untitled poem

I fell into your shadow, 

chasing after the wind,

Falling into the depths of oceans

never touching its floor;

children reach skyward

for clouds they cannot touch.

I aspired to be what I am not,

yearned for heights so human;

children do not notice

that pedestals are for none.

So I found another shadow,

one who touched Ocean's floor

and spanned immortal skies,

Endless chasing endless.

Writing in Real Life: A Tense Relief

Spoiler Note: I talk about the original Star Wars trilogy in this post. While the new one will not be mentioned, I'm pretty much assuming anyone who cares has seen the original trilogy at this point. I mean, it's been 32 years plus a few months since Return of the Jedi came to theaters.


Hello again!

I have a sister and four first cousins. Growing up the rule at Christmas Eve was that we would eat first, then have a ritual passing out of gifts, then a ritualized tradition of going around the circle opening one at a time so we could all watch (until we hit a certain age, the kids would open first, then the adults, but by age 12 we were considered old enough to be patient).

My family jokes about one year when we cousins ran out of patience. Everyone had eaten, but the cousins were left to amuse ourselves while the adults had yet to vacate the dinner table and begin passing out gifts.  I'm not sure exactly how long it was we waited, and the length probably depends on who's telling the story, but finally the suspense got to us, and we began plotting ways to convince the adults to hurry up without being annoying. Ultimately, we  sorted the gifts (which also necessitated dictating who was sitting where, so the adults didn't get to pick their seats) and probably tried to make just enough of a show of it to make it obvious what we were doing, then joined the adults at the dining room table (the cousins' table was in the kitchen) and announced Santa's elves had distributed everything.

It worked.

If the First Law is that Characters Must Matter (because people matter), the Second Law is Tension.

I say "tension" over "action" because, as Steven James put it once in a lecture of his (and in his resulting book "Story Trumps Structure"): in a story, the bomb going off is the release of tension, whereas that ticking timer counting down to its going off is the tension/suspense. (He discusses suspense HERE.)  Up until the moment it either goes off or is stopped, suspense exists. Afterward is only the aftermath, dealing with whatever happened.

In other words, the tightrope of "what's going to happen next?" is much more important than "what happens?" (though the resulting event had better live up to said expectations, which is another post). Usually, you want things to escalate at a decent clip, but not necessarily at the same clip the whole way, and not necessarily at full-speed the entire time.

There are reasons for this. One, again citing James, if you start a story at Level 10 (this being the fastest pacing), you won't have anywhere to escalate. Take the original Star Wars. Lucas didn't start with the Death Star blowing up. If he had, he'd have had to come up with something even more sinister and devastating. (He did blow up a planet, but blowing up a planet implies something worse can and will happen if nothing is done about it.) Two, if a story stays at Level 10 too long, Level 10 becomes Level 1, and, again, you can't escalate. (The reason you feel breathless after some movies is because they did not give you room to breathe. The body responds to the mind, and the mind will tire if it is not given a break.)

Moreover, not only can you not escalate, but suddenly the two-hour life-and-death chase scene seems "boring."  It's not really boring. What's happened is at some point it's "here we go again." There is no anticipation anymore. The same sharp turns, near-misses, and almost-caught moments keep happening.  To fix that, the chase has to end. The chaser gives up for the time being. The chased temporarily eludes or buys  a few hours. Something more important than catching the chased comes up.  Something has to break up the action, even for a few minutes, or the action becomes lackluster.  (Even superhero movies do this. Maybe especially superhero movies, even if it's only long enough to re-group.)

So basically, the only way tension and suspense works consistently is to adjust the tautness of the line periodically. It never really goes away (everything would fall apart), but it does vary. (In case you don't believe me, this even works with family dramas. Everything may look okay, but we're still left with that one unanswered, unresolved thing that nobody's necessarily talking about at the moment.)


Writers thrive on tension - anticipation, suspense.  In real life we think we don't want this. We want all the answers resolved, all the conflict ended, and all the risk over with. But it doesn't happen in stories because it doesn't happen in real life. Writers are a conniving lot who like everything to come to a purpose: the chase scene, the pending doom, the inherent, endless conflict.  Usually, the peacemakers prevail. Usually.  Coincidence doesn't really happen in stories, and it doesn't really happen in real life.

Oh, I can hear the protests. Yeah. Loved ones fight. Bad - horrific - things happen. Misunderstanding happens. Confusion, lies, betrayal, miscommunication, natural and manmade disasters, all of that.  And here I am daring say that nothing is coincidence.   Does that make it okay? Good? Right?

I'm neither that cold nor stupid.  But there's this part of me that thinks if I, finite, limited, flawed person that I am, take care that no amount of tension is lost, that my characters and readers find some occasional rest and comfort in their struggles - whatever they are, however large or small - and if I, little mortal that I am, take that much care, how much moreso does the Author of us all know we must have relief, time to rest, time to reflect, to regroup, time for peace? The story's not over, so it will only be brief,  but it will be.

Writing in Real Life - The Blog Awakens

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, etc.



I've decided to go back through Writing Excuses' "Master Class" season, which is exactly what it sounds like.  Every time I listen to these, I start going down the list of things I've decided not to do in my own writing because whenever I read or watch them they only serve to make me crazy.

Yeah. I am horrible to characters, but there are things I will not do to a reader.  And yes, there is a physical list in existence.  

The First Law is: Characters must matter. It doesn't matter how cool the world is or the plot is or how great they are at what they do or how original and deep the themes are. If no attention is given to who this person is, then I really just won't care what happens to them. This doesn't really have to do with "relatable". I don't "relate" to Dracula, Hermione Granger (honestly, I relate to Harry even less), Katniss Everdeen, or a host of others in any sense of feeling like they're me. But it matters what happens to them. Even deplorable, completely unrelatable villains must have this sense of "what happens to them matters". If it doesn't matter whether the villain prevails or not, I'm not sure there's a real conflict to start.  (I *think* this is perhaps why I always liked Saruman better than Sauron as a villain. I just didn't care one way or another about an amorphous being I never really saw. Contrast that with the treacherous Saruman who's seduced by the Ring or even Grima who is a slimy little weasel you're sort of waiting for Eowyn to slice to bits, well, much as I like Lord of the Rings, I care considerably more about making sure Grima and Saruman get what's coming to them - my tendency toward poetic justice can be another post.)

The ways in which they matter are usually also the ways in which they're messy. People are messy, and the challenge is creating chaos, a semi-calculated mess of principles and behaviors, conflicting ideas, emotions, and beliefs, all piled on top of the absolute truth that they can only see through the two eyes they have. Experiences are always teachers, but they aren't always good or accurate teachers, and even if they are, previous, bad ones may just make for a confused student.

A few friends and I were talking, and we agreed that sometimes a writer or filmmaker will so accurately depict human nature that the audience splits between believing it brilliance and believing it madness.

That's the brilliance of it, though: capturing human nature in such a way that it exposes our flaws and weaknesses with as much power as our strengths and perfections.  Sometimes the former is captured so well it's offensive, a mirror in which we dare not look.

Really, though, that's the world we're in.  There's a journalistic saying that if you start talking about people by numbers, no one cares. If you highlight the one person, though, suddenly everyone cares.  A million people die in a tidal wave, doubly as many homes and livelihoods destroyed, and what gets people's attention is the one little story about this woman who managed to drag her family to safety. Or tried, but didn't. Or the one little story about the man who organized a total reconstruction project for his city in the aftermath of all of that. Or got sick before it was completed.  The point is, the one matters.

There are literally thousands of people somehow connected to me, thanks to the whole six-degrees-of-separation phenomenon. And my prayers go to them all, but then I hear about what's happening in the worlds of a few.

Illness.
Healing.
Family dissent.
Reconciliation.
Financial struggle.
Spiritual attacks.
Depression.
A pregnancy.
A miscarriage.
A college degree.
A drop-out.

It's not that I have no affection or concern prior to the news, whatever it is, anymore than the average person isn't concerned about hurting people wherever they are, but suddenly it's not "someone somewhere over there" but "THIS person, with a name and a face."


As a writer, it's my job to put faces and names on people, and make you care.  I read somewhere once that people who read are also prone to be more empathetic, because they immerse in The Other, the people not like them.  All of these things are happening, to this person who may or may not be like you, and whether they share your experience or not, they matter, because they're people.

Writecraft.

I press my fingers together and worlds appear.

I turn the course of the world on the spin of a well-timed word.

My nails strike the keys, and villains appear;

By callous-worn hands heroes rise and fall.

I am a composer.

I am an artist.

I bend and twist, build up and burn down;

Come dance to music only I can hear

--unless by chance our spirits meet, and our beating hearts drum as one;

Come see the threads become one tapestry

--and shards of glass create windows stained.

Beauty rises on the wind and shadows sink with a blood-red sun;

Enemies come, an ocean vast, deep, wide, high and long--

Ten thousand upon ten thousand--

And only one confronts the throng.

The curtain is my canvas; the pen remains my sword.

Fear not a bard who loves to sing,

--but dread him whose voice does cease.

Dread not the Teller who sports his tales;

--if his heart goes cold, let courage die.

I'll face the darkness, so you do not;

I'll eat the poison and spare you all;

And plunge the depths of bitter gall--

Even perish alone in ink--

If that means the ball of clay rolls taught 'neath my hands.

For you, my hands grow old and break;

For you my fingers twist and bend

And for you do I expend my strength.

The ink sprawls across the page,

Making me feel as a musing mage;

Join me in this war I rage;

Creating, sustaining, saving, destroying, revealing

Secrets beneath parchment hid.

So bring me pen;

Bring me ink;

Let me my own fingers break

And the canvas spin beneath my palms.

I press my fingers

And see the turn of the universe;

Know the angle of this axis;

And the exact measure of the earth's curve;

Watch my hands all you will

But the magic shall never be revealed.

Update

Don't worry. The blog didn't disappear. I want to update some things, so I reverted everything back to Draft status. It'll come back, I promise!

The immediate thing I've changed is the url. Much as I love the "remadegold" concept, it's time I used my own name. So the url is now "kacihill.blogspot.com."

You know, that, and the fact that the grey was a bit ugly.

Another Himalaya-inspired poem

Note: The thing about Nepal is, it's an unconquered kingdom.  The more I read about the peoples of the Himalayas, the more I'm taken with them. 

And, as for the earthquake, my prayers are for a people I have never met and a place I have never been.


A kingdom never conquered;
a people never tamed: 
let these mysteries like ghostlings
never fade away;
how can the unrivaled mountain crown
be hidden for days long past;
ancient and forever,
like leopards of the snow
ever present, rarely seen;
feared, warriors revered,
a bulwark against empires,
their warriors painted for strife;
their people bound by a thousand ghosts
and spirits of the other-realm,
conquered in soul,
unfettered in flesh;
who are you, ancient people,
your stories untold?

The Human Puzzle

This was the second guest post of mine over at The Author's Chair. 



One of my favorite scenes is of a powerful lord who defies every cultural convention to save a slave, and in so doing declaring that a few hundred slaves are of equal value to one of their world’s priceless treasures.

Another involves a man who believes himself abandoned: imprisoned, mocked, tormented, and doomed to be made sport of until he dies, only to, in the end, when he’s had every possible thread of hope torn from him, realizes his master is standing right there, and he’s in the middle of being rescued and never knew it. Suddenly his pain and humiliation are forgotten.

A third is between a king and his best friend and counsel who’ve had a disagreement. The king refuses to listen to this man who crowned him and readies to set off on a trip that will kill him. As he boards his ship, his friend calls out and asks if he’s being left behind, to which the king melts and calls him onto the ship. (I cannot give you the names of the books; sorry. I don’t do spoilers. )

The best stories leave me an emotional wreck for weeks. They seep into the bone and consume from within. Those scenes cannot be explained; they can only be experienced. These scenes are magnificent because they hit all of the notes. My friend Ted calls them “watershed scenes” because they are the culmination of all the themes, emotional and relational points, and plot direction.  Everything prior rises up and converges upon them, and everything concealed is made plain.

Two things, specifically, seem to make this work: the complexities of the characters and the underpinnings of the story’s structure itself – and by that I mean more than just the collection of scenes, which is a bit like saying the collection of notes makes the scene. No, it’s more than that: the arrangement –  the length of time each note plays, what instruments play – makes the difference. A modernized version of “Amazing Grace” sounds much, much different than the earliest ones; and so it is with Story.

Similarly, simple, one-dimensional characters do have their place, but most of the time it’s the complicated ones who really attach themselves to the reader’ soul.  I was fascinated, for instance, at the contrast between Paris and Achilles in The Iliad. Achilles, as I said before, is known for his rage. But rage rarely exists by itself, and the whole point is that his rage stems from  his shunning, betrayal, and public humiliation.

Moreover, there’s plenty in the text to indicate he and Briseis really did come to love each other. (The woman throws herself on Patroclus’ body and laments his death, and then goes so far as to thank the man for making sure she wound up with Achilles. This is not a simple relationship, nor a simple man and woman.) By the end, it’s grief, not rage, that drives Achilles. Paris, on the other hand, for all of his supposed lovesick-puppy behavior, is short-tempered and violent to the point of unleashing it on anyone, including the people he supposedly loves.  In the end, Achilles holds his temper in check, not Paris. So Paris cannot be described as simply a lovesick princeling and Achilles cannot be described as simply a man with nothing but rage in his heart.

They aren’t the only ones. I’m reading Wheel of Time, in which I have realized a character who drove me insane for two and a half books can suddenly change my mind. Wheel of Time is interesting: The men and women don’t understand each other; the main characters don’t understand each other; and you may or may not ever get the other’s perspective. Everything about men and women appears to be broken so that they’re unable to work together as one unstoppable unit – and so I wonder, in book five, what book fourteen will bring.  I keep wondering, too, if the very fault people accuse the books of is the very thing that made it brilliant. Robert Jordan wasn’t perfect, but he nailed unredeemed human nature.

A complex character can drive you crazy and make you terrified they’re going to die – or, worse, turn their back on everything they’ve considered virtuous until now, shun the very core of who they are. One writer took a character I loved in book one and drove him all the way to the edge of the moral and ethical cliff to see if he’d jump off. The entirety of the second book asks what his bitter need for vindication is going to do, and we know if he takes it, it’ll destroy him – from that point he would become a hateful, despised character, and I’m not sure there would be any going back. Nope, I’m not going to tell you what he chooses.

That was the brilliance of the writer, though: in a small-scale story of the tormented underdog, we’d be rooting for the character to take matters into his own hand, unmask his villain for what he is, and have his revenge. But no. We’re given the bigger picture, which says that  this man is so narrow-sighted and ignorant that what might be a celebrated act is, in truth, juvenile and bitter treachery. He’s broken, and he’s hurt, so to a point we can accept it, but the longer the story goes, the more the reader dreads his fall and realizes it really might be over.

Just by way of a teaser, Bryan did something similar to Phoenix, those of you who haven’t read. I’m not saying what, though. Page one made me love him; a little later made me worry; even later made my heart sick.

So, what do you think? What characters did you fall in love with? Which made you angry, excited, and grief-stricken all in one book? Which ones can’t be boiled down to one word?

The Human Art

I was given the privilege of posting on The Author's Chair. You can join the discussion HERE.

Once upon a time, the Master and Commander of all that exists, Supreme Emperor of the Cosmos grew a person out of the ground, breathed his own life’s breath into him, named him, and gave him an identity that made sense only inasmuch he knew his maker. This magnificent Person put some of himself in these creatures he called humans: a mind, a heart, a soul, creative ability, the capacity to have relationships, emotions, intelligence, and a thousand other things. Our need to work comes from a need to imitate the creative prowess of our Father; the need for food, water, and shelter reminds us that, ultimately, we live by every word from the mouth of the Ancient Holy One. There are eight billion people alive at this moment, and at least that many before us, and no two of us are or have been alike. Now that is a level of prowess – of plots and peoples and places – not even the grand-masters of epics could attain. And this great, glorious Father of All had it in his mind to “put eternity in our hearts” and invites us to find him and know him to the very depths of his soul.

He’s made us so terribly complex and simple all at the same time, and there’s a beauty to humanity that is surpassed only by his God who is inexpressibly glorious and wishes us for himself. And even in our fallen state, we manage to retain some sense of a faded glory, some incessant longing for what we know is lost but cannot necessarily articulate. I read a book the other day in which the author stated that what distinguishes us from animals, apart from language, is our need to be recognized as human, to retain our dignity. I think in some ways this is that longing in action: It’s God who makes us human, but humanity has fallen. Our dignity, our glory, cannot come from fellow humans, despite our attempts to make it so, but from our true identity and position as imago dei – the image of God.

In my endeavor to become a better writer a few years ago, I made a decision to study outside my own paradigm. This meant a study of non-Christian-themed stories, both written and filmed, and during that time I made two (of several) discoveries: First, most non-Christian stories are humanistic in nature, meaning that humanity is the center and pinnacle of all things. Second, my favorites celebrate humanity. These writers were unafraid to explore what is the vast color palette of humankind we as writers must convey as writers. Ultimately, I had to shift my thinking in terms of what qualified as depicting “real, gritty, and edgy” fiction. It had nothing to do with diluting good and evil, or idolizing humanity, or seeing how much a writer can get away with. It had the far superior motive of exploring – and exposing – human nature. Mankind, at his zenith, at the peak of his glory, is still so far from enough. And that’s the great tragedy and beauty that unfolds.

The truth is, a person with a good motive can still do something wrong, and an evil person could have had a decent motive. They might not even be fully aware of their driving motivators. We writers don’t excuse these things, but we do put them on display for the world to see, for the world to know that this is what happens when we try to make ourselves gods. We aren’t God; we’re very human, and humanity at its absolute best cannot compare with the inexpressible greatness of the Most High.

The first time I really considered this, I think, was when my friend introduced me to anime, and, by the finale of the third one, I realized its beauty lay in its themes of brotherhood, human nature, and redemption. The good shows blended the natural and supernatural worlds and either question human ethics or feature vastly complicated social and political dynamics. There’s one where the world is so terribly bleak that even the one ray of hope struggles against despair. In another, some characters try to redeem themselves from their past crimes while the ones who survived their crimes either forgive or seek revenge.

Science fiction, fantasy, classical writings, and horror seem to have also capitalized on this. Godlike humans with supernatural powers are, at their core, flawed humans who still need help outside themselves, from Achilles to Rand al’Thor, the Radiants, and a Reaper named Phoenix. Achilles is an emotional man, grief-stricken over Briseis and Patroclus and his fellow, dying Greeks, enraged at Agamemnon and Hector, but kind to an old war-chief who loses face in a public event. Phoenix is typically torn between following the law or following his moral compass. Each of the Radiants has a tragic past and a fatally flawed present. They cannot save themselves, any of them, much less anyone else. And not one of them can be reduced to a label. Redemption arcs never complete; heroes are deconstructed; protagonists called godlike might really be more accurately called demonic; the one called cruel and savage may actually display the most compassion.

The older I’ve gotten, and the better student of the written craft I’ve tried to become, the more I’ve come to understand that I cannot claim to love God if I do not claim his people. Moreover, I cannot claim devotion to the Creator of humanity while despising the humans he made or distorting their image. The imago dei is, no doubt, in need of regeneration, but it is nonetheless imago dei. And the God whose image they were made of is an eternity ahead of us in reclaiming what was lost – indeed, Colossians says he has reconciled the world. But I am convinced, more than ever, that all of this brings us to being unafraid to write humanity as it is: beautiful, tragic, and redeemable.

Thirteen Months: The Word of God

Thirteen Months
A year and a month later, here we are again. I'm going to try a different tactic, so we'll see how it goes. It may be I need to move to a new blog; if that happens, well, I'll post the new URL here.

So much to say.  I have posts on novels, classics, history books, philosophy, research on the Himalayas, and a dozen other things.  So many subjects to write on, so little time. What's a writer to do?

Well, I'll be brief, for now.


Communicating the Word of God
I grew up predominantly in a SBC tradition with a hearty side dish of Presbyterian.  I love the way this book my mom read ages ago, back when I was in jr. high, put it: Baptists tend to be really good at learning and teaching the word, but tend to forget the Holy Spirit. By contrast, the book suggested that the Pentecostal/charismatic movement tended to be great at heeding the Spirit but not at knowing the Bible itself (don't flog me; I am not saying one is better than the other; the whole point of the statement was to say that each denomination is strong on one point but weak on another, the majority of the time. That's all it means.).  I'm a denominational mutt, in the end, but I walked across the high school graduation platform with two things:

• The word of God is a living sword. It is precious and of great value. And it is a high honor, a privilege, to speak the words of God and teach people to understand them.
• Everything you say or do must edify, encourage, or exhort the body of Christ. If it does not help the body, it is useless at best and harmful at worst. A single word brings life or death to the hearer.

There's obviously more, but they aren't on subject.  The point is, early on I knew, if not fully understood, the weight of daring teach the word of God (which is...honestly why I was terrified of ever becoming  a teacher).

So I find myself torn between a deep grief and a white-hot anger toward carelessness. Hey, I understand not everyone has a degree in English. I don't expect everybody to be like me. But I do expect personal excellence. For too long there's been this idea that grammar and spelling and decent essay-writing don't matter outside of English class, and that seems to have crippled a whole generation who is otherwise very intelligent and has plenty to say. 

Here's my plea: Anyone who wishes to be a pastor, teacher, missionary, small group leader, or anyone else who intends to communicate the most excellent word of God, please, please, please understand that the ability to compose a coherent - I did not say perfect - blog post, or article, or email, or essay, or note to your second grader is imperative. Please, please, don't be sloppy or careless, or decide it doesn't matter. The absolute last thing you want is for someone to not take you seriously, or be unable to read it and understand it, or to completely misinterpret it, because you didn't take the time to get it right. Everything unto the Lord, right? I just think Jesus liked to build tables right. So, in the same way, we should build our communiques right. 

Okay. I'm glad this didn't come off as angry blogging; it's been on my mind far too often of late.  But today, remember this: God has graced us with his name and graced us with privilege of speaking and acting on his behalf.  How truly wonderful is that?

Book Review: "Do Life Different" Devotional by Jill Hart

This is a little different for me, but I do book reviews on Radiant Lit and on Fiction Addict and was invited to be part of a book review blog tour. 

Do Life Different by Jill Hart

Reviewed by Kaci Hill

Radiant Lit Blog Tours

Genre: Devotional

Publisher: Choose Now Publishing

Pub Date: February 2, 2014

Synopsis from Amazon.com:  Work-at-home moms bear a unique set of burdens as they attempt to blend job and family commitments under one roof. Maintaining professionalism while wiping noses and convincing outsiders that flexibility isn’t all it’s cracked up to be can put even the most organized to the test. Amid all the other duties of life, the work-at-home mom often discovers that feeding her soul is the biggest challenge of them all. Work-at-home mom: take a deep breath and Do Life Different as you allow these devotions for work-at-home moms to fill the vacuum of your needy heart in the chaos of your busy world.

I don't quite fit the paradigm for this book, being neither a mom nor a wife, nor someone who has, in the past, reviewed non-fiction. I'm also terrible about finishing short daily devotionals, much less answering questions at the end. However,  I do work at home, so I thought to offer my own perspective for those of us who might be in similar but not identical circumstances.

My strategy was to read about five entries a day before work and during lulls.  Before reading, I worried a little that this devotional would be too specifically-directed at moms and wives, but this proved a groundless concern.  Rather, Ms. Hart offered a Scripture passage, theme, anecdote, word of encouragement, and insightful questions for fifty-two days. Only a few days in, I was already thinking I'd like to read this devotional again, only much slower. I found this devotional encouraging and insightful and look forward to a re-read.

Do Life Different is available to purchase from Amazon.com.

Note: I received this book as part of the Do Life Different blog tour from Radiant Lit. I received no compensation for this review and only received a copy of the book for review purposes.  Review copy provided by the publisher.