Tag Archives: fantasy

Talent ≠ Success

tal-ent (/’talǝnt/)
natural aptitude or skill.

Oxford English Dictionary

When I was very young, I was always told by my parents that I was exceptional, talented, and full of potential. There was no doubt that I would go on to be a great musician, or film composer, or physicist, or … something. I would defy the expectations of everyone around me, and I’m fairly certain people saw me as a somewhat precocious, and probably very pretentious, little kid.

You see, I grew up as as child in rural, backwater Switzerland, where the talent pool was small, and I was a big fish in a tiny little pond. My first exposure to the limits of my talent came when we moved to England, and I was suddenly in classes with people who were genuinely as talented, and in some cases far more talented, than I could ever hope to be. Pianists who could play Bach’s C#-minor fugue, and cellists who could play Elgar; English students who could write better than me, and math students who understood differentials better than me.

This was a blow to my young ego, which had unto that point been stroked egregiously by everyone around me. Yet I weathered it, and came to the realization that, in most endeavors, there would always be someone in the world who could do it better. That’s the nature of life.

As a side note, this became a factor in my worsening teenage depression, as I assumed that I would never amount to anything if I couldn’t be the best at anything.

And yet, I’ve continued on through decades assuming that my lack of success (and let’s be clear, in this context success means money) was due to a lack of talent – that I really am not very good at very much. I have a low-skill job at mediocre pay, I frequently live paycheck-to-paycheck, and the art I create is not spread wide across the literary or musical worlds.

The funny thing is that, to myself, I really enjoy what I create. I listen to my own songs on repeat; I re-read my own books frequently. My background wallpaper is a photo I took – one of my favorites. In my own mind – from a failed childhood or some other delusion – I am still talented.

And perhaps this isn’t necessarily wrong, per se; if talent is a natural aptitude or skill – key word being ‘natural’ – then I am at least somewhat talented. Whilst I’ve enjoyed a musical upbringing and education, I’ve never been taught anything more than high school English, and yet have written four full-length novels. In my own subjective opinion, at least some of my songs are as good as number one chart hits – within genres, at least.

Maybe it’s okay to be talented; maybe it’s okay to think I’m talented. What I might consider a lack of success doesn’t have to mean a lack of talent.

You see, it’s taken me a long time to realize that talent and success don’t go hand-in-hand. I might be talented; I might write good songs and passable novels. But talent doesn’t guarantee success (and frequently, success doesn’t guarantee talent). In fact, I would go as far as to argue they aren’t even two sides of the same coin, but literally separate coins entirely.

I wrote three fantasy novels. They’ve amassed – in the five years since publication – fewer than 30 reviews and ratings. In the grand scheme of things, no one’s read them, and I certainly haven’t recouped my editing costs through sales. The same is true for my young adult novel, although it’s spread has been somewhat wider than my fantasy.

What I’ve learned is that writing a book is hard, tedious, laborious and and thankless work. It’s the fruit of hundreds of hours of labor, sweat, tears, depressions and other terrible emotional free-falls, and to create a worthy book – one that stands toe to toe with ‘real’ (read: established) authors – is an incredibly difficult and daunting task.

But selling a book is even harder.

Selling a book – that is to say, marketing a book – is a whole different world. A completely different set of skills are required, a different world view and knowledge, different insights and connections, and is often subject to the mercy of individuals who may simply not like your work. Getting significant sales from a book you wrote is a different beast altogether, and one that I most certainly don’t have a talent for.

Yet what I’ve discovered is … that’s okay. Just like I learned as a child that I’m not ever going to be the best at anything, and to focus on the things I am somewhat good at, I’ve learned that marketing and selling is something I’m just not very good at. And that’s okay.

Success – and its definition – is highly subjective. To succeed means to achieve a goal, and in the sense that, when I started writing I had a goal to write a novel, I have succeeded. I’ve succeeded, in fact, four times over. And not only did I write four novels, I wrote four damn good novels – maybe no Harper Lee or Tolkien, but perhaps at least as engaging and well-written as Stephen King (or maybe Jay Asher). I like my books.

Whether they ever lead to a career or not isn’t necessarily what I care about; I didn’t set out to write a best-seller. If I had, I would have written a by-the-numbers thriller or romance novel, and sold it to the first publisher wanting to tack it on to the countless thousands of other books out there exactly like it. No; I’m much happier having written a complex, character-driven young adult novel, or dark, unpredictable fantasy stories, knowing that I’m personally pleased with how they turned out.

If, in some years, someone discovers these books and makes me an offer I can’t refuse, well then that’l be the icing on the cake. Until then, I’ll keep writing, because the satisfaction of finishing a story is in itself a success. The fact that there are people in the world who I know have been touched by my work is all the nicer.

Talent doesn’t equal success, but then again, success doesn’t require talent.

Best to put talent to good use.

Movie Night: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Year: 2018
Genre: Fantasy
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler

The  second installment of the “Fantastic Beasts” series featuring the adventures of Magizoologist New Scamander.

I was curious at the critical dislike for this movie, considering how successful “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” was back in 2016. In fairness, I didn’t go to see this movie in theaters when it was released, although I do regret that – if nothing else, the Wizarding World films have proved to be some of the most visually spectacular in recent cinema history.

After a while, I began to assume the hate was directed at poor casting choices, or controversial thematic material (e.g. Dumbledore’s alluded-to romance with Grindelwald), but I never really paid much attention until I finally watched the film the other night.

I thought it was great.

No, really – I actually very much enjoyed it. I do think I understand some of the criticism levied at it – in particular the plethora of characters, the inexplicable rewriting of wizarding history, and the bizarre, one-line reference to homosexuality (I mean, either dive in and embrace it, or just forget about it) – but for me, it was a worthwhile installment in what I hope will become an excellent series.

I was afraid that Johnny Depp would bring his characteristically outrageous performance to Gellert Grindelwald and ruin the character; I was also disappointed at the casting of an American in a distinctly European role. I was also afraid that Jude Law, who in my eyes can really only play a villain, would ruin Dumbledore for me.

I’m glad to say I was wrong. Depp was surprisingly understated and reserved – just what was called for. Law was able to be both charismatic, charming and dangerous – exactly what I wanted Dumbledore to be. And the supporting cast all performed admirably, as well.

The movie isn’t without imperfections; as a sequel to “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, Newt Scamander’s role is becoming somewhat relegated to the sidelines of another story. In fact, it really seems like the first film should have stood on its own, and this one been called something else entirely. I agree with the criticism of having a large number of characters, but not with the idea that there are too many to care about; I’m used to plentiful characters from Rowling’s novels, and it fit the feel of what she’s created in the past.

In the end, I’m glad I watched it, and although it’s no “Deathly Hallows”, it holds a dear place in my heart as a continuation of Rowling’s admirable magical world.

8/10 would watch again.

When Characters Derail the Plot

My characters have a pesky habit of doing things I didn’t expect them to – especially when they’re talking to each other. Frankly, it’s kind of annoying and I wish they’d quit it, but they never listen to me any more than they listen to each other. It makes it very difficult to plan a conversation that advances the plot, because they don’t care which way the story goes, especially if they haven’t said their piece yet.

When I’m writing more plot-driven fantasy, like The Redemption of Erâth, it’s mildly infuriating because there are plenty of dialogue scenes that are required to explain a plot point or give some back story. It’s fine when it’s mostly one character relating events that happened to them, but when I need characters to come to a realization or change the nature of their relationship (fight, fall in love, etc.), they just don’t do what I want or expect.

When I’m writing heavily character-driven fiction, such as my YA novel 22 Scars (as C.M. North), it becomes a major pain in the ass, because the entire story hinges on people in the book saying the things that they need to say to get to the next plot point … and sometimes, they just don’t.

The problem is in keeping the back and forth of the dialogue realistic. It just doesn’t work out to have conversations like this:

Character A: “Relinquish her, you fiend!”
Character B: “Never, sir! Prepare to die!”
Character A: “Prepare thyself!”
*Fight begins because really that’s what this was all getting at in the first place*

My dialogue tends to go more like this:

Character A: “Relinquish her, you fiend!”
Character B: “Never, sir! Prepare to die!”
Character A: “Oh. That’s a rather intense threat. Maybe we should talk about this.”
Character B: “Speak what thou wilst.”
Character A: “Well you see, it looks like you aren’t treating my friend here with all that much respect, and I think you’d find yourself in a significantly happier relationship if you took a moment to listen to what she has to say.”
Character C: “I’ve been telling you all along, I’m not unhappy, I just want to be heard! You come home every day from pillaging and burning villages and you track mud all over my tapestries, and I just want you to appreciate what I do for you!”
Character B: “Hm. I think I could do that.”
Character A: “Now, isn’t that better?”

Okay, so this isn’t a great example, but it serves to illustrate how my characters, especially in dialogue, tend to take on a life of their own and drive the direction of the story in ways I never anticipated.

It makes overall plotting difficult, and I’m not a pantser. I structure my stories meticulously before beginning to write, and when I’m writing narrative passages, action sequences or even just single-character scenes, things tend to flow pretty smoothly. As soon as these characters have to interact with each other, though, things go bat-shit crazy. I have a scene I’m working on at the moment where a young man confronts his abusive father, and it’s ended up at a point where the young man is threatening the father with the broken neck of a bottle. I didn’t think that was going to happen, and I can’t see a way out of it without sending the father to the hospital, which is really going to derail the plot, because it’s going to require a police report, possibly a trial, and a whole lot of nonsense that isn’t relevant to the story. I just needed them to have a fight – the bottle was never supposed to be part of the scene, but I’ll be damned if the kid didn’t just up and snatch it.

Anyway, the point is that I find writing dialogue difficult, but perhaps not for the reason most people do. I don’t have too much difficulty writing believable dialogue, but rather the opposite: in making it too realistic, I can’t control its direction very well.

For those of you who write, what’s your experience in writing dialogue? Can you manage to convey the points necessary within your control, or do you find that, like me, the characters tend to do what they want?