Positivity (And Happy Heartworms)

Ideas are like worms: you don't always see them, and they don't often look like much, but they are undeniably vital to the survival of their environments. Luckily for us, ideas don't live in the dirt, and aren't as prone to being eaten by birds.

Where the idea-worm lurks, instead, is among the winding words and wisdoms of a story.

Stories have all the advantages of dirt, being as ubiquitous in our culture as earth is to the ground beneath our feet. The author, like the gardener, cultivates this natural mass and draws from it beautiful works of their own. Every story, like every flower, is different.

Different also, like the worms that live in different soils, are the ideas in every story.

Stories provide the most direct routes to the heart and mind of every person, and the ideas we discover in our reading can touch us just as deeply as ideas we garner from personal experience. These ideas can go on to shape things vital to us: our opinions and priorities and beliefs about ourselves, the world, and our place in it. Most importantly of all, though, ideas can inspire us to do.

Everything, though, begins with the meeting of idea and heart. This, my friends, is what I am going to call the heartworm*.

The memorability of a book has a lot to do with the ideas that book conveys, the manner in which it does so, and the heartworms that produces. Even books that deal with the same subject matter are set wildly apart by their treatment of that subject matter; you can make a link from Othello to Mein Kampf if the only thing you're looking at is racism, for example.

However, it is that treatment of theme and subject matter that determines the kind of earth you're creating with your story, and the sort of heartworms that will live in it.

You always hear that you can't guess the author's views on a subject by the ideas in a book, but I'd be inclined to disagree. Whether or not it is the absolute truth of your opinion, the way in which you present an idea is nonetheless part of an organised, intentional effort to tell something to the audience - and that, in turn, will reflect a lot on their reaction to the story, the idea, and you.

This is where happiness comes into it.

I am a great advocate for positivity in all matters, but particularly those with an ideological basis. In debate, you're far more likely to get people engaged and interested in your idea if you present it to them in a manner that suggests that engagement and interest is welcome. This is not to say you pander to them - compromise rarely makes anyone happy - but you respect their right to disagree, and show you are aware of other aspects of this issue that you, perhaps, are not entirely capable of encompassing in your own right.

Do not simply put the worms into the earth and expect them to flourish. You have to put work into that earth, tinker and tamper and turn your thumbs black until it is best suited to showcasing the wonderful worms you produce.

A particular trend that I have noticed in the media of today - not just books, but newspapers, magazines, blog posts etc -  is their tendency toward inspring fear, anger and guilt. These feelings are not invalid, far from it, but I do not believe that success is something that can be founded in encouraging people to hate and fear things, ideas - and each other.

Vehement and extremist language is brilliant at doing what it does, but if you want to create an idea that really changes something, I do not believe the answer lies in making people afraid and angry at the world. Anger makes for a strong starting point, yes - but real change requires a dedication, a unity, and a belief that things can and will get better.

For my part, I want to see more happy heartworms - stories that inspire by example, that show people that, although a world may be full of awful things, that there is something to aim for, and improvements to be made.

I want stories that inspire, as well as critique.

I want stories that lead, as well as warn.

I want stories that not only show us an idea, but what those ideas can do.

I want to fill the world with happy heartworms, and see what the world can do.

~ Charley R

* - I am using this phrase in a purely metaphorical sense. There is no link between this post and the advocation of actual heartworms, which are horrible and painful and just about the worst things to advocate beside amateur dentistry and frostbite. For the love of pancakes do not Google these things**.
** - I warned you.

What Next: The Vote Goes To You!

Hallo everyone! It's me again!
I meant to go and post on my WordPress blog today, about my new project, but then I realised ... I don't have one. Well, technically I do - in fact I'm positively drowning under ideas right now! - but I have no idea which one to do. I can't possibly choose, because they're all so appealing in their different ways.

So, I thought, why not let the readers choose? I'm going to put up each option, plus a wee bit about the story and a few key words. The winner will be my new project!

Okay, so, here we go ...

Option One: "Hakel: Stories of the Past" -  A selection of short stories all about the lineage of one of my newly invented fantasy races. The making and breaking of the Myst-Hakel, from their humble beginnings and the first heroes who forged the beginnings of their legacy, to the height of their power - in which powerful families loved, lost, fought, feuded and, in the case of a line of misfit crossbreeds, saved the world quite by accident - to their tragic, turbulent end amidst the fire and grief of the Ending War.

Option Two (which I think I have posted about before): The great sprawling city of Scatterank is a whole new world to Deladier du Quenta, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the known world. His naivety leaves him utterly helpless in a world of glittering treachery and smiling, subtle brutality. Thankfully for him, he has the friendship of Rembrandt and a gang of misfits from every walk of life. However, when dark deeds start to rise from the blackest corners of the city, Scatterank is in trouble. And Deladier has a horrible feeling that some of it comes from his new friends' own pasts ...

Option Three: "Faith" - Faith is an orphan; she never knew her parents, and her beloved older brother Valiant has been dead for nearly two years - slain by the vicious Heathen who lurk forever at the Sanctuary gates. She lives with Gentle and her husband Loyal, friends of the family, and leads a sheltered life under the care of the almighty Church and their watchful Gods. But all is not as it seems, and soon cracks begin to dent Faith's idyllic life. And the biggest crack of all comes in the form of the person she loved and lost all those years ago. Valiant himself.

And finally...

Option Four: Ceridwen has been doing well for herself. She's got a profitable set of clients, a comfortable haunt and unofficial immunity from the law, granted by her dangerous reputation. With the help of her shadowy confidant Axis, she and her small troop of miscellaneous mercenaries focus mainly on bringing in the money and staying out of the way of the law enforcement squads. However, the discovery and unwitting rescue of a child puts them all in terrible danger, and Ceridwen will need all her cunning to save her friends - and, in fact, the government of the city itself - from anarchy.

The titles up here are only provisional, and I will most likely change them when I think of better ones :P
Now ... take your pick!