exhausted, but accidentally meet the Taoist martial-arts zen-magician monk (who, unbeknown to himself, will achieve immortality in his current life unless his immortal beloved, an absurdly beautiful snake-deity descended from the benevolent earth-goddess, manages to find and re-ensnare him in love and the cares of this world) when his ghost of his (the pawnshop assistant, not the Taoist monk) sister from a previous incarnation appears (who, unbeknown to herself, can transform into a red-garbed demoness-archer, which evil fate came upon her after she sacrificed herself to create the demon-sword to save her brother, or, rather, her brother’s previous incarnation, back when he was a prince rather than a god) when the Taoist sage which the pawnshop guy sees in his dreams discovers his ability to command the Smog of Dark Souls from the Demon-Binding Pagoda, he send them to find the Five Elemental Pearls, and…

No. It is too much. I will sum up. The thing you like in D&D games, superhero movies, ancient epics, Chaucer, Three Stooges Comedies, and Greek Tragedies is all here, wrapped up in a package of wushu wire-fu goodness. There is also surfing on swords through the clouds. I am not explaining the scene where King Kong fart butt-smog on them, then turns into the Monkey King, but I will mention the flower fairy turns into a potato.

I hope it comes to the States sometime in your near future. In the meanwhile, there are sites out there on the Internet were you can find translations, including here: http://www.viikii.net/channels/goto/chinesepaladin3

The skeptical doctor has published this piece in the Daily Express, which I reprint here without comment

From: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/145370

Christianity has been demoted by the political class

Friday December 11,2009
By Theodore Dalrymple

BY FAR the most significant thing about the case against Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang was that it reached a court of law in the first place. This evangelical Christian couple who run a hotel were accused of making derogatory remarks about the religion of one of their guests, Ericka Tazi, a Muslim convert, and thereby spreading religious hatred and contempt.

Mrs Tazi was found to have exaggerated the couple’s verbal abuse grossly but the fact that the case was thrown out of court should not blind us to the insidious and creeping reign of terror that the Government has introduced in Britain by facilitating this kind of prosecution.

While the criminal justice system actively promotes real crime by its refusal to repress it vigorously, it attempts to make criminals of Mr and Mrs Vogelenzang because they expressed forthright Christian beliefs.

For myself I do not much care to be buttonholed by religious enthusiasts but in a free country that is a situation with which citizens must be expected to cope on their own without resort to the courts.

Apart from this, however, there is the strong suspicion that if the boot had been on the other foot, if the Vogelenzangs had complained about remarks made by Mrs Tazi about their religion, no case would have come to court.

THE reason for the difference in approach is an officially-sponsored indifference or hostility to anything which might be considered part of the European and British cultural and religious heritage, combined with a tender regard for any non- European and non-British cultural heritage.

This is now so marked a trait that it could almost be called racist. No British minister would go to Brick Lane in East London and say it was horribly Bangladeshi but a British minister had no compunction at all in complaining of an institution that it was “horribly white”.

British intellectuals, as George Orwell once remarked, have long harboured a hatred of their own country and its culture. This attitude has deeply infiltrated the political class and has therefore come to affect legislation. All cultures are equal except ours, which is the worst.

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A reader asks: A few years ago, you posted a link to an article talking about early speculations into the impossibility of space travel (something about how, in the vacuum of space, there will be no air to react against or some such). I’ve tried to locate it, and seem to have been unable to. Do you recall what it was? Thanks!

A: Yes. Here is the article I wrote: http://johncwright.livejournal.com/2008/07/16/ Full text is below.

I heard this story on Paul Harvey, and was so bemused, that I rushed home and looked it up. It is true. The NEW YORK TIMES has not changed a bit.

In 1919 Goddard published a monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes where he described the multi-stage rocket, and proposed it would be possible to send such a device out of the earth’s atmosphere and reach the moon. His idea was to set off an explosive charge during the new moon, with a flash brilliant enough to be seen by powerful earthly telescopes.

The January 1920 edition of the NEW YORK TIMES wrote an editorial calling Goddard’s knowledge and honesty into question.

Science fiction fans still chortle over this one. I recall a short story by A.E. van Vogt which dealt with a professor-astronaut trying to explain to dimwitted newspapermen that a rocket, to fly in space, does not need air for its explosive charges to push against. (Go, go gadget Internet! The story was "The Problem Professor", published as "Project Spaceship" in 1949. If you wonder what I mean by ‘professor-astronaut’, keep in mind that in SF stories, like the Wright Brothers, the inventor was usually the test pilot. )

The money quote from the 1920 TIMES article is this:

"… after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey it will neither be accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left."

It goes on

"That Professor GODDARD with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

Note the scare quotes to refer to Goddard’s chair at the college. But the TIMES now must question the great scientist’s honesty:

"But there are such things as intentional mistakes or oversights…."

The TIMES then turns from calling Goddard a liar to critiquing science fiction. Here is the paragraph:

" … JULES VERNE, who also knew a thing or two in assorted sciences—and had, besides, a surprising amount of prophetic power—deliberately seemed to make the same mistake that Professor GODDARD seems to make. For the Frenchman, having got his travelers to or toward the moon into the desperate fix of riding a tiny satellite of the satellite , saved them from circling it forever by means of an explosion, rocket fashion, where an explosion would not have had in the slightest degree the effect of releasing them from their dreadful slavery. That was one of VERNE ‘s few scientific slips, or else it was a deliberate step aside from scientific accuracy, pardonable enough in him as a romancer, but its like is not so easily explain when made by a savant who isn’t writing a novel of adventure."

Forty nine years afterwards—one year shy of half a century— on July 17, 1969, the New York Times published a short item under the headline "A Correction," summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding:

"Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is nowdefinitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error."

Of course, this was one day after the launch of Apollo 11.

The TIMES is good-natured about the old mistake, mentioning that this principle has been known since Newton. But the TIMES is, as it turns out, behind the times: centuries late when it comes to physics, and decades when it comes to printing their retractions. (Better late than never—they still were swifter than the Roman Catholic Church pardoning Galileo.)

Just keep this sort of thing in mind when you read newspaper stories about stem cell research, global warming, the ‘Star Wars’ strategic missile defense initiative, diet fads, Alar, DDT, the ozone hole, or any other bit of science reporting. The newsmen really don’t know what they are talking about, and they like to sneer as if they did.

I just got a Christmas card from Lydia van Vogt, widow of grandmaster A.E. van Vogt, who was wishing me (and herself) good royalties for NULL-A CONTINUUM.

Now, I am not sure this is a milestone in my attempted SF writing career, or in my attempted human being career, when I have been trying to produce some human sympathy and kindness from my chilly Vulcan heart, but I should like to think the second is more significant than the first. My hope is that my impersonating it, it will slowly yet unexpectedly come to be real in me.

Because of that inevitable rule of authorship which requires that an author’s own personal favorite of his books is his least well received, I assume that my NULL-A book was lapse into obscurity more quickly than my other work–fame is fleeting, perhaps by cosmic design–but I am grateful to the Providence that decides these things that I was allowed to speak with Mrs. van Vogt, even though I have yet to meet her face to face, for her enthusiasm for the project, and her kindness in allowing me to do it, in other words her faith in me, sustained me where otherwise mere mercantile calculation of my chances of making a sale would have bid me quit. For that I am grateful.

Sf writer David Nickle writes of Peter Watts’ beating and arrest, and asks for friends, fans, and colleagues to help. I am not a friend, but I am a fan and colleague, and I certainly think the man needs the best legal representation he can afford.

I am disabling comments for this post, because I expect some readers will be tempted to speculate about the guilt or innocence of the parties involved, and I regard such speculation as unseemly. If you want to express sympathy, the most pragmatic way of so doing is to contribute to Mr. Watts’ legal fund (the whimsically named the Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund) which is Here.

(Hat tip to John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow where I first heard of the arrest.)

This is David Nickle :

Reprinted from KGBMan’s blog. Comments below are his. I am merely sharing the bad news:

15 Catholic Senators voted against the Nelson amendment.

Washington D.C., Dec 11, 2009 / 06:29 am (CNA).- A total of fifteen self-described Catholic Senators voted to table the Nelson-Hatch-Casey Amendment, which would have significantly restricted abortion funding from the Senate health care bill.

The Amendment failed by a 54-45 vote on Tuesday. It was co-sponsored by Democrats Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania, who were joined by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Senator Nelson is a Methodist, Sen. Hatch is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Sen. Casey is a Catholic.

Besides Sen. Casey, Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware was the only other Catholic Democrat to vote against tabling the Nelson Amendment. Sen. Kaufman replaced Sen. Joseph Biden when he became the Vice-President of the United States.

I’m reminded of something Fr. Corapi once said: "The USCCB says there are approximately 65 million Catholics in this country. If there really were 65 million Catholics here, then this country would be far, far different than it is today."

Many people – including many Catholics – don’t understand why it is appropriate to deny communion to people who are visibly not in communion with Rome. They call it "politicizing the Eucharist." I suppose it could appear that way if you’re looking at it from a purely this-worldly view. But denying communion to a public sinner is the best thing you can do for the sinner. The same goes for excommunication: it is meant to awaken the sinner to his true condition and hopefully spur him to repent, confess, and do penance.

For the record, I would absolutely ask someone who was visibly and vocally not in full communion with the Church to refrain from receiving our Lord for the sake of my own soul, but most of all for theirs.

My beautiful and talented wife has another entry in her bounteous supply of advice and tips to writers and would-be writers.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/94453.html

One advantage of being married to a authoress / editrix is that when I am out of ideas for my novel (which is frequently) she is fruitful with ideas to make up the defect.

She speaks here of what she called the "two strings technique" which is, in every character have a personality trait that goes against the grain of all his other traits, in every scene have each event trail side-effects that increase the tension, have every solution foreshadow a next and deeper problem.

Even in role playing games (for those of you who serve as dungeon-masters but not out of modules) drama can be increased merely by making sure each character has two things in his life that contradict. This is particularly easy to do in something like WORLD OF DARKNESS or DICELESS AMBER, where plot-conflict is built into the structure of the game. It is simple. Have the player character be assigned by King Oberon to guard the Grand Pattern of Amber or something. Merely having the player-character be told by his mother, Princess Fiona, that she will blow his brains out through the back of his skull by sheer psionic willpower if he does not cooperate in smuggling his half-brother Judas past the dungeon guards and onto the pattern: and then be told by his father Prince Benedict to expect sudden death via swordblow at his hands (one metal, one flesh) if anyone — but especially that bastard Judas son of Caine whom Benedict has particular cause to hate — sneaks past the guardpost and onto the pattern. Then have both parents warn him not to tell anyone that they are secretly married, such incest being strictly against Oberon’s law. Then have Caine visit the character on a moonless night and start asking prying questions about his parentage. You see how it works.

Of book, characters in books can be put under a lot more pressure than role-playing players, and their two (or more) plot threads can pull them more vehemently in opposite directions, because book characters cannot up and quit the game when it gets discouraging. "OK, you are playing Frodo! You have a magical treasure of epic power! Your mission is to destroy it! And the only place to destroy it is the Dark Land, a landscape which looks like its partway terraformed to match the surface conditions of planet Venus! And the Dark Land is guarded by hordes of Turks and goblins, giant spiders, and deathless wraith-kings, and their Sultan is an archangel of Hell, who is disembodied, invisible, malign, and is also a necromancer — and he can attack your mind from here. Boromir betrays you! He is twice as tall as you and nine times as strong. Roll your saving throw!"

An interview with Andrew Klavan I found very interesting:http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/11/andrew-klavan-my-way-into-and-out-of-the-left-by-jamie-glazov/print/

Klavan: If I were still capable of being appalled by them, I’d be appalled, but as it is… well, I don’t know how you shrug in print but picture me shrugging. So desperate are they to display their tolerance, to claim virtue and open-mindedness for themselves, so secretly ashamed and guilt-ridden and self-hating are they, I guess, that they will give aid and comfort to a philosophy that turns everything they’re supposed to stand for on its head. Anti-female, anti-gay, anti-religious liberty, anti-humanity, radical Islam is a cancer on the face of the earth. Ignoring it, pretending it isn’t there, moral equivalence, relativism – all the various forms of false piety in which the left specializes – are as helpful with radical Islam as they are with other cancers. It’s like having your doctor say, “Yes, there’s a spot on your x-ray, but let’s not do anything about it, in case we make it angry or seem biased!” Academics, entertainers, wealthy elites like Michael Moore who think Islamists are going to like them, spare them and their limousines and their millions, because they’re such ever-so-good people… well, they’re like the intellectuals who lined the streets of Vienna to welcome Hitler. The next day, they were gone.

[…]

FP: You mentioned that leftists are “secretly ashamed and guilt-ridden and self-hating.” Can you expand a bit on this? What is it, in the end, that is at the core of the leftist mindset and belief system?

My comment: I had always thought that the reason why Leftist use the swearword "hypocrisy" as the catch-all phrase to accuse everyone they can accuse (those not accused of racism, that is) was merely that it was a nonjudgmental condemnation. "I do not and cannot live up to your standard, so I am fine: but you do not live up to your standard, so you are a HYPOCRITE!!"

This has several benefits:

One need not enter into a discussion of the merits or demerits of the standard — that would require honest intellectual effort — instead one wrenches the conversation into a discussion of the personality flaws of the opponent, and leaves the argument supporting one’s opponent’s position untouched.

Since hypocrisy is a hidden crime, one that takes place only in the heart, and since no one has firm evidence one way or the other about it, the argument about personality flaws can be expended endlessly: the accused can be accused of anything.

His protestations of innocence (should he be so naive as to make any) are merely taken as confirmation of his guilt. After all, hypocrites deny being hypocrites, do they not? So if a man denies an accusation of hypocrisy, that proves he is one!
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On my wife’s friend’s list, someone wrote:

My comment: the world is in sad shape when any portrayal of self-control,even of vampires wanting not to kill humans and drink their blood, is regarded with suspicion.

Hey! I’m Catholic. Why did you hold a conspiracy without inviting me? How can I join? I have my secret decoder rosary ready. If I am caught or killed, the Pope can disavow any knowledge of my actions.

Some of my nonfiction essays may soon be available at http://www.smartpopbooks.com/essay/511/

* May the Midichlorians Be With You from STAR WARS ON TRIAL
* Heroes of Darkness and Light from BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED
* Just Shove Him in the Engine from FINDING SERENITY
* ‘Twas Beauty Killed the Beast from KING KONG IS BACK

I also sold an essay about Wonder Woman to this publisher, but they are delaying publication until (if ever) the upcoming Wonder Woman movie (the one not being written by Joss Whedan) sees the light of day.

When I announced that I had sold a short story, someone guessed the editor and the anthology correctly, so there is no point in keeping it secret longer.

Here is the tentative line-up

“Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day,” Tori Truslow
“Lucyna’s Gaze,” Gregory Frost
“Crow Voodoo,” Georgina Bruce
“Lineage,” Kenneth Schneyer
“Eyes of Carven Emerald,” Shweta Narayan
“Hell Friend,” Gemma Files
“Your Name is Eve,” Michael M. Jones
“Dragons of America,” Stacey Hirons
“The Gospel of Nachash,” Marie Brennan
“Braiding the Ghosts,” C.S.E. Cooney
“Murder in Metachronopolis,” John C. Wright
“Fold,” Tanith Lee
“Where Shadows Go at Low Midnight,” John Grant

Jimmieny Christmas! I am going to be in a SECOND anthology with Tanith Lee! w00+! I am sure she is ashamed of being seen with me, as I am pleased with being seen with her.

I think people use swearwords more these days in part because we are a cruder, most blasphemous, uglier-soul people than our forefathers.

On the other hand, some things that happen these days cannot but provoke exclamations related to copulation, divinities, and the evacuation of the bowels, and the other things we hold sacred.

This is the national debt of the United States. twelve TRILLION and climbing. This is more debt than all previous debt in history combined.

When I posted this debt clock on 11/20, only a fortnight ago, it was eleven trillion.

That means your elected representatives, O ye generation of profligates, just ran up on the credit card the amount of money it would take to fight a five or ten wars the cost of World War II, $2091.3 billion (adjusted for 1990 dollar values) or run fifty or one hundred space programs the cost of the Apollo program, which was $25.4 billion. In two weeks, that is how much they spent of the money of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.