#Aside from that... Well. See for yourself! Our Noble Protagonist. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

emberinmyheart · 6 years ago

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[ writing tips ]

( I am not the person who thought of all of these writing tips and ideas. Writing tips come from books such as Write Your Novel in a Month by Jeff Gerke, The First 50 Pages by Jeff Gerke, Writing Your Novel from Start to Finish by Joseph Bates and a tumblr account called @writingmastery . I do not take credit for any of this, this is just meant to help you.)

c h a r a c t e r s :

- making the characters

- what makes a good character/protagonist

- making the antagonist

- questions to ask about your protagonist

- things your protagonist must have

- supporting characters

p l o t :

- planning the plot

- theme

- outlines

d i a l o g u e :

- basic dialogue formatting

w r i t i n g s u g g e s t i o n s :

- how to get out of writer’s block

- how to get inspiration

[ c h a r a c t e r s ]

- making the characters -

1. Consider your character’s:

• Intelligence

• Natural gifts or talents

• Love language (how they express affection)

• Self-esteem

2. Consider your character’s physical traits, such as:

• Gender

• Age (at the time the story begins)

• Ethnicity

• Height

• Weight

• Hair style and color

• Eye color

• Complexion

• Teeth

• Eyesight

• Physical attraction

• Any deformities, handicaps or distinctive marks

• Facial hair (for male characters only)

• Clothing style (including sense of style)

• Accessories

• Jewelry

• Tattoos and / or piercings

• Contacts or glasses

or things such as:

• Hygiene

• Posture

• Vehicle they use (optional?)

because this can be a massive help when discovering a character’s personality. “How would your character’s personality be affected by the physical attributes you choose?” (Jeff Gerke, Pages 52, 53 & 54)

3. Consider your character’s background, such as their:

• Siblings — ages, names and relationship with hero

• Level of wealth or poverty

• Whether they lived in the city or the country

• Marital status of parents

• Culture

• Education

• Relationship with parent of the same gender

• Era

• Societal backdrop (war, famine, revolution)

• Country and region

• Parents — who are they? What do they do? What were their experiences with the hero in the past and present, and how have experiences with them molded the hero’s life? Are they alive? Are they dead? Rich? Poor? Alcoholic? Was the father a famous athlete the hero had to learn to be like, or never thought he could be like? Does this impact the hero’s relationship with their siblings, if they have any?

(Jeff Gerke, page 55)

- what makes a good character/protagonist -

1. Consider this for your protagonist/hero...

• The selfless hero. For example: “a single mother who works two jobs who works two jobs but still somehow manages to do homework with the kids and go out for ice cream once in a while, or a soldier who volunteers to stay behind to cover his buddies’ retreat, or the silent partner who lets someone else get the glory for the work that was actually shared.” (Jeff Gerke, page 36)

• The compassionate hero. “When someone reaches out in love towards another, it is considered a virtue. It follows that your reader will most likely resonate with a compassionate hero. Show them having mercy on someone when it was within their rights to condemn, or show them going through all kinds of trouble to get a crust of bread to eat, but then show them handing it over to someone who has even less than he does.” (Jeff Gerke, page 37)

• The generous hero. “We love the bighearted giver. Most of us wish we were in a position to be able to give like that, to support some person or cause we believe in. Show your hero secretly dropping a hundo into the subway musician’s tip jar or leaving a fifty dollar tip for the diner waitress or anonymously buying someone’s wares at auction to be sure he has money to live on.” (Jeff Gerke, 37)

• The charming hero. “If your character can make the reader laugh, you’ve got them. We all love charming, winsome people. They’re fun to be around. They make life a little less burdensome. Humor can be hard to write, so don’t stress if this isn’t the direction you want to go. But if you can create a protagonist that makes us smile, you have us.” (Jeff Gerke, 38)

• The sympathetic hero. One of the main ways to engage your reader is to make them relate and bond with your character until they’re attached. Characters can bring back your memories and trigger the release of feelings you’ve got pent up in your head and can help you navigate your own issues. “If you can cause your reader to feel sympathetic towards your protagonist, you’ve won. When you show that gaping hole of pain or loss, the reader leans in, rushing forward with compassion into that person’s life like air filling a vacuum. When we feel your hero’s loss or grieve with them as they fail once again to achieve a noble goal, we build an instant connection. Make us feel like this is someone who we would like who has just been dealt a terrible hand— but who nevertheless keeps trying— and you’ll have us.” (Jeff Gerke, 41)

• The unlikable hero. Some characters in best-selling books are unlikable characters, but they have something redeeming in them trying to get out. It’s the good that makes us tolerate them and even come to like them. Your heroes can be unlikable or have a lot of flaws, but they have to be somewhat likable enough for the hero to be attached to them and their story.

• The winsome hero. “One reason why readers can engage with these characters is that they find them endearing. They’re good souls, they make you laugh, and they’re gentle with others. Characters can be flamboyant and outrageous, but they’re delightful to be around. To make your reader attached to them in the first few pages, you’ll need to reveal this winsomeness to the readers somewhere in the first fifty pages.” (Jeff Gerke, 73)

• The smart hero. “Another way to make readers engage with your character is to make them smart, resourceful, clever or mentally agile. We value characters who can see straight through the smoke to the thing the smoke was meant to conceal. We delight in seeing a resourceful hero trying to climb to that pile of puzzles to tell us what they see from there.” (Jeff Gerke, 73)

“The way you can tell if characters are weak is by reading about fifty pages of a novel. If by then you can’t tell the characters apart aside for cosmetic things like gender, age, role, office, species, attitude or goofy accent, there’s a problem. If you could switch the names around in a dialogue scene and nothing seems out of the ordinary, the characters are weak. If the only difference between your characters is that one’s always mad and the other is always talking dirty, your book is doomed.” (Jeff Gerke)

- making the antagonist -

What does a antagonist need to become a good villain?

A good antagonist, or villain, usually has to:

• Be strong. “A strong villain makes for a strong hero. When a hero overcomes a weak villain, they’re not going to seem very epic to the reader. But have them overcome a galaxy-destroying psychopath with an army of flesh-eating undead giants under their command, and you might just have yourself a hero of legend.”

• Make the hero go through several stakes. When you look back at all of the notes you’ve made for your story so far, you may have a clear idea of what the stakes are. What might be the “OR-ELSE” stakes you can set for your book? According to Jeff Gerke (a very useful source for writing tips), “the stakes can be related to a goal, a relationship, safety or anything else. They can be objectively large (if the hero fails, Earth will be destroyed) or small (if the hero fails, the team won’t win the first game of the season), so long they are important to the hero— and thus the reader”. (Jeff Gerke, page 79)

- questions to ask about your protagonist -

When creating and rounding out your protagonist, there are some questions you must ask yourself first:

1. Who is your protagonist? “The events in your novel are only meaningful for the reader in terms of how and why they’re meaningful for a protagonist. The protagonist is the lens through what we see, and interpret, everything in the book.” (Joseph Bates, page 22)

2. What does your protagonist want, and why is it important to them? “A protagonist must have a clear goal in the book, as well as a clear motivation for wanting to achieve it... not just what they’re after, but why they’re after it, so that the reader feels a sense of personal stakes.” (Joseph Bates, page 22)

3. What stands in the way of the protagonist? “Which is to say, what conflicts will the protagonist face? As with motivation, these conflicts will sometimes be external, plot-level conflicts and at other times, personal ones.” (Joseph Bates, page 22)

4. What familiar genres or tropes are suggested by premise, and how will your novel both play with or against those expectations? “Every story idea will automatically get you thinking of certain genres the story borrows from. Finding ways to make these tropes seem new and unexpected will be much more enjoyable for you to write and for your reader to read.” (Joseph Bates, 23)

5. How does the world of the novel that your protagonist is in— its setting, rules, everything related to the book’s tone— help reveal or illuminate the protagonist’s quest? “A story’s world helps build a reader’s understanding of the character’s quest, meant to find a understanding of motivation, conflict and stakes. World-building is often one of the first aspects that’ll pop into our heads when we think of a new novel idea, and it’s very easy to get stuck into the world-building stage. But the world can only come into sharp focus when we see it as an extension of the character and conflict. We don’t build a world and then drop a character into it. We build the world according to our understanding of story and character.” (Joseph Bates, 23)

6. What personal, everyday questions or problems arise within the premise that you connect with and will explore over the course of the novel? “This is something that you’ll likely have to discover in the process of writing, not necessarily something you’ll likely know from the start, but it’s the everyday that allows the reader to connect with the protagonist and see something of themselves in the protagonist’s plight. As the everyday questions or problems begin to show themselves and repeat in the book, you’ll see themes emerge, which will help support and structure in the book.” (Joseph Bates, 23)

7. What is your character’s internal motivation; What do they really want? “Again, this might particularly be a question to ask of a flat protagonist, the result of a main character who seems motivated by nothing but plot-level or external circumstances; remember that your hero is also a person, like you or me, and consider what we’d feel in a similar situation. But don’t forget that even minor characters have motivations, and lives, and even arcs, of their own.” (Joseph Bates, 42)

8. How might you locate a character’s internal motivation and conflict if these may seem absent? “If your character’s motivation seems purely external, perhaps as part of their obligation as a job— if you’re writing a detective novel, and the character has simply taken on a new case— try to consider what it is about the change personally, that informs their professional work, how it influences their ability to do the job, or speaks to the reason they entered the profession in the first place. Also consider how this particular job is different from yesterday’s job, or tomorrow’s, or last year’s. Presumably part of what makes this job or case different that is personally different, there’s something personally at stake. How might that be the case?” (Joseph Bates, 43)

9. Are you playing both with and against type? “No character is 100% good or evil, kindhearted or callous, capable or clueless, so consider not only how to set up our expectation of character, but also how to subvert that expectation, how to complicate our view of a character.” (Joseph Bates, 43)

10. How is the heart of the character, the motivation, evident in a work you admire? “Consider this with any novel or work that means something to you, no matter the genre. Try looking back at the main character you find compelling and play armchair psychologist a bit, looking at how the external and internal motivation and conflict play with, or pay off of, each other.” (Joseph Bates, 43)

- things your protagonist must have -

1. A protagonist must be active and questioning. “The protagonist can’t merely be acted upon in your novel. Your protagonist has to engage the world instead of observing it. Too many beginning novelists tend to trade character development for world building. Once you fully grasp your character’s want, and why they want it, you can set them down a path of actively pursuing it.” (Joseph Bates, 36)

2. Your protagonist must evoke a connection with the reader. A reader’s relationship to a protagonist is generally one of sympathy, empathy or it’s because the reader sees their own life in the protagonist’s life. “In other words, we see something of our own lives, experiences and struggles related to the protagonist.” (Joseph Bates, 37)

3. The character must be connected to everything in the story. All those other aspects in the story are connected to the reader, too. The character should be bound to those other elements of the story. Theme, mood, description should all be focused through the prism of character. For some reason, readers want to see our characters be punished, destroyed and wounded, but these things aren’t as satisfying until they’re rewarded and end up triumphant in the end.

4. Tell us what the character (protagonist) wants. It is critical to know what a character wants from the start of the book. The character may not know what they want, but the readers and audience must have that information in order to read more of the story. Maybe, for example, she wants revenge, or freedom from oppression, or their child returned to them, or true love, or anything else that can be seen as a motivation— the reader must know what the character’s motivations are as well, because the readers need to know how far your character has come, what stakes are on the table and what obstacles are between them and their final path.

5. You must prove that your protagonist is worth your audience’s time.

- supporting characters -

1. Supporting characters either help or hinder the protagonist in meeting their goals. Some supporting characters can even end up being villains. “For example, some of the most well-meaning people in our lives try to help, and claim to have our best interests at heart, yet their well-meaning help sometimes ends up hurting. Likewise, people who stand in our way, even those who actively oppose us, can end up pushing us to do or be better. They have motivations of their own, and most supporting characters try to be helpful, but ends up complicating what the other characters are trying to do.” (Joseph Bates, 41)

[ p l o t ]

- planning the plot -

Your hero’s inner journey should have several stages.

These are some things you need to remember when planning out the plot of your story:

1. The hero must start with a problem. A inner journey starts with the hero’s problem. What is wrong in the character’s life? For example, “self-centeredness is often the “sin” chosen for heroes in modern stories. The hero is stuck on themselves, and this selfishness causes no end of problems for them. It deprives them of the life they could have if they weren’t so impressed with themselves. Other popular character problems are bitterness, ambition, pride and a desire for vengeance and/or vindication. But the primary problem that all heroes have is fear. Any from the array of fears and anxieties can propel your hero through a wonderful character arc. Fear of being hurt, or abandonment, or failure, or disappointing others, or loss, or being alone, or losing control, and of meaninglessness, not to mention neurotic fears (arachnophobia, agoraphobia, etc.), anger (which is fear in disguise) and depression (fear and anger turned inwards).” (Jeff Gerke, page 61)

2. The plot is about how the hero must notice their issues, wrestle with their issues and finally deal with their issues. It’s the hero’s chance to change themselves into a better person, from start to finish. “The plot is the stage upon which your hero undergoes their inner journey. Whatever the two forces battling it out inside your hero’s heart are, they’re probably invisible. When you’re thinking of plot structure, your starting point is your hero’s inner journey. Whatever it is they’re dealing with on the inside, that’s what the whole plot will be about.” (Jeff Gerke, page 87)

3. There are several stages in a plot. Examples of this would be events such as: we meet our protagonist, we see the location where the place is going to take place, we understand the protagonist’s goals, and we meet the villain. Beginning, middle and end are good starts for understanding the concepts.

4. In order for the hero to be shown the error of their ways, the author must show them a better alternative, first. Usually, the positive alternative future is the opposite of the negative possible future. What would be a healthy outcome for your hero?

5. There is always going to be an inciting incident in your character’s life. Something unwelcome is going to crash into your hero’s dysfunctional life— this is the inciting incident. Without it, your hero would keep plodding along towards their unhappy ending and go towards the ending you don’t want them to go. The inciting incident doesn’t have to be negative, although it usually is— sometimes, it can be a good thing that changes the character’s life completely. Of course, the character could see it as a blessing, but not while it’s happening. The inciting incident could be something that the character does welcome, but it ends up taking them to places they didn’t want to go. For it to work in the novel, the inciting incident must be powerful and must take the hero on their inner journey throughout the entire book. Our hero won’t immediately embrace the change, or else there would be no inner journey. They have to reject it at first.

6. Your character must have their own, inner journey. “In fiction, a inner journey starts off with a character in need of a significant change in their current life. The journey will then lead the protagonist directly to their moment of truth, which is the moment where the protagonist realizes they’re out of balance and must decide whether they’re going to stay with the imbalance or make the change that will reveal to them what their true self should be.” (Jeff Gerke, page 126)

7. There must be a escalation in the story. “The escalation happens between the inciting event and the moment of truth. This is the internal struggle in which the hero tries to hold onto their old, unbalanced way of living, while the new alternative begins presenting itself as a way back into love. During the escalation, your hero will be pushed and pressed and knocked about because they refuse to embrace the change that will result in their inner healing.” (Jeff Gerke, page 127)

8. You have to combine all of these aspects of the hero’s inner journey together to make the reader truly attached to the story. The cycle that all of these stages go through is starting off with the hero’s unbalanced situation. After the unbalanced situation, which is the hero’s initial condition, there is the inciting event, which is the one event that crashes into the hero’s life that leads to their moment of truth. Between the inciting event and the moment of truth is the escalation.

9. After all of these stages, your hero must have their final state. At the end of every journey, your hero must rest and face the result of her consequential decisions. The final state isn’t whether your hero won or lost, it’s the condition of your hero now that their inner journey is over. However, if your hero chose the wrong way, then the final state is something that is not peaceful or the right way to go. The final state will be good or bad, depending on the hero’s choices.

- theme -

1. Brainstorm a dozen ways to show off primary, secondary and opposite facets of your theme, and see how many of them you can elegantly work into those opening spreads. “You don’t have to cram them all in— you’ve got over three hundred pages to explore your theme, after all— but be sure you’ve begun planting those seeds early on. Such things make rereading a novel especially fun, because the second time, knowing where the book is going, you see things the author was doing to set us up for it, though we couldn’t see them the first time. Imagine it being like a film— in the early section of the film, the filmmakers would plan so many things that would have come to importance later. It’s a testimony to their prowess as storytellers that they were giving us the theme from the outset.” (Jeff Gerke, 207)

- outlines -

1. Outline your story with a beginning, middle and an end. “Each should have an emotional arc for your characters. I’m not talking about a synopsis of what happens, but more of what do they (the key characters) feel when it’s happening. This doesn’t mean that you have to know everything that is going to happen, but you need an arc. Point A leads to point B, then to point C. One thing people forget to do when they outline is define emotional growth, and therefore they forget that the story must include the emotional arc.”

2. Character outlines. “Who is the hero? Who is the heroine? Why do they fit your hero and help them be a better hero? Or vice versa? It is often the hero that helps the heroine and helps her find her way to the other side of a battle. Thus, he becomes a hero for her. Knowing your characters helps shape their responses and the external conflict.”

[ d i a l o g u e ]

- basic dialogue formatting -

There are different types of formatting, such as:

1. Dialogue silos. “In dialogue scenes, keep a character’s words and actions in the same paragraph. The reader understands that, when you change to a new paragraph, a new person is talking. The paragraphs take turns in line with the characters taking turns as they exchange lines of dialogue. Let each paragraph in a dialogue be a little character silo into which only words and actions from that character may be placed.” (Jeff Gerke, pages 138 & 139)

2. Beats. Beats are tools to manage the pacing of your scenes and to tether the scene to the setting. Just as you have to include rests in music, so you have to write beats into your novel, and you have to use beats of varying lengths to create those pauses for the readers. When you want something to proceed without a pause, take out all the words that come first. Without beats, your dialogue scenes are rushed and clumsy, and they become detached to the setting. Beats show us what’s happening in the setting of the scene. They give us the viewpoint character’s thoughts and perceptions, too. A beat implies a pause— if you want to imply a long pause, write a long beat. Short beats equal short pauses. (Jeff Gerke, page 25 & 27)

[ w r i t i n g s u g g e s t i o n s ]

- how to get out of writer’s block -

1. Have a word count goal each day. If you want to write more often than usual, you can set up a goal to write 1,666 words a day or more, depending on how much you want to challenge yourself.

2. Write wherever you go. Having a notebook or a iPad will come in handy when your mind starts wandering to scenes that you might forget later. You can take notes in your notebook or iPad (or any other device you can write or type your ideas down on), email them to yourself and then copy and paste when you get home.

3. Make multiple backups. When your notebook, iPad (or the thing you write down on) crashes or anything that makes you unable to use it, you may need to make backups so you can write on other things. Save it everywhere, or at least on three backups so that you can write whenever, wherever without a problem.

4. Use a timer. Time yourself, and then write down as many ideas or words as you can. See if this helps your inspiration and ideas grow into more complex ideas, and if it does, continue to use it. Surprisingly, most people tend to write faster when they’re being rushed. See if this relates to you, and if not, there are always other solutions.

5. If a scene isn’t working, delete it. Sometimes, a scene is much less forced if you simply let it drag you in the direction that it’s most likely to go. Just keep moving forward, instead of procrastinating by deciding what to write next!

6. Take breaks. Even though you have no time to lose, take a break if you need to. Step away from the phone and do something mindless. Sometimes, the gears in your head overwork themselves, pushing you too far down the rabbit hole, which is why you need to take a break every now and then to get rid of these little moments so you’re not tugging at the strands of your hair in agony when you get to a dead end.

#character design #writing #writing tips #writers #character tips #plot #dialogue tips #dialogue #books #character #character development #theme #antagonist #protagonist #outlines #writing inspiration

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readfelice-blog · 6 years ago

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Moominland Chronicles Siebzehn: infatuation is not a gift

Blog guide: all italics are my wednesday edits.

Before we begin:

Anyone who suddenly might be unexpectedly flush, my crowdfunding campaign has less than 24 hours left

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/acht-ocho#/

Well then, hello, no more letters lets return to moominland.

You might remember in my last chronicle that my bloody tale of woe was still in action, after many pills and spending time with a really wonderful gynaecologist who spoke about death with me - following my lead, (she didn't open an appointment with a death chat, I don’t think doctors are normally allowed to even think the word) it was finally determined I have chlamydia.

Surprise!

What fun eh?

I’m on antibiotics now, it should be gone by this weekend, and the bleeding stopped about 2 weeks ago after I started a combination of blood clotting pills and the contraceptive pill. My suspicions are it was stress, hormones and chlamydia that caused the gushing of blood, it would be an act of suicide on chlamydias part to deprive itself of so much iron, which it needs to survive.

So as inferred previously, the NHS would of caught this sti months ago, I would not of cost my insurance company thousands of euros or been subject to various ultrasound spy dildos and gleeful practitioners telling me I was pregnant rubbing their hands together in anticipation of jumping into my vagina, or surgeons hysterically clutching scalpels, so overjoyed to be operating again.

BUT, if I had dealt with my insurance issue diligently, and gotten a proper gynaecologist much earlier and done my research carefully, AND LEARNT GERMAN, this would also not have happened, so I can't deny my own responsibility in all of this either. I still retain my idiot abroad status, which I need to work on to be a proper functioning expat.

So, I’m lying in bed a bit nervous because I’m printing my first copies of my publication tomorrow to fly them to italy at the weekend: it’s Tuesday as I type this horizontal on my phone. As I'm away and just embarking on the next chapter of my project, the making it really real bit, I thought it best to get this log drafted and up before I go.

They’re done, some of the pages are wonky, but they look great actually.

Follow the diary of this project here:

https://felicezhukov.net/bocem-diary

(Because death lurks round every corner, it’s best not to have any unfinished business.)

It’s been quiet, I’ve been napping a lot and taking pills and cutting down salt, my social life has utterly ground to a halt aside from the occasional quick drink and my trips to the studio to practise the live element of this project, which has been revealing itself to me and making me consider myself in a new light, somewhere between a musical performer, a stand up comedian and just all out weirdo, but I’ll refine this at a later date.

What I want to talk about this week are the letters to Nicolás Jaar, but not as a letter to him. As thoughts directed into the macrocosm of the internet.

Because I finished ‘I love Dick’, at first I wrote a very clumsy synopsis and realised many of the critical details had passed me by, academic references sifting out of my mind like flour and swirling away into the air. It has made me realise I need to study what I read, but again that's a thought to refine later.

Still, I was left with a very strong impression which fermented inside me like kimchi and whilst sat in my kitchen earlier between courses, my eyes resting on candlelight, it struck me, the protagonist of the book, Chris, was bullying dick, suddenly it was crystal clear that her infatuation was never weathered by Dicks resistance, that Dick could be curious and still also be anxious about her attention, that victims make mistakes to. But she ploughed on, regardless of his protests, for a long time.

Now, my letters to Nicolás Jaar only lasted a matter of months in comparison, and did not include any colluders, but they were still deeply personal and troubled. Week after week I decried the suffering in my life, the cruelties I was facing, the emotional carnage of my break up and my alcoholism, addressing them to someone I’d formed an infatuation about solely on the impressions of his public persona and his music.

When I was 15 I was obsessed with the doomed relationship of courtney love and kurt cobain, as a the eternal odd one out with nowhere to go in the countryside I entertained myself by creating a character called enigma, who lived in New York. I drew hundreds of drawings of her in different attire that looked more like fashion illustrations than anything descriptive, my mum used to get frustrated at this waste of talent bound to repetition, and enigmas neck was always to long.

Enigma had a lover, called jake, chiselled jawline, a genius musician with a tortured soul, he seduced and slept with all of New York’s cultural elite, but he loved enigma. Though they stayed plural and their relationship was often fraught, they were absolutely bound together, forever destined to explode and then reassemble.

Jake didn’t kill himself.

That fantasy has taken new form, enigma looks like me now, but it is the foundation of every infatuation I develop.

Nicolás Jaar was in the middle of a grueling international tour, I mangled what I read about him into some kind of twisted connection between us, he was travelling the world to the backdrop of me destroying every last vestige of my life,in all senses of the word, selling and trashing my life’s work and possessions, leaving my husband, leaving my home of over 10 years.

Then In its closing chapters I retold and fictionalised a very unsettling story about murder and submersion, the whole thing taking an unsavoury twist with me paralleling beauty and the beast, what if the beast had killed beauty?

I was the beast.

But aren't we all the beast sometimes?

I can only imagine how tiring and unsatisfying months of touring can be for someone creative who wants to innovate and explore in their work, it would be my personal hell, that rotation of groupies, hangers on and gargantuan crowds, barely a moment to breathe and personal space so diminished that you stop knowing who you are any more. In the midst of this to be receiving unsolicited attention from a mentally damaged stranger on twitter, sometimes 2 or 3 times a week, could only serve to heighten the stress you're already experiencing and cause you to disassociate yourself from your inner core even more.

In my mind I was pleading to be saved by devoting all my attention to him, in my unhinged state I felt like by baring everything to a man I’d never met he’d be so disarmed he'd surely empathise, find solace in my garbled stories of misadventure and anxiety.

But now I see how selfish it was, to project on to another human, after all dick was just a human to, with all his own baggage to cope with, though infatuation can amplify its object the reality is noone is really built to cope with that kind of attention, not Dick, not Nicolás Jaar.

Though it was an interesting exercise in some way and will always be part of my oeuvre, probably more definitively so because it exists on the internet, so if the walls don’t come crashing down it is relatively protected, it wasn't kind. I was not trying to help Nicolás Jaar, or create something nourishing, it was selfish. Infatuation is, at its core, selfish, the object is merely that because there is no connection, or at least in this example. There was never any exchange between us, just me pouring all my illness into him blindly.

And I know this well because I have suffered with others becoming infatuated by me on more than one occasion, it’s not pleasant.

In Turin, on stage, he seemed so broken and at odds with himself during his set, he appeared to be really unhappy, my most noble act in this whole enterprise has been to stop writing him letters and focus on myself. I do feel angry with the former me though there is no use regretting what has already passed and life moves on as surely as the sun and moon pass each other in the sky.

In the end i cant punish myself, to err is humane, to forgive divine, I must forgive myself as well.

I’m glad im returning to Turin a more advanced and thoughtful person, I’m going to order in a restaurant this time (well, maybe, but I’m definitely going to buy chocolate) and have a nap before I go out on saturday, I’m going to go to Italy this time, not to stand wretchedly at the feet of a man who owes me nothing and asks for nothing from me. Because as someone grappling with their own fears about performing: this kind of incident is one of the key aspects of what I am terrified to illicite, so i say to you my readers, that I'm sorry to Nicolás Jaar and I will never repeat this journey with any future influences in my life.

I wonder if Chris Kraus has ever apologised to Dick, I’m going to give it a google now I think then try to get some sleep.

Goodnight all, next week I’ll regale you with my Italian trip and who knows what else.

Should ever our paths cross, I don't think I could be like chris, I feel like I’m done exposing him, so it may very well be that whatever ending this story could have, this here will be the end in terms of its written account, I might never type the words Nicolás Jaar on tumblr again.

And by the way, I’ve already uploaded my album, because actually I detest exclusivity, it’s free to download and publically available on 2 of my music based accounts, it’s not hard to find, trust me.

#nicolas jaar #infatuation #i love dick #self growth #Berlin

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rebel-princess-rock-blog · 7 years ago

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Moana

I think it’s important to examine disney’s most recent princess film to date, Moana.

Moana is a very progressive film for disney, the protagonist is a woman of color who has no love interest. Moana is only the third official princess to not find true love and the fifth to be non-white. This is out of 14 total princesses. Moana is a Polynesian island princess. While her family pushes her to remain on the island and become chief, they never pressure her to marry a man. This allows us to assume that Moana can rule over her people without having a husband, making her society very progressive. This is a good change from how non white natives are often portrayed, as savages and often oppressive to their women. Moana’s initial conflict is that she feels drawn to the ocean despite her father’s insistence that it’s dangerous and that she should be happy where she is. Moana doesn’t even know why she isn’t content on the island, she questions it in one of her songs. She wants to be “the perfect daughter” but feels drawn to the ocean in spite of herself. This causes Moana to sruggle with her identity. She tries to conform and fails as she sings “I’ll be satisfied if I play along. But the voice inside sings a different song. What is wrong with me?”

Later on Moana finds out the secret past of her people through her grandmother. Her people were once voyagers, roaming from island to island claiming different territory and seeing the world through sailing across the ocean. This is in stark contrast to her father’s insistance on no one ever going “beyond the reef” that surrounds their island. Moana’s grandmother tells her of her destiny and how she is tied to ancient legend. Moana was chosen by the ocean to return the heart of Te Fiti to the god herself, otherwise the Earth will die. The heart was stolen by Maui, a male demigod, before the film began, the initial mistake that nearly causes everyone’s doom is made by a man. While Moana has always dreamed of going beyond the reef, she mainly does so for her people, not herself. This makes Moana’s quest very noble, and she doesn’t have to give up her dream for others, her dream is what leads her to save her people.

Due to stealing the heart, Maui has lost his magic hook and been forced to live alone on an island. A man is stripped of his power and it’s actually seen as a fitting punishment. Maui reluctantly agrees to help Moana as the ocean gives him no choice, for every time he throws her off the boat, it puts her back on. Moana is also overwhelmed on her mission because she has never really sailed before. It makes sense that Maui has to help her, not because of their genders, but because of the characters’ backgrounds. Maui is far more experienced and helps Moana become a “way-finder.” Maui himself is even given an emotional backstory that he reveals to Moana, showing that the macho man has a vunerable side. He was once human, but his parents tossed him into the ocean because they don’t want him, the gods took pity on him and took him in making him a demigod and giving him his magic hook. Everything Maui did throughout his life was for humans, the very creatures who cast him aside at birth. He gave humans things like coconuts, islands, and fire to gain their love and praise. Maui even stole the heart on hopes that humanity could find a good use for it, showing that good intentions sometimes lead to bad actions. Maui belives the gods made him who he is by giving him his hook, and Moana comforts him by saying “the gods aren’t the ones who make you Maui, you are.” I think this teaches that someone’s past helps shape them but ultimately, we are the ones who make us who we are. Our good actions and deeds are our own, not any one elses, and it’s not fair to yourself to attribute your accomplishments to someone else. That’s a powerful lesson for any film, let alone a disney princess movie.

Maui does end up abandoning Moana for a bit towards the end of the film. The monster Te Kā guards the island where Te Fiti sleeps, and ends up severly damaging Maui’s hook. One more hit and Maui’s hook will be destroyed, and Maui still believes “without my hook I am nothing.” He tells Moana that the ocean was wrong to chose her and leaves. Moana insists to the ocean that she isn’t the right person for this mission and gives the heart of Te Fiti back to the ocean. Moana breaks down sobbing, but it’s different from past films. She’s not crying over a man, or because someone told her no, she’s crying from the hardships she’s faced and the fact that she no longer believes in herself. She is at her lowest moment. Her grandmother’s spirit vists her, but doesn’t insist that Moana has to carry on, she leaves the choice up to her grand daughter. Moana and her grandmother sing an empowering song about Moana herself, and she discovers the power within her. “I’ve delivered us to where we are. I have journeyed farther. I am everything I’ve learned and more. Still it calls me. And the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me. It’s like the tide; always falling and rising. I will carry you here in my heart you’ll remind me. That come what may. I know the way. I am Moana!” She belts her own name in such a powerful way that it still gives me chills after multiple viewings. Moana finds strength and power from within, which is an important lesson to learn. Maui ultimately does come back to help Moana on her quest, acknowledging that leaving was a mistake.

It is not Maui who defeats Te Kā in the end, it’s Moana. When Moana sees that the island of Te Fiti is no longer there, she realizes that Te Fiti is Te Kā, she became a monster when her heart was stolen. Moana sings to the monstrous “villian” as she approaches with no fear. “They have stolen the heart from inside you. But this does not define you. This is not who you are. You know who you are.” Moana places a comforting hand on Te Kā’s face, then returns the heart. She uses what she learned about herself and knowing who she is to save the day. Te Fiti returns to normal and the world is saved. Maui has his hook restored after accepting who he is with out it “hook or no hook, I’m Maui” and humbly apologizing to Te Fiti. Moana’s people become voyagers once more, her father no longer fearing the ocean.

Moana not only presents a strong female lead but also a valuable lesson about strength from within and self discovery. It also presents a strong male character who has vunerability and who must learn to become more humble. Moana’s figure is more realistic than past princesses as well, she isn’t chubby or fat but she has a wider waist and thicker arms and legs than the other princesses. Her face is of course super beautiful and not as natural looking as Merida’s. But I believe Moana’s tale is the more progressive one as marriage is never discussed. I hope disney makes more films like this going forward.

Disney princesses have been engrained in our culture for a long time. It is interesting to see how disney has changed the formula to stay relevant. Princesses are becoming more liberated from their previous expectations and tropes. I know disney is a power hungry manipulative corporation, but I stil see the good with films like this. Disney taking progressive steps forward and succeeding. Only time will tell how Disney changes in the future and I look forward to seeing it. I’m sure one day we’ll even get proper LGBT representation. I know that may not seem likely, but not too long ago a Polynesian princess was seen as an impossible dream. Besides, doesn’t disney encourage us to dream? :)

#moana #disney #disney princesses #analysis #feminism

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