Fear, Loneliness and Love: Themes in Frozen

Last weekend, I got to see Disney's latest movie, Frozen, a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen. 

It was fantastic. I cried. Twice. The characters were, in my opinion, some of the best and most three-dimensional in Disney history, and the music was wonderful. But what made me love it the most were the themes and messages that went along with the story, which are going to be the subject of this post.

Just a quick warning, I will divulge SPOILERS. So if you haven't seen it yet, read at your own risk.

The three biggest themes were Elsa's fear, Anna's loneliness, and true love. I'll talk about Elsa first.

Elsa's fear is actually the biggest antagonist in the film. If she didn't fear her powers and what might happen if they are discovered, it would be a very different story. Fear is Elsa's prison, and in the first act, she flees to the mountains to try and escape. She thinks isolation and freedom will free her. But by the end of the movie, she realizes she's wrong (more on that in a minute.)

In reaction to her fear, Elsa takes steps that could easily lead her down a path to villainy. At one point during the song "Let it Go" she sings "No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free."  Not exactly something you generally hear from one of the main characters in a movie meant for children. However, I think that's Elsa rebelling against the strictness of her past, and she's caught up in the joy of not being afraid. She's so grateful to be free from fear that she's taking it a little too far. (Very human thing to do.) 

Fear informs a good  portion of Elsa's actions. Fear of hurting someone, fear of being found out, fear of doing something wrong. By fleeing to the mountains, she's freeing herself of that fear. (Or thinks she is.) If there is no right or wrong and she's alone, then she doesn't have to worry anymore. She doesn't need to fear herself anymore. But that's not how it works out. You can't just run from the things that cause you fear, especially when the person you fear hurting loves you and is willing to climb a mountain to find you. When Anna comes to find Elsa, Elsa clings to her isolation because it's the first time she's felt safe and unafraid. The same happens when Hans and his posse come to find her. Then the Duke of Weselton's minions try to kill her, only because they're trying to kill her, she reacts more violently (completely understandable). It's not until Hans says "Don't be the monster they think you are" that she realizes she has one foot on the path to villainy, (much as you hate him by the end, he did do something right) and she pulls back a little from said path to the dark side. Like I said before, the characters in Frozen were arguably some of the most human and three-dimensional in Disney history. Humans have flaws, and they make mistakes.  Elsa's flight to the mountains and saying "no right, no wrong, no rules for me" illustrates one of her flaws, or at least a flaw in her thinking.
 
The lyrics in "Let it Go" highlight her emotional state, and give a glimpse at what's in her head. She thinks freedom and isolation will solve her problems. In the end, she's wrong. Love solves her problems. Like the troll said at the beginning, fear is her enemy, but it was her own fear that did most of the damage. Fear was her prison, but it wasn't isolation or freedom from rules that freed her. It was love, conquering her fear, and accepting her power that set her free. 

Now that I think about it, you could find a message of acceptance in there too. Trying to be who everyone wants you to be will only make you unhappy and drive you crazy. You will be much happier of you accept yourself for who you are and stop telling yourself that the things that make you awesome aren't good enough because society doesn't think they make you awesome. (Obviously you wouldn't want to tell a psychopathic killer that, but no piece of advice or anecdote works in every situation.)

Side note: Since fear is the antagonist, by extension, her parents could be considered accidental antagonists, because it was they who taught her to squish her powers. As a friend of mine pointed out, the unsuccessful squishing of the powers only made her more afraid of them, which only made them more powerful because they're worse when she's upset, which made her more afraid, which made them more powerful... A never-ending cycle that made things worse and worse as she grew up. But bless her poor parents' hearts, they thought they were helping, even if they were totally blind to the fact that Elsa shutting herself away was not the best option for anyone. Which brings me to Anna...

Because Elsa shut herself away, Anna got terribly lonely, as illustrated in the songs "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" (the first thing that made me cry), "For the First Time in Forever", and "Love Is an Open Door".  Loneliness is her prison. She's spent the majority of her childhood alone, wondering why Elsa suddenly abandoned their friendship. 

Fast-forward to the night of Elsa's coronation, and Anna meets Hans. Adorable, charming Hans, who talks to her and likes her. For the first time in forever, she doesn't feel alone. Someone is actually paying attention to her and cares about her. (Well, so it appears to her.) She thinks he's the key to unlocking  her lonely prison. But, just like Elsa thought isolation and freedom were keys to her prison, by the end of the movie Anna finds out she's wrong. 

Anna lets us know just how much loneliness influences her worldview when she and Kristoff get to Elsa's ice palace. Kristoff says "People generally go to the mountains to be alone," to which Anna replies, "No one wants to be alone." No one wants to be alone. She's been alone most of her life and she hates it, so she cannot comprehend why someone would want to be alone. And she's so desperate for love that she's willing to marry a man she just met.


Over the course of the movie, these two themes, fear and loneliness, come into conflict repeatedly -- Anna at Elsa's door during "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", Anna wanting to marry a man she just met, to which Elsa says no (yay!), Anna chasing Elsa up the mountain -- which makes the story all the more interesting. There's another vicious cycle there, actually. Because Anna is lonely, she tries to get Elsa to play, but Elsa just draws further back because she's scared of hurting Anna.

Anna's life has been one of closed doors -- the castle gates and Elsa's door -- and then she meets Hans and they sing "Love Is an Open Door".  She jumps at the chance to love and to be loved by someone. But in the end, it's the door that's been closed to her for so long that needs to open before they can all find resolution.  Which brings me to the last theme...

True love. This is a Disney princess movie, so of course true love was a theme. But what was really marvelous about Frozen was that it wasn't a romantic true love that saved the day. It was the love between sisters. The key to both prisons, fear and loneliness, was sisterly love. After however many years of Disney movies where "true love's kiss" saved the day, it was really nice to have a story where that didn't happen. 

At the very end, when Anna has to choose between saving herself or her sister, she throws herself in front of a swinging sword. Despite the fact that Elsa has shut her out for most of their lives, Anna still saves her. That would be the second scene that made me cry. This type of love is so much more powerful than "I met you yesterday, and now I'll kiss your seemingly dead body so you'll wake up!" Though I will give Flynn Rider from Tangled some credit. Romantic love based on a short acquaintance that may have been, the scene where he cuts off Rapunzel's hair is so sweet. 

Another friend of mine was disappointed that Kristoff's love of ice had nothing to do with helping Elsa deal with her ice powers, and I see his point, but I love that it wasn't romantic love that saved the day in the end. The way Frozen ends breaks two tropes: the "Prince saves the Princess" trope and the "True love's kiss" trope. Anna got to save herself by sacrificing herself, odd as that sounds. In a way, Elsa saved her life by nearly causing her death. If Anna hadn't frozen to ice when Hans brought down his sword, she would have died. That's kinda twisted, but fun.


Those three themes--fear, loneliness, and love--wind around and feed each other in a complex web of emotions and motivations that makes the characters feel real and relatable, and that is what, I think, makes Frozen such a good movie.


Also worth checking out: my friend Sarah from Inklined is doing a wonderful series of posts about the plotting of Frozen, examining the main characters' arcs and the plot points in them. As I write this, she's posted part one and part two, and there's more to come.

While you're here and we're talking about Frozen, go check out the Africanized version of "Let it Go" by Alex Boye (that sounds kinda weird, I know, but trust me it's fabulous), the hilarious Google Translate-slaughtered version of "Let it Go", and the equally hilarious, but decidedly morbid parody "Will You Help Me Hide a Body?" 
 
If you've seen Frozen, what do you think of my analysis? What did you think about these or other themes in Frozen?

Smell the Paint and Taste the Sawdust

Hello, Chaps.

As you probably noticed, I've made a few changes to my blog's look. We're under construction. I'm still figuring it out, so you'll see some other changes as I procrastinate writing to make them.

That's about it. I have a post half-written about character-driven vs. plot-driven stories... but it turned into this weird, nonsensical, paradox thing that had my head spinning. So this is all for today.

And a lovely day to you.

Character Study: Rumpelstiltskin

WARNING: THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS ABOUT THE FIRST SEASON OF ONCE UPON A TIME, AND THEY MAY BE INACCURATE SPOILERS, AS I HAVEN'T SEEN THE SECOND SEASON YET AND THEREFORE DON'T KNOW THE WHOLE STORY.

My family recently finished watching the first season of the TV show Once Upon a Time, the premise of which is that the Evil Queen has banished all the fairytale characters to a world where there are supposedly no happy endings: our world.

My very favorite character arc is that of Rumpelstiltskin, one of the villains. Now, I'm not a girl that loves villains. I know there are people out there who just love Loki and Moriarty, but I am not one of them. Rumpel was the first villain (in recent memory) that I really, really liked. For this post, I'm going to try and explain what I think caused me to like him so much, and what makes him such a compelling character and villain. I've thought of two big reasons.

1. His back story. Actually, I just looked at his page on the OUAT Wiki, and there's a lot about him that I don't know yet, so I'm not sure I can accurately speak on this subject. The point I had in mind was that before he got his powers, he was very weak. He walked with a limp, he was scared of losing his son, and he was a bit of a coward. After he got his powers, though, that all changed. He went and single-handedly stopped a war, he had powers that let him do pretty much whatever he wanted, and people were scared of him. He wasn't the weak man people picked on any more. After a lifetime of being a weak coward, I imagine the confidence and powers he gained were addictive, and fed something in him that relished being the powerful one people feared. Therefore he loved his powers, and never wanted to go back to the way things were before.

We sympathize with that. We feel for the underdog and like to see him rise to greatness... it's just that Rumpelstiltskin's form of greatness was also a form of evil.

2. There are things that he loves, and they come into conflict. I've heard the advice before that giving your villain something he loves makes him more interesting, and Rumpel really drove that home. There are three big things he loves: his son, Belle, and his power. Twice during this season, he has to choose between a person he loves and his power. Both times, he chooses his power. And he regrets it.

I think part of what makes this work is that we also love the people he loves. We want to see him pick them. Because the people he loves are good, and they have just a little bit of power over him, there's always a shred of hope that they'll turn him to the good side. And that doesn't fade when he chooses his power over those he loves, because he regrets those choices, and we hope that he will learn from his regret and become good.

And despite the fact that he's freaky and scary, we feel sympathetic toward him, because he lost someone he loved (and we loved), and that's sad. 

If what he loved was a really nasty cat that bit and clawed everyone but him, we wouldn't care. He's evil, and he loves and evil cat. So what? That's not as interesting as an evil person loving someone good, and seeing the conflict between their goodness and evil. In the cat example, we'd just want to see the cat die. Now, if the cat DID die, and we saw him suffer for it, that might be interesting, but I don't think it would have the emotional impact that Rumpelstiltskin losing his son had.

In my opinion, the things Rumpel loves and the fact that they conflict with each other are the main reasons why he's such and interesting and complex character. The back story just informs this and makes it all the more powerful.

And just for fun, what if cat in the cat example were actually a person? Say, and evil wife or brother or best friend, but who was just as evil as the villain. If he lost that person, the audience wouldn't care as much. Actually, depending on the context of the story, it could still be interesting, but my point is that if the audience as well as the villain cares for this brother/best friend/wife/whatever, then we will mourn their loss with the villain, instead of just understanding why he's upset and waiting for the heroes to shoot him.


What do you think of my analysis? Have you come to other conclusions? I'd love to hear what you think, even if you've never seen Once Upon a Time and want to use another character as an example.

And a lovely day/afternoon/morning/whatever to you. 

TCWT January 2014 blog chain: Dream Co-authors

Time for another Teens Can Write, Too! blog chain. This month's theme is:

“If you could co-write a book with one author–living or not–who would it be and what would the book be about?”

This is a good one.

First of all, I'm not sure I'd want to actually co-author something, but maybe just be apprenticed to a great writer and learn from them. Of course, if I did that, I'd probably give my input on the book, so I'd sort of be co-authoring.

Anyway. 

Since this prompt includes dead authors, I choose Charles Dickens. I've only read Little Dorrit, and the first chapter or so of Bleak House, but I've seen the miniseries based on each multiple times, and the characters and plotting are amazing. Everyone is connected to someone else and influences the plot in some way. It's spectacular.

Example from Little Dorrit (CONTAINS SPOILERS): Ms. Wade, a side character you don't see too often, meets Arthur Clennam (the love interest) in Marseille, where they also meet the Meagles. Arthur starts to fall for the Meagle's daughter, Pet. Pet, however, as the story progresses, falls for Mr. Gowan. Who you later find out jilted Ms. Wade. Now, Ms. Wade also tries to lure Harriet, the Meagle's adopted daughter-but-they-treat-her-like-a-favorite-servant away from the Meagles. When, in the middle of the story, Harriet finally leaves the Meagles and goes to live with Ms. Wade, you find out Ms. Wade is involved with Riguad, a creepy-as-all-get-out murderer. He gives her a box to her for safe keeping. Eventually, out of boredom, Harriet opens it, and finds blackmail-worthy documents about Arthur, his family, and how it connects to Little Dorrit's family. Ms. Wade is also involved with Mr. Casby, who monkeys with the plot in other ways, and who's daughter was once in love with Arthur.

(END SPOILERS.) 

Oh, delicious complexity. I could learn so much from Dickens. About characters, plotting, weaving together subplots...

The downside, other than his being dead, is that while his stories are genius (at least the one's I've read/seen) his prose can be kind of... tedious to read sometimes. Given that the man was paid by the word, this is not surprising, but it might drive me crazy. However, the opening chapter of Bleak House starts with this wonderful description of fog, so I could still learn from it. I could learn to be patient with lengthy and verbose prose if it meant I could write with him.

As to what our book would be about... Well, it'd be set in Victorian England, obviously, and be nice and complex, with lots of different emotions and subplots. Maybe the MC(s) would go through a couple of changes of circumstance. Rags to riches, perhaps. Maybe it could involve pirates. And one character could be a grave digger. (Random ideas.)

My second choice would be Brandon Sanderson (and he's even alive!), the author of the Mistborn books, which are currently my favorite series. I've learned so much from his Writing Excuses podcast, I'm sure I'd learn even more working with him. (Confession: I've daydreamed about being a guest star on Writing Excuses.) Like Dickens, his plotting and characters are wonderful, as are his magic systems. The biggest downside to working with him would be the fact that he writes books the size of my thesaurus. Of course, so did Dickens, and Sanderson's prose isn't such a loquacious quagmire. So, were I to co-author with either of them, I would have to learn to be patient with very long books. There are worse things to endure.

If I were to write a book with Sanderson, it would have an awesome magic system, mind-blowing plot twists, and characters I adored. Maybe it, too, would be about pirates and grave diggers. Grave digging magic system, maybe...?

Maybe not. 

I believe that is all I have to say on this matter at this time. Be sure to check out the rest of the posts on the chain!

5th – http://thescribblingbook.wordpress.com/
6th – http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/
7th – http://miriamjoywrites.wordpress.com/
8th – http://www.oyeahwrite.wordpress.com/
9th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/
10th – [Andrea. No link for her yet.] ... Hmm. Okay then.
11th – http://randomofalife.blogspot.com/
12th – http://www.lilyjenness.blogspot.com/
13th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/
14th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/
15th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/
16th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/
17th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com
18th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll be announcing the topic for next month’s chain.)

And a lovely day/night/whatever to you all! 

You Know You're a Writer When....

Sarah of Inklined has tagged me in the You Know You're a Writer When tag! To participate in this tag, I have to list four to six signs of being a writer, without knowingly copying anyone else, and then tag as many other bloggers as I want.

You know you're a writer when....

1. You look up pictures of small pox and burn scars on Pinterest.

2. You have a little scribe in your head taking notes about politics/people/human nature/whatever when your parents/other people have conversations in front of you.

3. You sometimes psychoanalyze yourself and the people around you and characters you see in books and movies, and then apply what you learned/figured out to your own characters. 

4. Most of the time you spend on Facebook involves interacting with other writers.

5. You have this morbid fascination for really old cemeteries and the people buried there and their stories.

6. You daydream of people drawing fan art of your characters.


And now to tag people...
Bethany (Thanigan) of Ramblings of a Young Author
Leah (Canon) of Apassionata
Liam of This Page Intentionally Left Blank 
S. Alex Martin (Scalex) of Get it Write Tonight!
And YOU, fair reader, should you wish to participate.

And a lovely day/night/afternoon/whatever to you.

Giving My MC Flaws (and Also My Birthday)

So, for the past...Oh, I forget how long, I've been worried that my MC, Gwen, is not flawed enough and too much like me.

I think I have fixed that. Here's what I did:

Sitting at the table the other night I thought "Well, if she needs flaws, and I'm worried about her being too much like me, why don't I give her flaws I don't have?"

Obvious though that may seem in hindsight, it was totally a light bulb moment. So, I started brainstorming a list of general flaws to pick-and-choose from. Greed, pride, prejudice, vanity... And after a few minutes I went and did a Google search to see if anyone had already made a list so I wouldn't have to do all that list-building work. What I found is this: Dark World RGP Character Flaw list. This is actually something I'd seen before in a Character Therapist blog post, but this time I actually looked through the list for possible flaws for my MC.

So. Much. Fun. Yes, I know that's weird. But I love brainstorming, and basically what I was doing was going through and picking out potential flaws and brainstorming why she might have them and how they might affect her and the story. Doing that helped me dig into her character and made her feel less flat and me-like.

Something else I thought: Not all flaws are created equal. Some flaws will be more prevalent in your character and do more damage than others. I haven't really put this to use yet, but I have it written down to think about as I revise/write.

(Another resource I found, but didn't really use is the TV Tropes Character Flaw Index. It looked useful too.) 

The point of this post condensed into one sentence: If you're having trouble with your MC being flat or too much like you, try brainstorming flaws for him/her that you don't have and that fit into the story, hindering or helping the characters as need be. Actually, let me rephrase that. Give them traits that make them act in ways you wouldn't.

So. That's that. Hopefully someone will read this and it'll help them figure out their characters. In other news, today is my 18th birthday, and also the two year blogoversary of this little corner of the Internet. This means I have now known some of my online friends for over two years, and that makes me happy. In celebration of all this, I might be changing the appearance of this blog soon. I've been thinking it needs a makeover, I just haven't done it yet.

Chances are I won't post again until after Christmas, so happy holidays to you!

TCWT: If I Could Live in a Book...

Hello, chaps.

The Teens Can Write, Too! blog chain is back! This month's prompt is:
Which fictional world would you most like to be a part of, and what role do you think you would fulfill within it?

Oh, this question. It's almost as bad as "What's your favorite book?" or "Who's your favorite character?"

I've read lots of books with cool worlds. For this post, I've narrowed my answer to this question to three.

Hogwarts from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series
Harry Potter is and shall always be one of my favorite fantasies. I wouldn't mind being an herbology professor at Hogwarts. Or maybe a shopkeeper in Hogsmead or Diagon Alley.

The Enchanted Forest from Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles
I have read these books three times (I think), and I could read them all over again. The Enchanted Forest sits under the Mountains of Morning and is full of cool creatures and witches and people and magic things. I would probably be a witch like the cat-loving Morwen.

Alloy of Law era Scadrial from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series.
Mistborn is my favorite fantasy right now. Alloy of Law is the fourth book in the series, taking place three hundred years after the original trilogy. To avoid spoilers, all I'll say is it's set in an Industrial Revolution kind of setting. If you want more details about this world and magic system, go read Liam's post from earlier in the chain. He explained Scadrial already, so I won't bother doing it too. Not sure what role I'd fill in this society, though.

Hmm. I picked three fantasies. Can't say I'm all that surprised. For a bonus, non-fantasy fourth world, I choose Gone Away Lake from the Gone Away Lake books by Elizabeth Enright, in which two kids find an old, nearly abandoned town next to a dried-up lake. I'd live in Mrs. Brace-Gideon's mansion.

Be sure to check out the rest of the chain!

4th December ~ http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/
5th December ~ http://deborahrocheleau.wordpress.com/
6th December ~ http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/
7th December ~ http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/
8th December ~ http://themagicviolinist.blogspot.co.uk/
9th December ~ http://oyeahwrite.wordpress.com/
10th December ~ http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/
11th December ~ http://kirabudge.weebly.com/
12th December ~ http://www.brookeharrison.com/
13th December ~ http://nextpagebookreviews.blogspot.com/
14th December ~ http://susannahailenemartin.wordpress.com/
15th December ~ http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/
16th December ~ http://www.mirrormadeofwords.wordpress.com/
17th December ~ http://veewhoa.wordpress.com/
18th December ~ http://lilyjenness.blogspot.com/
19th December ~ http://wheatandwine.wordpress.com/
20th December ~ http://pleaseforgetmystory.wordpress.com/
21st December ~ http://anmksmeanderingmind.wordpress.com/
22nd December ~ http://missalexandrinabrant.wordpress.com/
23rd December ~ http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/
24th December ~ http://miriamjoywrites.com/

And a lovely day to you.

Happy Thanksgiving and a NaNoWriMo Update

Happy Thanksgiving, chaps! I hope this lovely day of thanks is treating you well. I'm grateful for a great many things, far more than I could ever list, but here are ten examples:

1. Books.
2. Music.
3. My awesome family for putting up with my writing crazies.
4. Food.
5. My awesome writing friends.
6. The great writing resources I've found, such as Go Teen Writers and Writing Excuses.
7. Things that make me laugh, smile, and curl my toes with glee.
8. Glitter.
9. Textbooks, experience, and other things that help me learn. 
10. Our garden.

And a bonus number 11: NaNoWriMo!

As you may have noticed, I won NaNoWriMo! 50 thousand words in 21 days. This is my best time for NaNo yet, even if I didn't write a full novel (I think that may be one of the reasons I won faster than in previous years--I didn't worry about things not making sense and plots falling apart.)

And now that I'm done, I'm jumping back into edits for last year's NaNo. I take that back. What I will be doing is not editing. It is full-flung, head-on, rip-it-to-shreads-and-put-it-back-together, revision. Yeah. Should be fun.

Those of you still writing and trying to hit 50k, YOU CAN DO IT! I believe in ya.

And a lovely, mashed-potato-filled evening/morning/afternoon/whatever to you. 

NaNoWriMo Update and a Short Story

Hello, readers.  NaNoWriMo is going exceedingly well this year. I'm a whole TEN THOUSAND words ahead.  How did this happen? I'm not sure. It probably had something to do with the fact that I wrote nearly 6k on Sunday. How did that happen? I am an OCD overachiever and the next round, even number or milestone was always just a few hundred words away.

I've deviated quite a bit from my plan this year. I intended to write short stories and use them as practice. But I haven't figured out how to make writing short stories fun. Also I haven't read very many, which probably aided the lack-of-fun-ness. Since I haven't read many of them, I don't know how they work, which is frustrating when I'm trying to write one. However, since the month is not yet halfway over, I might figure it out before this wonderful month of words ends.

What have I been writing that I am TEN THOUSAND words ahead if I haven't been writing short stories or a novel, you ask? I've (mostly) been writing scenes from last year's NaNo novel from the points of view of side characters. And I love it. I love getting into the heads of the other people of this story and seeing what they think of the situations I've put them in. I get to kill two birds doing this: I participate in NaNo AND do something that will help me edit last year's novel.  My MC seems to be the center of attention a lot, which actually makes sense, given the fact that nearly all the other characters are constantly lying to her and trying to keep things secret and disapproving of her. There is this one maid though who is too focused on herself (for good reasons, she's not just selfish) to pay much attention to the MC (also she's being told the same lies as the MC). Her character arc is great.  Not that you see much of it. Anyway. The side characters are starting to feel more fleshed out, which makes me very happy.  I highly recommend this practice of writing scenes from alternate POVs.

This year's NaNo, aside from being different in that I'm not writing another novel, has been different in that I'm writing faster (I can consistently write 1000 words in one hour) and I feel like showing everyone what I've written about my side characters so I can fangirl over them with someone else comfortable sharing what I've written, which is very different from how I felt about my first NaNo.

In accordance with said comfortableness, I shall post the one short story thing I've written that I like. (Also because this post is really just drivel and you deserve something moderately cool as a reward for slogging through it, unedited and potentially full of errors as said reward may be.) For those of you who liked Adventures in Editing, I have written more of those (I did have fun writing them) and I will post them once I figure out where the story is going and I get them edited. 

So, without further ado... no, wait, there is more ado. I wrote this story based on this prompt that a friend posted to the Go Teen Writers Facebook group. Basically it's "What if people were born with a clock that ticked down to the time they met their soul mate?" The Pinterest pin that link takes you to has a bunch of little blurbs that other people have written off this prompt, and they are great. Probably better than what I'm about to share. I'm also told that there are short stories similar to this on WattPad, but I haven't read them. (Here's one someone on GTW said she liked. Again, I haven't read it, so I can't say whether it's good or clean or whatnot.)

Okay, ado being done with, here's my story. It's only 571 words long, so it's a quick read. Please feel free to give any feedback. Personally, I think the beginning feels off, but I'll fix it later.
 

My parents say I was born with my clock at zero. I have no soul mate. I am doomed to live a life alone.

That was hard through high school and college as I watched my friends find those they were destined to love, knowing that there was no one destined to love me.

One day, as I sat at lunch, a man about my age sat down next to me.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked. “This is the only seat left.”

I smiled. “Go ahead.” I turned back to my salad. As I was finishing, a teenage girl stood and ran outside, looking frantic, holding her wrist up to her face. I’d seen it before. Her clock was about to run out. A few seconds later, a teenage boy walked up to her, also looking at his wrist.

They’d found each other.

The man sitting next to me pulled up his sleeve and looked at his own wrist. It was at zero. He cursed quietly.

“Trouble in paradise?” I asked.

He looked at the newly acquainted teenagers and shook his head. “I don’t know who mine is.” He sighed. “Somehow between the time I was born and put in the nursery at the hospital, my clock ran out. No one knows who she is.”

I held up my own wrist. “I was born at zero.”

A sad look filled his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s no worse than your situation. You know you have a soul mate, but you don’t know if you’ll ever see her again. That must be hard.  My situation is stable. I know I’ll never meet anyone.”

He shrugged, and turned back to his food. A few seconds after he got up to leave, he came back. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask: When is your birthday?”

I blinked in surprise. “November ninth.”

“November ninth?” A strange look came over his face. Something like excitement, but more… hesitant. “What year?”

“Nineteen eighty seven.”

A smile stretched on his face. “What city?”

“Indianapolis. Why all the questions?”

“Indianapolis General Hospital?”

“Yeah, I think so. What is all this about?”

His smile broadened, and he briefly put a hand over his mouth. “I was born on November ninth, nineteen eighty seven, in Indianapolis general hospital. That is where my clock ran out. Are you sure you were born at zero?”

The implication behind his words surprised me so much I didn’t know what to say. And that’s when it hit me. “No, no I don’t know. I was premature, so I was put in an intensive care unit before I was placed in the nursery. They…they wouldn’t have paid attention to my clock. They were focused on keeping me alive.”

“Were you placed in the regular nursery with the rest of the babies?”

“Yes. I remember my mom saying how she wished I’d stayed in the intensive care unit because it was quieter. There was this one baby boy who screamed all the time. Though she said his mom was nice.”

All of the sudden he burst out laughing, and his eyes grew shiny. “My mom said I screamed constantly, and she felt bad because there was this one little preemie girl who needed sleep.”

We stared at each other, letting our unspoken conclusion rule the silence.

Then he stuck out his hand. “My name is William Tate, and I believe you are my soul mate.”

Why is that last line in a different font? All I did was copy and paste from Word. Weird. 
 
 Anyway, hope you enjoyed that a bit. Hope NaNo's going well for my fellow WriMos!

A wordy evening/day/mid-morning/whatever to you.

Short Story: Adventures in Editing

Before I get to the point of this post, I just wanted to point out that NANOWRIMO STARTS IN LESS THAN TWO DAYS! TOO SOON! NOT READY! NOT ENOUGH PLANS! GOING TO TRY PANTSING! AAAAH!

Ahem.

Anyway, as you may or may not know, I'm going to try my hand at writing some short stories this year for NaNo (and maybe some revising, and writing the history of the world my NaNo '12 is set in). NaNoRebel! Really I'll be working on whatever I want and adding up the words for various projects until I hit 50k.

The following story is one thing I'll be playing with this November. It's about a young writer who goes to an editing counselor and it's not what she expects. I don't remember where this idea came from, but it was lots of fun to write, and I plan on doing more of them. That is, if I can find ways to make the editing process fun to read about. Hmm.

I experimented quite a bit while writing this. It's in the present tense, which I don't use for novels and only recently became comfortable reading. It uses this weird perspective that looks like third person omniscient but is actually third person limited. And it has inordinate amounts of alliteration.

But, hey, it was still a lot of fun.

Please go ahead and critique if you want. As I said, I did a lot of experimenting, and I'd like to know what worked and what didn't.

(Please forgive the lack of indents. The right formatting didn't carry over from my Word doc, and I don't really want to spend the time fixing it.)

Adventures in Editing

Episode 1: The Reunion, The Counselor, and The Axe.

A young writer walks up the stairs of Chadrick’s First Draft Depository and Editing Counselors with a spring in her step. Six weeks before, she said a tearful goodbye to her first draft, written in the flurry of fingers and maelstrom of metaphor known as National Novel Writing Month.

Today, she gets it back.

This is her best work yet, she can feel it. A friend of hers told her of Chadrick’s, a place that provided first draft care while the writers took a six week break before editing.

She remembers the tears and smudged ink from that day six weeks ago. Here, on these fated steps, she said goodbye to her characters, bid farewell to her plot twists, and afterward purchased a plot bunny from a nearby street seller to ease the pain.

The motto of Chadrick’s stares down at her from the arched eyebrow of the entrance: “What has been written shall be rewritten.” Above it is a crest bearing two crossed axes.

A strange motto indeed. And why the axes? But, oddness aside, according to her friend, Chadrick’s is the best of the best.

As well it should be for the amount of money she’s paid.

She flings open the door, and the sweet smell of ink floods her nose. Oh, how she’s missed it!

The reception room looks just as she remembers it. Lines of prose still flit across the wall paper, and the soft sounds of pen scratching paper and clicking computer keys echo from nowhere.

She rushes to the front desk and spouts her name.

The pink-haired receptionist looks up from a manuscript. “Nice to meet you. May I help you?”

The writer blushes. “I’m here to pick up my manuscript.”

The receptionist nods and types something into her computer. A sad smile spreads across her face. “This is your first time using Chadrick’s?”

The writer nods. “Yes, a friend told me it’s the best.”

“Yes, it is that,” the receptionist says. “Let me see which editing counselor you…” Her smile flattens into a line. “It says you’re scheduled to talk with Rodge Slayer. That’s mean.”

The writer frowns, a little uncertain. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” the receptionist says, shaking herself a bit and smiling again. She points across the hall to a door. “Go through there. Mr. Slayer’s office is the door at the end.”

The writer thanks her and turns toward the door, which she now sees has more axes engraved on it.

As she grabs the handle, she hears the receptionist say “Oh, honey, bless your heart.”

Suddenly the axes look more menacing than odd. Why do they have axes as their logo?

She pushes the thought away and plows into the next room.

And stops.

A semi-dark hallway stretches before her, the only light coming from a string of swinging bulbs. It harpoons the darkness, but does not completely eradicate the shadows.

The door closes silently behind her. She takes a step, and it makes no noise.

The writer takes a deep breath—noting a lack of odors—and shakes her head. Her friend said that Chadrick’s was the best of the best, and that going there was one of the best choices he’d ever made.

 A wail slices the silence.

A door crashes open, and a middle-aged woman comes out, clutching sheets of paper to her chest. Inky tears run down her face.

“My darlings…dead!” she sobs, pushing her way past the writer and slamming the door to the reception area behind her.

The writer swallows. Not once had her friend said anything about dark hallways, abundant axes, or…death. He’d said the first day was hard, but surely it couldn’t be that bad.

Could it?

As much as she wants to turn around, the writer is not leaving without her manuscript, and the only way she’ll ever see it again is by going through the door at the end of the hall.

So she takes a step forward. Her journey down the eerie hallway is uneventful, though occasionally a sniffle slips or a cheer crescendos from behind one of the other closed doors.

The name Rodge Slayer stands out on the door, demanding to be noticed and underscored by yet another axe.

The writer raises her hand and knocks. The dull sound dies around her, failing to echo.

The door flies open to reveal a short man in a top hat. He beams. “You must be the writer of this tale,” he says in a English accent, waving a thick stack of papers in the air. The writer sees her name at the top of one page.

“Yes,” she says, forcing a smile and pulling her eyes off the stack of paper.

“Well, come in, come in! It’s so nice to see a new author in here.”

The writer steps in the room, which, unlike the monochrome reception area and creepy hallway, is painted in bright, flamboyant red.

The man in the top hat thrusts his hand out. “I’m Rodge, as you might have guessed.” His smile battles with the walls in a contest of brightness.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

The writer shakes Rodge’s hand and introduces herself.

Rodge slips behind a desk and gestures to a comfy looking-chair in front of it. “Take a seat, take a seat.”

The writer does so.

“I believe you came for this.” He slaps the stack of paper on the desk.

But it is not just any stack of paper. That paper represents a month of sweat, tears, and tea. A month of late nights, chocolate, and disconnected internet.

It is the beloved manuscript.

“Tell me, how many stories have you written?” Rodge asks, putting on a pair of square glasses and glancing at the treasured paper.

“This was my second novel,” the writer says, forcing aside memories of the travesty to the world of literature that was her first. The editing fiasco that resulted was why her friend had recommended Chadrick’s.

Rodge nods. “Well, for a second novel you did very well.” He looked over the top of his glasses and smiles. “Now the fun begins.”

He reaches under the desk and brings out an axe. A gleaming, silver thing about a foot long, with words carved into the handle. It catches the light in a metallic wink.  “Here’s your axe.”

The writer looks at it. “Why do I need an axe?”

He sighs like he’s heard this many times before. “Look, I’m going to be straight with you. Not a single word you wrote in this draft is going to make it to the final draft.”

The writer gasps in horror. How can this be? She spent a month, a month, working on her masterpiece. It needs work, yes, but surely she won’t cut out every single word she wrote.

Mr. Slayer must be joking.

“The axe,” he continues, “Is a tool that will help you to fix metaphoric missteps, polish prose, and otherwise bring your novel to the masterpiece it is going to be. You’ll also want these.”

He slaps a package of red pens in front of her, the same shade of red as the walls. The word Chadrick’s is embossed on each, the letters vaguely standing out in the clear plastic, caught somewhere between visible and invisible.

Now those she knows how to use.

She glances back at the axe. “Will I really need something that large and sharp to edit?”

“It makes it less painful,” Mr. Slayer says, “I’ve done extensive testing, and my findings all conclude that using the axe in conjunction with the ubiquitous red pen achieves the best results. Why don’t you try it out?” He pushes the axe toward her. “The first time is a little shocking, but you’ll soon get the hang of it.”

The writer’s eyes widen until they hurt. She stares at the axe, its medieval charm dripping away with the imminent ink of an innocent manuscript.

“N-now?”

“The longer you put it off, the harder it hurts. Cut something small first. A superfluous sentence or unnecessary scene.”

The writer looks at the weapon again. She could cut a sentence with a red pen easily. Scribble it over until it looks like a crime scene.

But use an axe? She doesn’t even know how to use the axe!

It is just one sentence, the practical part of her says. She could cut one sentence, even with this lethal device.

The writer flips through her beloved manuscript, looking for a sentence to cut, her fingers tingling with nostalgic joy.

She finds one, there. “The garden was brown.” That could be replaced with something better.

She picks up the axe. It is not cold, contrary to what she expected, and the half-written metaphor about steely frostbite dies in her mind. Rather, it is warm. Not too hot, not to cold, but a comfortable warm, like the perfect bowl of porridge.

Taking a deep breath, she raises the axe above her head and –

“STOP!” Mr. Slayer shoots to his feet, flinging his hands to the ceiling. He puts a hand on the writer’s. “That’s not how it works.” He lowers her hand to the desk. “Watch me.” He pulls another piece of paper from a drawer. A grocery list. He picks up the axe, and lowers the tip of it to rest on the word “rutabagas.” The ink ripples, blurs, and disappears, as though washed out with water. The handle of the axe catches the light again, but this time the flash is purple, not silver.

“No reckless hacking.” Mr. Slayer says. “Just precise removal. Now you try.”

The writer, embarrassed, takes the axe again, gently lowering the tip to her condemned sentence. The ink ripples. Less like a pond, more like a notebook left in the rain. She blinks, and the ink is gone.

The handle of the axe grows warmer, and once again flashes purple. Confused, she examines the handle more closely. The words inscribed on it are “To cut, to save, perchance to reuse.”

Mr. Slayer smiles. “Now, that’s the best part of Chadrick’s editing axes. They save all the words they cut, along with a backup of your entire manuscript, in the handle.”

The writer blinks, and takes another look at the axe. Surely not. “How is that possible?”

Mr. Slayer shakes his head. “Company secret, company secret. Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”

What madness is this? A magical axe that stores information? The writer flips it over and looks at it from every angle, as though examining something from another planet.

For all she knows, she could be.

“There is a USB port on the bottom, if you slide the medallion aside,” Mr. Slayer says, rummaging in his desk again.

The writer notices a slight depression on one side of the rounded handle end, and pushes. Sure enough, the round piece slides aside to reveal a familiar, indented rectangular box.

Mr. Slayer pushes a bundled cord across the desk. One end has a USB plug, and the other a flat bar with a paperclip-like protrusion in the center. “And this is our patented Notebook Reader. You clip it to the top of your notebook or printed manuscript, plug it into the axe, and anything you write down, the axe will record.”

The writer is pretty sure that her eyebrows will be lost in the roof, and her jaw in the basement. 

But Mr. Slayer isn’t done. “Then, if you have a double ended USB cable, you can download anything from the axe onto a computer. You cannot go directly from notebook to computer, however. You must use the axe in between.”

“How…”

Mr. Slayer smiles and taps his nose. “Company secret.”

“And I suppose the red pens can record my thoughts automatically. Or they have some kind of magic ink that self-corrects typos.”

He frowns. “No, don’t be ridiculous. The red pens are simply red pens. One does not edit without red pens.”

Nodding, the writer picks up the pens and the Notebook Reader axe attachment, and slips them in her purse. The axe…well, she’ll just have to carry that. Oh, the looks she’s going to get walking down the street.

“Now you have the gadgets, you can start the editing.” Mr. Slayer neatens the pages of the manuscript, and hands them to her.

The writer frowns. “I thought you were to walk me through the editing process. Help me get started.”

“No. The best way to learn is by jumping in. I will be here to offer advice and help you figure out tricky spots, but I will not do your revising for you.”

The writer nods, but inside her stomach twists like a snake eating its own tail. The last time she edited on her own, she’d wound up hating her story.

She does not want to go there again.

“However, I will give you assignments,” says Mr. Slayer. “How much time will you spend editing a day?”

“Two to three hours. I work at a bookshop downtown the rest of the time. What do you mean by assignments?”

“When you come back next week, I expect you to have done a full read through with your red pens, made lots of notes, and chosen one thing large thing to be cut.”

Sounds reasonable. “And if I don’t?”

“If you do not complete the assignments, you will not be welcomed back at Chadrick’s. We understand that life gets in the way, but if you don’t take editing seriously, we won’t take you seriously. You will no longer be offered our services, and you will not be refunded. Some of the other counselors are softer on their writers, but I do not believe in baby feeding and cradling your ego. To work with me, you must be very dedicated and willing to do the work.”

No services. No refund. No help. Another round of solo edits that will cause her to go crazy.

“I’ll do whatever you ask.”

Mr. Slayer smiled. “Good. Then I will see you next week. Do Wednesday mornings generally work for you?”  

 There you have it. Quick question for non-writer readers (if there even are any): One of the folks who gave me feedback on this story said it might be a good idea if I develop the writer a bit more and show how she feels about her writing. I know how the writer feels, as will other writers (I hope), but non-writers might not. I think my critiquer makes a good point. Thoughts? Were you able to glean how she felt about her writing?

And with that, I'll wish you a fantastic afternoon/night/morning/whatever.