A Short Story Tutorial You Never Asked For and Should Probably Disregard Entirely

I don't "write short stories" so much as I give myself a jungle and attempt to cut a path through it. 

This came to my head right now and it's one of those things that make me wish it was socially acceptable to quote myself because I've never been so eloquent about how I write before.

Like, generally? I am a very plot-driven writer. I never sit down to start writing one of my big chapter-book projects without a pretty detailed plot in mind. This is sometimes to my detriment, since the micro-managed development of the plot means that my characters often start out pretty underdeveloped by comparison. (I find this funny about me, since this is pretty much exactly the opposite of how I like the stories that I actually consume - I would much rather explore strong characters than weird situations. My brain is inexplicable and strange). Never mind the fact that, more often than not, I won't even end up following the plot-line I drew out for myself. The point is, when it comes to my big projects, I'm pretty reliant on having a story already drawn out - and even then, it'll usually take me about seven chapters to get to the good stuff. Sigh.

But this is only with the big projects. Because you see, when I need a break from the big projects, I start on a short story or two.

And I almost never draw out a plot for those things.

With my short stories, I tend to start with concepts - I'm not going to give away all my fascinating concepts here, because of reasons, but I'm going to take you through a step by step manual of how my short stories usually go down.

First, I'll get an idea. A small one, maybe just an idea for a really dramatic scene or something but with nothing to fit around it. Or maybe I got this really interesting idea for a dystopian future (to use the apparently unwavering trend in recent pop culture), but can't think of a plot to go with it. Or maybe a character popped in my head, fully developed, flaws and fears and passions and strengths already in place, but I don't have a story to put them in. What do I do?

Generally, I just run with it.

I'll just start writing. I'll start with the inspiration and see where it takes me. Sometimes it doesn't take me anywhere and the piece just dries up and I'll never look at it again (although that usually only happens because something off happened at an important part of the story, and there's a lot of work involved in tracking that down and fixing it, believe me).

But usually it does take me somewhere. I feel like it's a lot like improvising. Because usually, I have no idea where I'm going, but the characters talk and ideas come out and you have to follow those ideas or the whole thing goes dead. Yeah, improv is a good analogy for it. Because, of course, rule number one of improv, the one rule that you always hear no matter who you're talking to, the magical GOLDEN RULE OF IMPROV is SAY YES. Always say yes. No matter how weird it may be, you have to. If possible, then YES AND is even better. (Accepting an idea and adding to it). Because of course, if someone says something and you don't accept the idea - what's known as "blocking" in improv - then, if you don't suggest an alternative, the scene will inevitably die. Welp, there goes that idea. So, uh, what now?

It's the same with me when I write short stories. I just go with the first inspiration and run. And then maybe a character will say something else, and I'll follow that path. I can't say no to a possible path - it's not like I've got anywhere else to go, you know? So if I want to keep the inspiration alive until I manage to come to some kind of closure (believe it or not, that does happen sometimes), I have to explore every first idea.  And then you keep running and running with all these ideas and before you know it your "short" story is thirty pages long and you still don't know if you're anywhere near the finish line. (I recently finished one at thirty four pages. Typed. I have a problem).

I mean, we all know it's (almost) physically impossible for me to write something under a thousand words - I mean, like, I could write a thousand words in my sleep - but thirty pages typed out is still a bit over the top. For sure, my short stories, when finished, take a lot of hammering into shape, because when I don't have a drawn out plot-line, I tend to get kind of really self-indulgent. (Like, in one of my "short" stories, I gave a character this really long, really fabulous monologue, but we all know that no one talks like that. Humans are not human without that sort of quiet uncertainty that long pretentious monologues don't tend to lend themselves to. Especially not scared humans, which is where the character was coming from.) So, yes, they need fixing. And editing. And probably - be still my hammering heart, for I must strike for the good of all! - a lot of cutting.

Honestly, cutting things from my stories feels like surgery. It's nerve-wracking and scary and but-what-if-I-decide-that-I-actually-like-this-bit-then-what-do-I-do-now-that-it's-not-there-anymore-ahhhhhhhhhh! (The anxiety, of course, comes from the fact that if you write a scene really well, you just know that it won't be quite as good the second time around).

But the fun of it is that you get to just explore and most of the time, you eventually even come to a place of closure. How long that takes, well, yeah, that could be an issue, I suppose, but with patience, it does happen. And the thing is, you can't edit something or chop something that isn't written down. No matter how long it is, you need to keep with it until it's done or it'll never become anything, right?

Writing is always fun. Writing with a plot is fun because at least when you get writer's block, it's not so much a matter of "where do I go next?" as much as it is "how do I tell the story of the thing that happens next?". My short stories without plots are fun for the opposite reason. "Where do I go next?" is a really fun question to ask yourself, because if you're just writing on idea over top of idea, well, the possibilities are endless.

It's nice to just give yourself time to get to know your characters. Like, even if you end up cutting the scene that gave you all that character development but not much else, you'll still have that. You'll still know that about the character. Writing these short stories gives me the freedom to write whatever the heck I want and if, for presentation purposes, most of it gets cut, the development still will have happened, you know?

This is one of the things about my novel that I had trouble with. I had this entire redemption arc in mind for a character. In my mind it happened. In the scenes that are actually described in the book, yeah, not so much. Because the plot I drew out for myself - and my determination to stick with it as much as possible - didn't really give me the freedom to develop the character and what they're all about, like, off-screen. (Ahah, if that's the right word to use for books...)

Basically what I'm trying to say is that, when it comes to short stories, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

So I pretty much do the equivalent of prancing around like this:

                                                                                                       until I come to some kind of ending. 

Maybe it's just too late for me to be awake right now, but I'm just sitting here giggling at that picture. 

But the freedom of doing it like that is really cool, and I usually end up pretty proud of the stories that come out of it. It just takes a LOT of patience. 

So, yeah! That's how you write short stories, kids!

If you're terrible at it. 

Or have no life. 

Or both. 

A Small Rant About Slam Poetry

So, my grandparents came over recently. And my grandma has been bugging me forever to give her a copy of my slam poem from english class last semester, because I got to perform it in front of the school and I came in second place with it (always second. Sigh.....) (But honestly, the kid who won is my friend, we were going to start a poetry club together, and his was SO SO GOOD. He totally deserved it).

But it occurred to me that my grandmother had never actually really had any experience with slam poetry. This seemed strange to me, kind of, and really hard to explain.

"Well, it's just reading them aloud, right?"

"No. Well, I mean, kind of..."

You write slam poetry to be slammed, right? They have a certain rhythm to them, a certain style of performance that's different than regular poetry. I demonstrated by slamming my poem for her, and she loved it (she has to, she's my grandmother), but I didn't think she really, y'know, got it, so I showed her a few examples of my personal favourite slam poems. And, for the sake of reference, and also because I love them, I'll show them here too, I guess...

This one is one of my ultimate favourites. The humour to draw you in, the softness that keeps you captivated, and that ending... fabulous.

This one is a little more gimmicky, but it is to make his point. And I can't help but love the way he performs it. George Watsky is just all around great.

This one's a little more grim, and I didn't show it to my grandmother for that reason, but it is masterful the way she pulls it all together. I get goosebumps every time.

I could go on and on with some of my favourite slam poems on Youtube (Siri: a Coping Mechanism by Patrick Roche is always good. 21 by him gives me chills. Etcetera.) but I want to get to my point.

After showing these to my grandma, she said she didn't like this style very much. And whatever, you know, she's entitled to her opinion. But I do remember her saying something about, "Poetry is supposed to be soft, you know... this sounds like rap without the music." (Which is funny because George Watsky actually is a rapper, and I think you can kind of tell...)

I don't want to argue with her, and I'm not making this post to argue with that opinion, but I just want to talk about the reasons that I love slam poetry. 

To me, words are always so much more powerful when they're given a voice. That's what makes slam poetry magical. It's one thing to read things on a page, but it's a whole other thing to hear people speaking it. It's the same reason Shakespeare makes that much more sense when spoken aloud, it's the same reason that I sometimes read aloud to myself when no one else is around. I love that they can give rhythm to it. It's like listening to music. When Watsky starts speeding up in his poem, for instance, it's a crescendo, a drum roll, because the final show-stopping number is coming up. When Megan Falley pauses in hers, you know we're moving into the key change, the part that'll change how you listen to it. I think the best way to put it, to talk about the comparison between rap and slam poetry is this: in rap, your voice is an instrument. In poetry, your voice is the music.

I like it because the people who write and perform these have the courage to not be soft about it. How often do people get up in front of crowds and open their hearts with such confidence, and how often are people as non-judgmental as the poetry slam audiences are? You can't get up in front of crowds and talk about assault with such confidence usually, but with poetry it's just different, somehow. Even the poem I slammed for the school, I like to think I performed it with confidence (in spite of the fact that my legs shook for minutes afterward), but if anyone wants to just talk with me about it, I get shy about it. Slam poetry is magic. 

So much more magical and so much more musical.

Hah. Funny. I talk about how I want poetry in my music, then talk about how I want music in my poetry. Wow. My mind has one track apparently, eh?

But, yeah. That's why I love slam poetry. Sure, something can be said for the more traditional, more "soft" style of poetry, but I definitely prefer slam poetry. I can appreciate the skill it takes to create a well-written poem within the rules and parameters of, for example, a sonnet, but to me, there's something terribly cold about reading these things off a page. Isn't there so much more warmth, and with that, power, in something that was designed to be heard instead of read? 

I definitely think so. 

Sharing Old Stuff 'Cause I'm Self-Absorbed

So I've been reading through some of my old stories and other pieces of writing (dear god, that awful, awful poetry....) and I found this from last semester. We were supposed to write short stories, which of course was no big deal for me, but they had to be SHORT short stories. The limit was 500 words. That seemed impossible for me, since, as you can probably tell from my blog, writing things under a 1000 words is almost a total impossibility. I remember struggling because I wanted it to be short, and snappy, but I needed it to make a really strong point as well, so it took me a long time to come up with something that worked. (I finally binge-wrote the thing in my science class. Honestly, without science class, I'd probably never write anything. Suppose I should thank science for being just that boring). Anyways, I'm pretty proud of how it ultimately turned out.

As tempting as it is, I'm not going to tell you what overall concept that got this story moving is, because I think the story speaks for itself. So, without further ado, here is:

Cliché

By Megan Hands

The call came in late one lazy, summer afternoon, and immediately Thomas Cruiser was out the door and rushing headlong into the fight for justice. The police car’s sirens flashed and wailed as he raced through the streets. Cars pulled over and people stopped and stared in awe as Cruiser pulled off a sharp turn that would have made a professional NASCAR racer weep. Before he knew it, he was in front of the endangered bank. As his steely eyes looked through the window, he saw the hostages on the floor as a man with a mask and a gun raved at them. Soon the other police cars were pulled up as well. They looked to Cruiser. Cruiser’s chiseled features were somber with the burden of duty. Then he nodded, and the officers pulled their guns as Cruiser kicked his way into the bank.

            “Stop where you are, scum!” Cruiser shouted, tracking the culprit with a gun and steely blue eyes. “Don’t move a muscle!”

            The robber didn’t listen. They never did. He hauled a busty, luscious-haired woman to her feet and pressed the gun to her head. “If you come any closer, I will pull the trigger!” he menaced, spittle flying from the hole in the mask where his mouth was. The woman closed her eyes, silently crying with terror.

            “Try it,” Cruiser said with ice in his voice, “I dare you.” Before the robber could, Cruiser aimed his gun low and shot the culprit in the foot. Not quite protocol, perhaps, but Cruiser didn’t play by the rules. Screaming, the robber dropped the woman and fell gracelessly backwards, staring at his foot, which now had a hole welling with blood so red it was black. Within a second, he was cuffed and being escorted roughly to the police car. Cruiser helped the woman to her feet as the other hostages rose unsteadily.

            “You saved me,” she said softly. Cruiser didn’t waver, though the woman made his heart stir. “It’s my job, miss,” he replied, and led her outside, where reporters were waiting with flashing cameras and heroic headlines.

            What he didn’t know was that the robber had cried when he’d put his dog down, and couldn’t kill a person to save his own life.

            What he didn’t know was that the robber had two children, who had gone on a ship with their grandparents and never returned.

            What he didn’t know was that the robber had a wife who was starving herself with grief.

            What he didn’t know was that the robber needed money to launch a search and rescue for his children, and every bank and person had turned him down, calling it a lost cause.

            What he didn’t know was that the robber would have done almost anything to see his children again.

            But what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. And now, neither could that nasty, evil robber.

And just for the record

this was 484 words. 

Take THAT, arbitrary word limit!





[SPOILER ALERT

IT'S THE AMBIGUITY OF MORALITY AND HOW WE COLLECTIVELY AND UNQUESTIONINGLY ACCEPT THE MORALITY OF THE VICTOR AS THE CORRECT ONE OKAY THERE I SAID IT I SPOUTED THE THEME I COULDN'T HOLD IT IN I'M SORRY IT'S JUST IMPORTANT TO ME.]

Obligatory Life Update

I just realized that literally all I've talked about on this blog is obscure pop culture for the past, like, year and a half, so, yeah, life update. I'm doing fine. My life is fine. Pretty boring, far as lives go, to be totally honest. I am successfully following all my passions - I'm reading a lot, writing a ton, playing all kinds of music on the piano and the uke and with my voice. I even started trying to write songs, which is infinitely easier on the uke than it is on piano due to the fact that on piano you need to consciously choose every note, and on the uke you pick a chord and run.

I finished grade 10 at school pretty recently, earlier than it should have, actually, due to the B.C teacher's strike, which is basically just shenanigans all around. Pretty good marks, I'd say - As all around,  save for the Cs in French and Gym and *shudder* Planning - in my defense, though, it was because I refused to try. Like, I actually spent two weeks of Planning class just writing a twenty-one paragraph long book review while we were supposed to be working on a huge project just for the sake of, well, spite-filled procrastination. Never got caught, either. Or if the teacher knew about it, he certainly didn't care. I mean, I also slept a lot in that class. And wrote my story a lot, which was definitely not a secret, so possibly, he'd given up on me. Still, time better spent than actual Planning class (you mean if you spend more money than you have, you go bankrupt?! WHO'D'A THUNK IT?! THANK YOU TEACHER-GOD FOR ENLIGHTENING ME)

I'm going into English Honours next year, surprise surprise. To my actual surprise, I'm also going into Math Honours. Yeah, math honours, me, the one who needs a calculator to figure out basic arithmetic. That's a thing. We'll see how that goes down, but in the meantime, go me!

I studied for two days for my math provincial, which is finally done (yay!), and I'm pretty confident about how that went, but two days of studying is actually just hellish. Thank god next year I only have Socials, even if it is in french.

I have this chalkboard wall in my room, thanks to a wonderful sixteenth birthday gift from my parents and grandparents, so I can write on my wall with chalk. Usually it's covered in story plans, or song lyrics, or even just quotes from things that make me happier about life, but for those torturous two days of studying, my chalkboard wall was just covered in equations and math. Argh. Thankfully, it's now covered in the names of people I respect and look up to, such as Julie Andrews and Joss Whedon and John Green.

I had a Film class this semester, which was a lot of fun, and quite educational. I'm quite confident that I can now make my movie projects look that much more... polished. Also, I met a lot of people like me, who were total geeks who watched Firefly and Community and all the things. Like, my geeky T-shirts were not out of place among them - one guy had a T-shirt that was a map of Serenity, and the guy who sat next to me and who I worked with most of the time... I don't think he owned a single shirt that didn't have a comic book character on it.

I will, at some point, upload our projects on here, but I don't think I'm allowed to until the semester's technically over and the reports have all been written up. But yeah, that's coming.

What I found most helpful about that class was that I actually know how to shoot things now. I can look at a shot and go, "That doesn't look right, try it like this." I'm still a novice, of course, but I like to think that I'm significantly less novice-y as a result of taking that class. Basically, that class brought me much happiness. Also much stress, since we were panicking about 70% of the time, but hey. Worth it.

So, yeah. Now it's summertime. I've read about sixty books since summer began. I'm almost done the book I've been writing since mid-grade-seven - it's at the point where I could pretty much just barf out the epilogue and be done. (Although I'm taking great care to not just barf it out - that's  pretty much what went wrong when I ended my first book, it was too rushed and careless. I need to tell a lot of delicate scenes in my epilogue, so yeah, no barfing allowed).

Also, what's great about this book is that you know you care about your story when you're actually excited to begin rewriting it. It's like, I got so many new ideas in the midst of writing the thing, so I'll have to set the foundations for those things earlier on, and follow up on some threads I left out to dry, and even change the order of a few events so that things actually, y'know, make sense. I've been thinking really hard about changing the entire sequence of events at one point, because it helps with a character's currently non-existent redemption arc... I've got a lot of work to do. But that's kind of the fun, if you're me.

This is why I don't do life updates. I'm actually an extremely boring person. I sit around, I sleep, I read, I write. I'm not very exciting at all. I spend an inordinate amount of time just thinking. Hence my blog is full of pop culture rather than actual, you know, life. Hence the fact that my blog even exists.

Oh! We've been working more on the Hunger Games Musical! I'm happy about that, because it's the greatest mixture of hard work and fun. It keeps me busy and I get to sing and do film-making and edit things and it's just a great time, even though we have to go outside in the beating 35 degree sun in the same clothes we wore in frosty-enough-to-hear-the-crunch November. We recently finished filming a fight scene which was the hardest work we've ever done on it so far - have you ever tried choreographing a fight to music and singing? And then shooting it? With only two people on the set? Both of whom are actors? NOT an easy thing. But, as far as I can make out from the footage, relatively successful. Probably more clips from that will be coming soon.

Also, my electric drum set finally got moved to my room, and so I have been pounding on those much more often as a result. There's something great about sitting down to write after a half hour or so of playing drums. Don't ask me about that one.

But, yes. That is my life. And this is why I don't do life updates.

R.I.P Robin Williams

I am very upset to find out that the legendary comedian Robin Williams committed suicide a few days ago.

It's not even like I knew the guy or anything. I'm not going to pretend that I ever thought of Robin Williams as someone who was close to my heart. But it is absolutely heartbreaking to me that someone who spurred so much laughter and joy could be so helpless to find any in his own life. Perhaps it's childish of me to say, but it's entirely unfair and I hate it.

Robin Williams was a brilliant comedian and I don't think I'm overstating anything when I say that he will be deeply missed.

With that in mind:

"You're only given a spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."  - Robin Williams

Thank you, Robin Williams, for stoking that spark into a brilliant flame that brought laughter and merriment to so many people.

May he rest in peace.

So I'm Trying a Thing...

As teenagers typically do, I have been experimenting with style. (At least, in the security of my own neighbourhood, who have pretty much seen the height of my ridiculousness and I have absolutely no fear of their judgment).

This one I've been trying out for a couple days, and I've got to say... it's growing on me.

Of course it's a look that is decidedly and hopelessly straight out of the eighties.

But when have I ever objected to being out of date?

Favourite Thing of the Week #10

So, as you may know, I've been reading a series called the Heroes of Olympus, and I've been getting... pretty into it.

Anyways, at one point in the fourth book, we get a major piece of character development for a character called Nico di Angelo.

Now, to put this in perspective, let me give you a crash course on Nico di Angelo.

He is a recurring, but not primary character in the Percy Jackson universe. He appeared in the third book of the Percy Jackson series (The Titan's Curse) as a kid who was a little geeky and a little off and a little loner-ish, but nothing very... worrisome.

What got worrisome was that, when he found out his sister Bianca died, he blamed Percy and ran off in a rage.

We later found out that, first of all, he is not a child of this century. Back in the forties, in order to protect him, his father put him in a place where time moved differently. He eventually emerged from there having barely aged, but about seventy years later. Talk about transition issues.

The other thing we find out is that his mysterious father who hid him in this place is, in fact, Hades, god of the Underworld.

Nico was isolated for a few reasons: A) he was a bit of a loner to begin with. He repeatedly says that his sister was the only one who truly accepted him. Ouch. B) Being a child of the past century... I mean, that's gotta be rough. C) As his father was Hades, who is essentially the loner god, he already felt like an outcast - Hades is feared at best and found contemptible at worst. There's no place for Hades on the Olympian council, and Nico found no place for himself among the other demigods, and his power over the dead is pretty freaky. D) He swore revenge against Percy for not protecting his sister. Percy was well-liked among the other demigods.

As a result, Nico spends most of his time in the Underworld and with the dead.

Nico isn't a bad character at all - once he allowed himself to talk to Percy, he realized that it wasn't Percy's fault, and he wasn't even angry at Percy, he was more angry at his sister for abandoning him. He's a hugely powerful demigod, and really turned the tables when the demigods were fighting the Titans. He singlehandedly convinced his father to help in the fight against Kronos in spite of the fact that Hades loathes the other Olympians.

Basically, Nico is a character who is fundamentally good, but bitter. He's had a lot of bad breaks, and he has literally no support system. (His sister's dead, he freaks out every other demigod, Hades regards him with contempt and says his sister was always better, Persephone... turned him into a flower). Long story short, he's a good character, but sort of... grudgingly so. He helps people but trusts no one.

With that in mind... in the fourth book of Heroes of Olympus, titled The House of Hades, he had to face down Cupid. Cupid slaps him around for a bit, apparently just for the hell of it, until Nico finally admits what terrifies him - he had (or possibly has) a crush on Percy.

What makes this fantastic is, first of all, being from the forties, this would have been an admission that would have been unthinkable in his own time. With that in mind, his isolation suddenly makes that much more sense. After all, if he'd been so ashamed of his feelings for all that time, it's no wonder he'd feel out of place with everyone else.

Anyways, this is a thing that happened in the book. Now, there's a site where the author answers FAQs, and one of the FAQs is: How did you decide on Nico's character development in House of Hades?

His response is my favourite thing of the week, not only because he talks about acceptance and tolerance, but also because, as a writer, he talks about being true to his character (yes, I definitely have my priorities straight).

It's near the bottom of the page. The answer made me happy.

http://www.rickriordan.com/about-rick/faq.aspx

Is Rick Riordan, Just, Out of Ideas, or What?

For those who may not know the author by name, Rick Riordan wrote the wonderful and famed Percy Jackson series, which is naturally one of my favourite book series since I'm too old for it. Yes, I am mentally twelve years old, thank you for asking.

So, the Percy Jackson series. It is about a demigod, Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, and his demigod friends, such as Annabeth, daughter of Athena, and Grover, the satyr. It was a big, popular series, but not quite as big and popular as, for instance, Harry Potter, or the Mortal Instruments, or you know, whatever. Now, I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm going to say that part of the reason it never became quite as big as any of that was because it is kind of a niche market. I mean, yes, it kind of sets itself up in this Harry Potter formula, with the Harry (Percy), the Ron (Grover) and the Hermione (Annabeth), and they fight monsters and save the world and all that stuff, so so far, it's kinda got the right stuff to be, y'know, big. Because, cynical an observation as this may be, people like reading some of the same stuff, and that's kind of on the list.

So why would I say it's a niche market?

Well, it's all based in greek mythology.

Which sounds like an easy concept to grasp.... but, even in the first book, it gets pretty deep in the mythology, and it only gets deeper from there on out. Like, we've got the main gods, and that's cool, but then we also meet characters like Chiron, and Echidna, and the Chimera, and Procrustes, and Kronos, and the Lotus-Eaters.... really, there are only two monsters in the whole book that are immediately recognizable without too much exposition, and that's because Medusa and the three-headed dog guardian of the Underworld (whose name is Cerberus, not Fluffy, for the record) have kind of been burned into people's collective consciousness.

So, yes there's a lot of mythology, and a lot of pretty deep mythology... I mean, the Chimera? There's a reason that's not in every wannabe-loosely-based-on-greek-mythology movie, and the reason is that it's a weird-ass monster.

Yeah, you're seeing that right. It literally just has a random goat head sticking out of its back. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the goat head is, as I don't see how it could help the monster while fighting heroic demigods. Possibly it's just there to freak them out, because that's the only job I can think it would accomplish.

But I digress. 

Oh, and I just realized that another turn-off all that greek mythology might have is that it's kind of freakishly incestuous. What with the fact that Zeus married Hera, who was his sister, Hades kidnapped and married Persephone, who was his niece, Poseidon had a child with Medusa, which was the Pegasus, which means that the main character of the series is related to a winged horse.... and his half-brother the Cyclops, of course, and then one of the squickiest things, of course, was the son of Poseidon and Gaea, Antaeus..... since Gaea was technically Poseidon's grandmother. For some reason Poseidon gets a lot of the freaky family stuff. 

This was the series that got me, the walking encyclopedia of greek mythology, into greek mythology, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: greek mythology is weird. 

So anyways, Rick Riordan wrote this wonderful, fun, sometimes quirky series which was the Percy Jackson series. Yay! Then after the fifth and final book of that was out and finished, he comes out with another series... the Heroes of Olympus series. 

Rings a bit of a bell, huh?

Well, it should. The thing is a spin-off series. (I feel like I should note that he also came out with the Kane Chronicles sometime in between that. Since I haven't read any of the Kane Chronicles I can't comment on it, really, but from what I understand, it's basically Percy Jackson, but with Ancient Egyptian mythology instead of greek).

So, I started asking myself the question that my cousin asked me as he saw me reading Book I of the Heroes of Olympus: "So, has the author just run out of ideas, you think?"

And after thinking about it a bit (and reading two and a half of the books in the series before I was able to properly blog about it) I've come to a surprising conclusion, which is, no, I don't think he has just run out of ideas. 

Yes, I admit, a surprising conclusion.

Now, you're possibly wondering why I gave you a brief history of the Percy Jackson series when I started this post. Well, because I want to be able to draw some comparisons between Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus without losing too many people. Basically, what's important for you to realize is this: Percy Jackson had the Harry Potter trio, like I described (Harry=Percy,  Hermione=Annabeth, Ron=Grover), but Percy Jackson was also in first person. So, while there were a cast of loveable characters surrounding him, it is undeniably centered on him, he's the only character that we really get to know. I mean, the series is called the Percy Jackson series for a reason. It is basically: Percy fights some monsters and saves the world and also sometimes he has friends who help him sometimes. 

The other thing that I want to be understood before I continue is that the stakes in Percy Jackson were fairly high. I'm not going to go into everything, but basically, the titan Kronos was rising, and should he win the war he waged against the gods (which was actually fought by the demigods because reasons) then the entirety of Western civilization would fall. 

So, yeah. The stakes were high.

And I have to admit, I was skeptical going into the Heroes of Olympus - a spin-off, Riordan? Really? How exactly do you plan to top yourself? - but as it turned out, that skepticism was unfounded. He had not run out of ideas. This is not a rewritten Percy Jackson in any way, shape or form. Here are a few reasons why:

Exhibit A) There are more characters who we get to know on a deeper level.

Part of this is just because there are more important characters in general. The main prophecy in Percy Jackson was about, well, Percy Jackson, so understandably, the series was about him. The main prophecy in the Heroes of Olympus concerns seven demigods. Seven of them. All of whom are main characters. Which means that we get the privilege to get to know seven different characters on a much deeper level, which is just such a breath of fresh air, and so much more fun and interesting. Oh, the wonders of a third person narrative. So, he rotates through his chosen narrators for the book as different obstacles crop up, and it's just very well done, as well as fantastic at revealing insecurities and other human wonderfulness that we just didn't get to see that much of in Percy Jackson. I salivate at how character driven this series is turning out to be. 

Exhibit B) It breaks the Harry Potter mold.

This kind of goes along with Exhibit A. Since there are seven demigods, it's hard to fall into the trio of brain, heart and soul in the same way, but I feel like I should point out that books I and II had only three main characters each (this was before the seven had met up entirely), each with two boys and a girl, and so had ample opportunity to fall back into this mold. The great thing is that in spite of this, he still didn't. Piper and Hazel are not Hermiones. And there can be a bit of argument about who the Harry is in Book II, Percy or Frank, since Frank was technically leading the quest and did a lot of the heroics, in spite of the fact that Percy is ridiculously good at filling the role of a Harry - all impulse and no thought. 

Point is, yes, the amount of characters pretty handily prevents the Harry Potter mold from taking place. But even when he had the chance to fall into that familiar habit, he still didn't. The characters kind of take turns filling each role. Everyone gets their own chance to be a hero, which is entirely new (usually Percy did everything. In contrast, we get quite a bit of Percy playing second fiddle. I love Percy, but again, breath of fresh air). And absolutely lovely.

Exhibit C) It expands the universe it's set in.

This, I think, is what a spin-off should strive to do in the first place. Instead of milking the universe that was successful enough to spur a spin-off, it expands upon the universe in a way that makes it that much more full, and most importantly, introduces new conflicts so that it isn't just a retelling of the original thing. How he manages to do it for the Heroes of Olympus is he introduces an entirely new set of demigods, who follow an entirely different set of rules and values - rather than ancient greek, the ancient roman values, which focuses on discipline and working as a collective legion rather than singular heroes, and places much more value on the stability of its citizens. (I think a great comparison of the two is how the roman demigods hold their formal senate meetings, dressed in their togas and paying great attention to formalities, versus the greeks holding their meetings sitting around a ping pong table while the children of Hecate literally steal people's noses and the children of Hermes check to see if ping pong balls are flammable). 

Anyways, one of the main conflicts of the series is the sparking of a civil war between the greek demigods and the roman ones, which is an entirely new concept that was never even hinted at in the original Percy Jackson series. Like I say, it expands upon the universe in a way that makes it a story of its own. 

Exhibit D) The stakes are higher.

Higher than the downfall of western civilization?

Well, yeah. 

Think downfall of humanity. The gods fall, civilization falls, and then humans, if left alive at all, would be nothing but playthings for Gaea, who, yeah, is the Big Bad. (The earth is the Big Bad? Yeah, I know, but in mythology, Gaea could be pretty ruthless. After all, she ordered her son Kronos to castrate his father Ouranos. I can't make this stuff up. Have I mentioned Greek mythology is weird?) 

Also, the Doors of Death. Basically, if something died, like, for instance, a monster of some kind, it wouldn't stay dead. Since Gaea controls the Doors of Death, they can basically just stroll out of the Underworld/Tartarus whenever they feel like it. Death wouldn't mean anything anymore. 

So, yeah. I think it's safe to say the stakes are higher.

Exhibit E) Sacrifice.

This kind of goes with Exhibit D).

Don't get me wrong, characters made sacrifices in the Percy Jackson series. Just.... none of the main characters. Silena Beauregard, a minor character, sacrificed her life. Luke Castellan, the Big Bad's right hand, sacrificed his life. Sure, lots of minor characters made significant sacrifices. But Percy? Sure, he made some very significant choices... handing Pandora's Box to Hestia, for example, or famously, giving Luke the knife. And surely, given no other option, he would have given his life, but that's the thing, is there's always an out, and Percy came out of a war looking not much different.

Heroes of Olympus. The characters make some big choices, and some big sacrifices. The first thing to come to my mind is Frank and Hazel rescuing Thanatos (Death) in spite of the fact that A) Hazel wasn't supposed to be alive, and in all probability, would be deported back to the Underworld by Thanatos, and B) Frank had to burn the stick that was literally his lifeline in order to do it. (Look up Meleager of the Argonauts. It'll make sense). Leo asking for Nemesis's help to save his friends in spite of the fact that Nemesis had warned that, should he ever ask for her help, she'd be asking for something in return... think eye for an eye, but pricier. Or Piper, sacrificing the very essence of who she was in order to dilute the evil from some twisted nymphs and save her friends. Arguably, the Heroes of Olympus is all about sacrifice. As I said, this sort of goes along with Exhibit D), but the difference is that while I already pointed out that the stakes were higher, the fact that characters actually have to sacrifice things in order to succeed also makes the stakes... more real.

So, yeah. Not run out of ideas. In fact, this series is much richer and more satisfying than the Percy Jackson series was. I love Percy Jackson, but I honestly love this even more. The characters are rich and full and awesome and the world is bigger and the stakes are higher and everything is just delicious. I love it. 

Song of the Week (or Two) #1

I have this habit of getting obsessed with a song for about a week or two. For that week or two, this song is pretty much all I listen to. Just, on repeat, for hours. Then I'll find a new song and that will become my new obsession.

Since this is such a regular thing with me, I figured it would make sense to blog about the songs that attack me with their greatness like this, just because, music is important.

So, this week's Song of the Week is: C'mon, by Panic! at the Disco and Fun..

I love Fun. to pieces, they are energetic and touching and wonderful, and I really enjoy Panic! at the Disco as well (or at least the one other song I know by them.... I Write Sins Not Tragedies. Catchy as heck). So, really, there was no way this collaboration could have gone wrong.

C'mon is a wonderful mixture of just cryptic enough to make you think without seeming like total gibberish (I'm a sucker for cryptic-poetry songs). It's got (more than) a hint of sadness that's tempered by the hopefulness of the chorus, which pretty much automatically makes it a favourite of mine - my favourite songs are always one of two things: dealing with sadness with hopefulness, or having an upbeat tune that almost distracts from the crushing sadness that the lyrics discuss. (Recovery by Frank Turner is a favourite because it fits in both these categories). Sadness is beautiful in art, as long as it's balanced with something.

Also, it's really catchy. And it has the added bonus of featuring Nate Ruess's voice. Boy can that guy sing. (I mean, he's no Dan Smith, but nevertheless...)

But, well, I'm not going pretend that I found this song by myself. I've been trolling Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus fanart, and some beautiful person (who inspired a lot of my envy towards people who draw, if you'll remember my last post) drew stuff with the characters from the books (usually with scenes from the books) for the lyrics of the song. I'd seen the drawings many times and didn't think too much of it, but they suddenly become a lot more resonant when you actually play the song along with it. Most people probably won't understand the drawings, so for those people, just enjoy the song in the video, but yeah, this is where I found it. And boy am I glad I did. Fantastic song.