Charley In The Interwebz

Social media is, to me, one of those things - alongside Rubik's cubes and trigonometry - that I have extreme difficulty wrapping my head around. Probably because there's just so much of it. Seriously, there are more sites where I can tell people about my recently-purchased donut than I can shake the aforementioned pastry at.

Unfortunately, if I seek to become an author, a platform in social media is an adviseable place to start. Which means I need to stop chewing my knuckles and making iffy noises and get in there.

Luckily for me, despite being something of an under-rock-dweller when it comes to some forms of internet communication, I was born in the generation that finds their parents' slowness with computers an imponderable mystery. Having had a good rummage through the blogs of the authors that I follow (because, seriously, what don't these guys know?) , I have made myself a battle plan for lining up my platforms for the day when I will be besieged by hordes of hungry fans. Hopefully.

I've started at the top, and gone for the easy options. This blog is about two years old now, and while it started out as a somewhat childish board for me to test out my public writing skills, I have recently done some hacking and sleeked it out into the somewhat lopsided, HTML-eating source of merriment that you know and love today.

But, unfortunately, my innate powers of procrastination have slowed me up more than a bit. As if I didn't have real life to distract me, the prospect of managing multiple social media accounts is daunting for someone with limited internet access and a schedule that looks like it's trying to self-destruct from the inside.

Thankfully, I have wonderfully pushy friends to help me through the tricky bits. It is thanks to Miriam Joy that I have finally got around to the task (after battling extensively with Google, YouTube and a malfunctioning wrist)  of setting up my very own YouTube channel, CharleyRWriter - the link to which is now up there in the Links 'R' Us tab.

Also at Miriam's behest, I have finally got around to making myself an official authorly Facebook page - something that, with Miriam finally free of exams and St Mallory's nearing completion, was quite daft to be lacking.

From there, however, I find myself a bit stumped. I have no use for Twitter - I'd say that was more for celebrities who need to let their fans know tour dates, or comedians to entertain their adoring public than for teenage soon-to-be-undergraduates to mutter about conspiracies within UCAS and overcomplicated coursework instructions. Laziness also sets in a little - I can't be bothered with the upkeep of too many fortresses, lest the proverbial dragon creep up and bite me in the bottom on route between them.

However, I will say this: social media is awesome stuff. Not only can one keep track of one's friends, one's favourite authors, and all the new films one is itching to see, but from a more professional perspecive (not that I can talk yet *snort*) it's a great point for marketing. Surely the lofty universities will be just a little bit impressed when I tell them all about my writing-oriented blog, guest posts over at Mark Williams International, and how much all of you love me?

And, more than that, I get to meet wonderful people like you, my friends. I would probably still be scribbling half-finished stories on the back of my notebooks and never showing them to the world if meeting people like you hadn't inspired me to get up and go and do things and try things, and just "get out there" in general.

So now I turn the question over to you. What are your views on social media? Do any of you use Twitter, or have a YouTube channel? What about all those other imponderable pits of confusion, like LinkedIn and Reddit? Anyone want to enlighten me as to what in the name of biscuits those are about?

~ Charley R

Mary-Sues

I hate Mary-Sues. No, I don't hate them. I despise them with every outraged fibre of my incandescently furious being!

Everybody know what a Mary-Sue is? I suspect most writerly types (or just about anyone who reads, be it fanfiction or published books) will know what they are, but here's a little definition for anyone I've lost. They're characters (both original and, in fanfiction, already present in the story) who are, for want of a better word, perfect. They're gorgeous, they have exotic names, tattoos and birthmarks, they have earth-shatteringly awesome powers, everything they wear oozes sex appeal and they are so insanely wonderful that anyone who's met them for more than two or three seconds would give their life for them at the drop of a hat. And they always, always, get together with a mouth-wateringly gorgeous love interest at some stage.

Oh, but the author knows they can't risk creating a perfect  character, so they quirk things up with a heart-wrenching (*bleck*) backstory. Rape, abuse, kidnap, the death of family, friends, mentors and loved ones, unbreakable curses, amnesia and tortured thoughts of atrocities they're sure they're responsible for.

And angst. Immeasurable eternities of angst.

All this tragedy is supposed to make us sympathise with the character, while their awesomeness is there to encourage us to look up to and like them. However, it has the opposite effect. The character is not the independent, spirited, kick-ass heroine we want, but a weepy-waily little floozie who hurls herself at the nearest male and spends most of her time collapsed and sobbing in his arms from stress and exhaustion. Gary-Stues {male Mary-Sues - less common, but just as toxic} are just as bad - their overpowered hunkiness sweeps through opposition like a hot knife through butter, reducing formerly self-reliant women to fawning doe-eyed concubines that line up to get a dose of his godliness. That is, if he's not in the middle of a rage-fit or breakdown.

But that's not the thing that irks me most about Sues. Cool powers, funky tattoos and wonderful physiques are not a bad thing in a character - in fact, I find bland characters to be almost as bad as over-wrought Sues - but they don't make good stories. In original fiction, the plots can be so contrite and ridden with cliches, that it's not much of a plot at all, just a series of exploits during which our Sue can both show off their awesomeness and have huge angst sessions. It's very hard to worry for a character if you know they can just snap their fingers and blast the foe into a thousand tiny bits.

Also, in fanfiction especially, the presence of Sues tends to do horrible things to the canon. It's bad enough in their own world, but at least there the other characters are little better than cardboard cutouts are are unlikely to know any better. But in fanfiction, the wonderful, colourful people we know, love and root for, are subjected to the worst sort of torture. Their personalities are stripped away, leaving blank puppets that are utterly defenceless before the sparkly evil of the Almighty Mary-Sue. Harry is helpless without them, Kirk's eyes pop out of his sockets as his years of hard-won skills are surpassed in seconds, and Aragorn and Legolas are lowered to the level of squabbling over who loves them more. The reader is left horror-struck as their beloved story crumbles to piles of fluffy crap, punctuated here and there with a badly written sex scene or another display of the Sue's deity-status abilities. The story we love is gone, and we are instead left blundering through this awful, predictable ordeal whereby every one of the story's key events is squooshed beneath a mountain of glittery crap.

Oh Boromir, I am so sorry you had to come back from the death to endure an eternity thanking the Sue for saving your wretched arse while they stomp all over your city and watch as your people gaze up at her in puppy-dog adoration. So, so sorry.

And the worst part? It's all so easily avoidable.As if Sues themselves don't stick out like neon-painted toxic sludge monsters, there are a bajillion-and-three "litmus tests" out there that can help you spot Mary-Sues and warn you about their draining effect on a story. Here's the one I use, and I cannot possibly tell how useful it has been in helping me rescue one of my characters from Gary-Stu-ness, and placing a protective barrier between the rest of his story and a truly toxic fate:

The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test - Springhole.net

However, there is one thing that Sue-fics are good for. Sporking. These guys are the best of the bunch at turning an odyssey of agony into a non-stop LOL-fest: "Deleterius" Community - LiveJournal

Warning: bring tissues. You'll laugh until your brain dribbles out of your nose.

In the meantime, may the Supreme Spork keep you and your stories all safe from the dreaded Suethor.

~ Charley R

Under Construction

'Allo everyone!
If you hadn't already noticed (and I would certainly hope you had, because I tried to make it as obvious as possible), tharr be a new pagey-whatsit in the pane underneath the site banner. It's under construction at the mo, while I sort out layout, content, links and all those thingies, but hopefully it will soon be a fully-functioning little widget that will keep you updated on my writing-based madness. Most of my posts seem to be rather vague about exactly who and what I'm writing about, and gods know I call my projects so many things that it's impossible for anyone to keep track of them unless they're part dictionary. So, hopefully, when I've put everything in there, it should all become much more clear.

Now ... time to hunt out some linkseseses ...

-Spook

LOTR Parodies, Pure and Undiluted Silliness

In answer to the questions that are undoubtedly raging in your minds right now:

1 - Yes, I'm a Lord of the Rings nerd
2 - Yes, I have a weird sense of humour
3- Yes, I am posting these links in the hope you will find them as mind-blowingly, eye-poppingly hysterical as I do.

and 4 - No, there is nothing you can do about it.

BEHOLD!

http://laine.anime.net/Parody/Lotr/boredom.html

http://laine.anime.net/Parody/Lotr/twins.jpg

http://laine.anime.net/Parody/Lotr/zit01.html

http://laine.anime.net/Parody/Lotr/date800.jpg